16 THE BEGINNERS GARDEN BOOK 



The vegetables should be brought neat and clean to the 

 house. All dust should be washed or wiped off, the roots 

 should be cut away, and the outer leaves of such plants as 

 lettuce and cabbage should be picked off. If this is a help 

 to the cook, it is also a help to the gardener. Roots, leaves, 

 and dead plants should all go in an out-of-the-way pile, the 

 compost heap, which in the course of time yields good 

 material by the rotting of the refuse. For this pile, also, 

 the gardener should demand from the cook all parts of the 

 vegetables that she does not use. The pods of the peas, 

 the husks of the corn, all can be thrown on the compost 

 heap. 1 



The flower gardener has a different task. In the first 

 place, she (for it is pretty safe to assume the flower gardener 

 is a girl) must consider not only what she brings to the 

 house, but also what she leaves behind. The garden should 

 always show flowers; therefore it must not be stripped. 

 Yet no faded flowers should be left on the plants. Besides 

 appearance, there is another reason for this. If flowers are 

 allowed to go to seed, the plants are likely to cease blooming. 

 So even if flowers are not wanted for the house, the gardener 

 should (except where seed is to be saved) make a daily round 

 of the garden, picking off the faded flowers. These should 

 not be dropped on the ground, but carried to the compost 

 heap. 



When flowers are wanted for the house, they should be 

 picked with care. Buds too young to open, and old blooms 

 which will soon fade, should both be avoided. Pick the 

 just opening blossoms, those which are nearly open, and the 

 flowers which are in early bloom. Thus you will have a 

 bunch which will both show variety and last for some time. 



1 There is no such danger of breeding flies in the compost heap as there is 

 with manure. 



