CALIFORNIA GARDEN CALENDAR 109 



is, however, only in exceptional cases that the farm gardener should 

 save his own seed. It is better to buy up-to-date varieties from those 

 who make a business of selection and improvement of garden 

 varieties. Keep the garden always clean and ready for something 

 else. It is a mistake to let the garden lie neglected until the time 

 for a spring revolution and upheaval, like that which Eastern 

 gardeners are forced to content themselves with. Of course, the 

 error of stirring the soil when too wet must be carefully guarded 

 against, but there is much beside digging involved in gardening. 



Seventh : Irrigate, if necessary, and work the soil at once 

 after cleaning up. Do not lose moisture by allowing the surface to 

 become hard. No matter whether the ground is to be used for an 

 immediate succession or whether it is to lie for some time, break 

 up the surface and make it fit to receive water or retain water, as 

 the case may be. 



These timely and important acts will not appear in our cal- 

 endar for the reasons first stated. They are always in order in 

 California, and if a man has to be told more than once to do them, 

 there are serious doubts of his ever having been called to be a 

 vegetable grower. 



CALIFORNIA GARDEN CALENDAR. 



As shown in the chapter on climate, the timeliness of certain 

 operations in California is not regulated by geography nor lati- 

 tude, but by topography and environment, by moisture-conditions, 

 either natural or acquired, and by the beginning and ending of the 

 frost-free period. The broken country of the northwest quarter of 

 the state, and the mountain elevations which are everywhere liable 

 to snowfall, constitute regions which differ from the coast valley, 

 interior valley and foothill regions both north and south, and are 

 therefore to a certain degree out of our calculation, though an ef- 

 fort will be made to include some recognition of their practice. 

 The outline to be made of timely work is intended to cover the 

 state in all parts except where wintry conditions in greater or less 

 degree intrude. Our seasons, shading into each other without 

 striking division lines, make it necessary to select a somewhat arbi- 

 trary point of beginning for a garden calendar. The point midway 

 between the closing of one rainy season and the beginning of an- 

 other is, by virtue of its draught-and-heat-effects on the rainfall 

 garden, and its heat-effects even on ground kept moist by irriga- 



