February : Second Week 

 STARTING SEEDS IN GREENHOUSE OR HOT-BED 



Early this month the work of actually getting the garden 

 started must begin. Up to now it has been mostly planning 

 and seed buying. But a glance at the garden plan shows 

 that by the time operations outdoors may be begun plants of 

 various kinds, already well started, will be required. The 

 success of the garden throughout the summer will depend 

 to a large extent upon the size and quality of the plants, 

 both vegetables and flowers, transferred to the open ground 

 at the beginning of the season. 



The utility of the carefully made garden plan becomes 

 apparent at this stage of the game. The gardener who has 

 not felt like "wasting the time" to make such a plan goes 

 ahead on a guesswork basis, planting enough of the things 

 he thinks he will want to be sure to have abundance; while 

 his neighbor, who has taken the trouble to figure things out 

 accurately, knows just how many plants of each variety he 

 will require and consequently does not waste seeds and time 

 and room. Growing fewer plants, he can give them more 

 room and consequently get them of better quality. The 

 ordinary packet of most things to be started tomatoes, 

 cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce and so forth contains more 

 than enough seed to supply an average small garden, but 

 if one has room in the frames any surplus of good plants can 

 generally be disposed of to neighbors and friends at a reason- 

 able profit, giving the grower the additional advantage of 

 being able to select the best for his own use. 



The starting point of operations now, as later out-of-doors, 

 is the seed. What is a seed? It is a particle of vegetable 

 matter in which two things have taken place: First, the 

 life force has been temporarily arrested and lies dormant, 



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