LABRADOR GARDENS 



after year, rather stringy and small, perhaps, but 

 none the less alive. We got the snow cleared away 

 in May, and then left the ground to thaw in the 

 sunshine. The actual planting out did not take 

 place until July, and in the meantime the vegetables 

 were growing in the house or under frames. Our 

 minds used to run upon gardening from as early as 

 February, when we sorted the likeliest of the potatoes 

 from the others, and laid them on trays in the warm 

 store-room to sprout ; but we had to wait for the 

 soil to thaw, and it was not until the nights began to 

 get a trifle milder that we dared to put our cress 

 and lettuce and cabbage and potatoes in the open air. 



Then the gardens wanted nursing. 



Our three enemies were the dogs, the mice, and 

 the frost. 



The dogs were delighted to have a patch of 

 freshly dug soil for their romps and their scrambles, 

 but we managed to keep them out by the help of 

 wooden palings. Sometimes they climbed over, or 

 burrowed underneath, and then it was good-bye to 

 our garden stuff; but mostly we made things secure 

 enough to baffle them. The mice were a more 

 serious nuisance : they were wide-awake and very 

 hungry, and found our nice young shoots of lettuce 

 and cabbage very tempting, far better than buried 

 twigs and frozen roots. It was rather a laborious 

 thing to have to do, but in years when mice were 

 plentiful we went round every evening and covered 

 each shoot with an empty meat-tin, and made a 

 second pilgrimage in the morning to uncover them 

 all again. The frost we fought by covering each 

 row with a wooden framework ; and the old widows 



who worked in the blubber yard made it their 



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