House 



Garden's 



The first SO' oj the planted area, in -u'hich the short season crops are so arranged that when they are harvested their places will be 

 taken by plantings of others. The grouping of the pole beans, corn and tomatoes at one end eUminates the hindrance which 



their shade would be were it to fall on the smaller growing vegetables 



THE FOUR STAGES of the GARDEN 



A Graphic Portrayal of What Cross Sections of the Fegetablc Area Should Be at 

 Monthly Intervals During the Active Growing Season 



VISUALIZING II whole vegetable garden 

 is no easy task — real visualizing, that is, 

 in which a worm's-eye as well as a bird's-eye 

 view of each and all the rows is presented. 

 Difficult as is the undertaking, however, it 

 must be attempted if you would have a garden 

 of one hundred \k-t cent productiveness, for the 

 simple reason that all of the ground must be 

 kept working all of the time. There must be 

 no waste of either time or space. To accom- 

 plish this a knowledge of each row's condition 

 throughout the season is essential; hence the 

 necessity for visualizing. 



All this may seem an unnecessary sort of ex- 

 ploitation of orderliness, but those who have 

 had much experience in gardening know the 

 dire consetjuences of trying to raise vegetables 

 on a hit-or-miss plan. Not only does the dis- 

 ordered garden spell small yields and waste of 

 seed as well as space, but its very disarray jmts 

 a premium on neglect. One cannot take much 

 pride in a tangle of teans, carrots and com 

 interlaced with pea vines and weeds, nor gather 

 full crops from its jungle depths. Disease and 

 insect pests flourish unchecked in such a gar- 

 den, too often extending their depredations to 

 the neighbor's domain across the fence and 

 causing him unwarranted loss. 



In depicting garden layouts the usual method 

 is to show a ground plan of the arrangement 

 as it appears from above. However detailed 

 and explanatory such plans may be they are 

 not really graphic — they lack the worm's-eye 

 per.spective. In an attempt to overcome their 

 deiiciencies the garden chart shown here was 

 developed. 



Imagine, for the moment, that it is May ISth 

 and that you are looking simultaneously at the 

 topmost horizontal line of the chart on this 

 page and down the rows of your vegetable gar- 

 den-as-it-should-be. You are facing the south, 

 with the east at your left and at \our right 

 the west, because the planted rows run north 

 and south for the sake of an even distribution 

 of sunlight through the day. Thus placed you 

 can see only the first plant in each row, but 

 others arc beyond, extending in orderly lines 

 for .'iO' or more like soldiers standing at atten- 

 tion in "company front.'' 



Beginning at the left or east end of the gar- 

 den, then, you notice that the first 18" of space 

 (each of the vertical divisions of the chart rep- 

 resents 1') are unoccupied. Then comes the 

 first row — pole bean seedlings under portable 

 glass forcers, for the season is early yet and 

 'oeans need heat. Another 18" to the west is a 



row of onion sets, and ne.xt to it, at the same 

 distance, the pole limas, also under glass. Spin- 

 ach, young tomato plants and the rest follow in 

 their order and at proper intervals as you fol- 

 low the line to the west end of the garden, 100' 

 away at the right side of page 95. The late 

 peas and much of the main corn crop do not 

 show above ground as yet, for they have just 

 Ijeen planted. Throughout the whole 100' you 

 will notice that the spacing of the rows depends 

 upon such ])oints as cultivation requirements, 

 the size and habit of the mature plants, and the 

 length of the period through which they occupy 

 the ground. 



One month later, on the line below, growth 

 has correspondingly advanced. The first spin- 

 ach, radishes, cabbage, cauliflower, peas, beets, 

 lettuce, turnip, kohlrabi and carrots are ready 

 for use, and within the next month their places 

 will usuallv be taken either by succession plant- 

 ings or sowings of late season crops. In the 

 cases of the onion row between the pole beans 

 and the limas, the spinach between the limas 

 and the tomatoes, and the radishes between 

 the two rows of tomatoes, the growth of the 

 flanking vegetables is such that by July ISth 

 it heavily shades the intervening spaces. For 

 this reason intercrops are chosen which will 



