Rural School Leaflet 1057 



If you do not know how to make a garden, the general directions in 

 this leaflet will help you, and more complete information may be found in 

 Cornell Reading-Course Lessvons Nos. 2,2,, 34, and 58. Your teacher 

 may obtain a copy of each of these lessons for the school library by writing 

 to the College for them. One of the best ways to learn gardening is by 

 talking with good gardeners in your own neighborhood and by visiting 

 their gardens. They know the limitations and possibilities of your soil 

 and your climate, and can help you better than almost any one else. 



Keep a record of your garden work. Save a copy of your plan. Record 

 each day the work that you do and the plantings that you make. This 

 will help you greatly next year. You will thus learn how to repeat your 

 successes and how to avoid mistakes. 



THE HOME VEGETABLE GARDEN 



Note. — This article is for the older boys and girls who want to have a garden that 

 will provide food for the home table. 



In the March leaflet last year we gave a plan for a home vegetable 

 garden thirty by fifty feet. Reports have come to us in letters from 

 boys and girls who tried to follow the plan, and in order to test it ourselves 

 we made such a garden last summer. The result of all this experience 

 showed that there are some changes that can be made to advantage. 

 The new plan is given in this article, and we hope that this second season 

 more boys and girls will plant a garden of this size. Of course, the plan 

 given is merely suggestive, and it will not be the same as yours, but perhaps 

 it will help you. 



After deciding on the kinds of vegetables to be grown, the first thing 

 to do is to make a plan of the garden. Take a clean sheet of paper and 

 determine on a scale of measure. For example, let every inch on the paper 

 stand for eight feet in the garden; then each foot will be represented on 

 the plan by one-eighth inch of space. In order to avoid confusion, make 

 all rows two and one-half feet apart. The vine vegetables, cucimibers, 

 summer squash, and muskmelons, need more space between hills; and they 

 can be placed by themselves in one comer of the garden. With this in 

 mind, begin at the south edge of the plan, with the scale measure off toward 

 the north five-sixteenths of an inch, the eqtiivalent of two and one-half 

 feet in the garden, and draw a- line representing the first row. Continue 

 this process until the entire garden has been divided in rows. There is 

 space for eleven rows. 



In looking over the list of seeds, we find that some should be sown 

 early in spring, that others must not be sown until after all danger of 

 frost is past, and that still others must be started in the house and the 

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