124 PRIZE GARDENING 



corn. During the latter part of the month and early 

 June I planted sweet potatoes, pumpkins, beans, sweet 

 corn, broccoli, parsnips, salsify, squash, potatoes, 

 cucumbers, radish, popcorn and nasturtium. The 

 ground is full of trumpet vine and milkweed, and it 

 makes me discouraged to look across the garden and 

 see the weeds cropping up everywhere. Early in June 

 I transplanted egg plants, peppers, cabbage and cauli- 

 flower. The earliest plants from seed sown in the 

 house in February were killed by transplanting in soil 

 made too rich with hen manure. In setting out my 

 plants I dug a hole a foot or more across, set the plant 

 in the center, not disturbing the roots any more than 

 I could help, when I tore the paper box away from 

 them and drew some soil up around the plants, then 

 put on the well-rotted manure, half a shovelful in a hill, 

 and covered the fertilizer, leaving the ground a little 

 the lowest next to the plant. 



There was no rain from May 30 to June 25, when 

 a heavy shower wet down about an inch. There will 

 not be many days now that we will not have something 

 from the garden to help fill out our bill of fare. Owing 

 to the extremely dry weather many seeds came up 

 unevenly. Some popcorn was a foot high and mar- 

 tynia in blossom, while other seeds were just breaking 

 through. For celery plants I put well-rotted manure 

 three or four inches deep in the bottom of the trench 

 and covered it with soil before setting the plants. I 

 used ashes freely on the onion bed and around all 

 the plants. 



The garden cost, for fertilizer, nineteen dollars 

 and seventy cents ; seeds, three dollars and fifty cents ; 

 rent of land, two dollars ; labor, most of which I did 

 myself, twenty-eight dollars and forty-five cents ; or a 

 total of fifty-three dollars and sixty-five cents. At 

 wholesale prices the products were worth sixty-one 



