' SCHOOL-GARDEN HELPS 



By CLARENCE M. WEED 

 State Normal School, Lowell, Mass. 



In many schools there are sand-tables which are not in use all 

 the time. If one can be obtained during the spring months it 

 makes an admirable seed bed for starting seedlings of flowers and 

 vegetables. Put in three or four inches of loamy garden soil, 

 sifted, and sow seeds of tomatoes, peppers, marigolds, Drummond 

 phlox or whatever plants you wish to grow, in rows. Keep well 

 watered and next the sunniest window. 



The table I have used for some time in this way is mounted on 

 casters. In the morning I keep it next an east window and in the 

 afternoon push it over to a south window. 



When the seedlings are large enough to transplant, the best 

 receptacles I have been able to find are the Neponset paper pots 

 which can be bought of any seedsman. The smaller sizes, cost- 

 ing but twenty-five or thirty cents a hundred, do very well for 

 many sorts of seedlings. These pots are cheap and not break- 

 able, and have the great advantage for school-garden uses that the 

 evaporation takes place only from the top of the soil and not all 

 over the sides — a fact that renders ordinary flower pots of small 

 sizes impracticable in most schoolrooms. 



There are also zinc sand-pans in many schools. These serve 

 very well to hold the pots of seedlings if they can be placed near a 

 sunny window. Or a shallow, water-tight zinc box, made to fit 

 the window-sill will hold them all right. Such receptacles catch 

 the surplus water that runs through the pots and enables the 

 teacher or pupils to leave enough water in the bottom on Friday 

 to last till Monday. 



With these simple things many schools that have no outdoor 

 garden can get pupils to grow seedlings to plant in home gardens. 

 And in autumn the same apparatus can be used to grow bulbs for 

 the pupils to carry home when flowering begins. 



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