THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



August, 1917 



your framas and the benches in greenhouses 

 for fall and winter use. A large number of 

 plants for this purpose may be started in a 

 very small 'space. If you haven't an empty 

 frame, and your garden is not accessible to 

 water, take a few square feet in one of the 

 flower beds. If the soil is very dry, first of all 

 water it thoroughly two or three times in suc- 

 cession; then fork it up and make it smooth, 

 adding humus or sifted leaf mould if it is not 

 already loose and friable. Mark off shallow 

 furrows six inches to a foot apart, and after 

 sowing the seeds, and marking each row care- 

 fully, cover the whole with a shading of 

 cheesecloth or some similar light material. 

 The little seedlings should be thinned out or 

 transplanted as soon as they begin to crowd. 



The New Strawberry Bed 



17"EEP in mind that the size of your berry 

 ■*-*- crop next June will depend upon the 

 growth made by the plants before freezing 

 weather this fall. If you planted last April, 

 or if you are planning to set out potted plants 

 this month, everything possible should be done 

 to get the crowns as well developed as possible 

 before that time. Continuous cultivation, 

 and an extra side dressing of nitrate of soda 

 and wood ashes or a good garden fertilizer 

 should be on the programme of their care 

 for this month, if the bed is already planted. 

 If you are going to use the matted row system, 

 see to it that the strongest runners are rooted 

 where you want them, and the secondary and 

 surplus runners cut off. Very few gardeners 

 seem to fully realize how certainly crowded 

 rows are to mean small berries. 



If you are setting new plants now, stud) 

 carefully the article on page 20. It is highly 

 important to provide a liberal amount of 

 nitrogen in available form. Sheep manure, 

 chicken manure or tankage, mixed with 

 fine ground bone, will accomplish this. Com- 

 mercial mixed fertilizers need handling with 

 care as there is danger of injuring the roots 

 with them. A sprinkling of wood ashes, either 

 with the materials suggested above, which 

 should, of course, be thoroughly mixed with 

 the soil before the plants are set — or applied 

 along the rows two or three weeks later, will 

 also be very helpful. 



Now for the Evergreens! 



NOW is the time for evergreens, and you 

 have the place — unless your grounds are 

 the exception to the general rule! Have you 

 been waiting for years, and envying your 

 friends with attractive groupings or plantings 

 of these beautiful trees? You may have been 

 excusing yourself with the thought that you 

 could not afford them; the real reason how- 

 ever has been that you never acted on your 

 impulse and sent in an order for a few! Don't 

 let the time slip by and the opportunity be 

 gone for another year! Send in your order 

 this week and be ready to plant just when 

 they should go in. 



Thin Now for Fat Fruits Later 



MANY home gardeners, who take very 

 good care of their trees and spray them 

 regularly, wonder why they cannot grow 

 such fine specimens of fruit as they are able 

 to buy. One of the chief reasons is that they 

 cannot bring themselves to the point of pick- 

 ing off numbers of good looking peaches or 

 apples or plums before they get ripe, in order 

 that those remaining may be better. It is 

 about as hard to get them to do this, as it is 

 to get a beginner at Rose gardening to cut back 

 her cherished bushes almost to the ground 

 the first spring after she has set them out — 



she may believe it ought to be done, "but 

 simply hasn't the heart to do it!" Well, 

 you can take your choice; over-crowded trees 

 and poor fruit, or properly thinned trees and 

 excellent fruit — and there will be as much 

 (bulk) of the latter as of the former. Twenty 

 to fifty per cent, of the fruits on overburdened 

 trees should be removed; the sooner the better 

 when the natural "drops" are off. It is 

 much more likely that not enough, rather than 

 too much, will be taken. 



Bag Your Grapes! 



TLT AVE you ever had your grapes set so that 

 * A every bunch was as full as it could 

 possibly be; and grow as nicely as you could 

 possibly ask, and then, just before they were 

 ready to eat, begin to "go bad," until, by the 

 time they were ripe, there was hardly one you 

 could eat? Have you. Well, don't have that 

 experience again this year. It's up to you! 

 The surest and simplest way of protecting the 

 bunches on a few vines for home use is to put a 

 paper bag over each bunch. Special bags, 



DO THIS MONTH 



Without delay, make last plantings of succession 



crops. 

 Start lettuce, cauliflower, pansies, stocks, and 



other vegetables and flowers for jail and winter 



under glass. 

 Set out new strawberry beds. 

 Plant evergreens. 



Plant Madonna Lilies as soon as received. 

 Transplant and divide Irises, Oriental Poppy, 



and many other perennials. 

 Thin out fruits that have set thickly. 

 Sow alfalfa. 



Sow cover crops wherever possible. 

 Keep July planted crops growing fast. 

 Bag your grapes to protect from rot. 

 Order materials for new hotbeds or cold frames. 

 Order bulbs of all kinds for fall planting. 

 Prepare beds and borders for fall planting. 

 Get ready for exhibits at vegetable and flower 



shows. 

 Build a greenhouse for use this fall to increase your 



food crop efficiency. This is important. 

 Keep the garden clean! 



made for the purpose with wire fasteners, 

 may be bought at about half-a-cent apiece. 

 Ordinary paper bags will do; but the others 

 are more convenient. 



Good Gardens in Spite of the War! 



IT IS always well to sow cover crops to save 

 plant food, and to furnish humus for the 

 garden; but this season, in view of the fact 

 that there will be the greatest scarcity of fer- 

 tilizing materials next spring that we have 

 ever had, makes it ten times as important 

 for every gardener to do all he can to protect 

 himself in this way. Have rye and vetch or 

 crimson clover on hand with which to seed 

 down every square foot of your garden that 

 would otherwise be bare through late fall and 

 winter. Crimson clover can be used as far 

 north as New York; farther north it is safer 

 to sow the vetch, though early sowing, with 

 another crop, will help to carry it through the 

 winter safely. It is not necessary to wait 

 until your ground is bare. Rake up all avail- 

 able surfaces, between rows of growing crops, 

 among tomatoes and pole beans, in the sweet 

 corn, etc., etc., and sow the mixture thickly, 

 so as to have a green mat by cold weather; the 

 work of picking and removing the crops will 

 not cause as much loss as waiting until two or 

 three weeks later to put the cover crop in. 

 Rye can be sown on any bare ground up to 

 time of frost or slightly later. 



Have You Any Use for Hay? 



JUST about the middle of this month is the 

 best time to sow alfalfa. If you have 

 a cow or a horse — or even chickens — on the 



place for which you have to provide feed, 

 why not try a small sowing of this wonderfully 

 productive plant this fall. If you have wood 

 ashes, and your soil does not have surface water 

 on it during the winter months, you should be 

 able to succeed in making it grow; once es- 

 tablished it will last longer than any similar 

 crop you could put in, and will give you 

 three or four cuttings for green food or for 

 hay, where you are getting one or two from 

 grass. 



Are Your Irises Petering Out? 



TRISES, like most of the other hardy peren- 

 A nials, after a few years become overcrowded, 

 and use up the amounts of plant food in the 

 soil in which they are growing, so that the 

 flowers gradually become smaller, and the 

 plants weaker. To offset this, the plants 

 should be lifted and separated every few years 

 (about every three years in the case of the 

 Irises) so as to continue to have first class 

 flowers. Lift the old clumps carefully, and 

 keep them shaded from sun and wind with 

 an old wet bag. Then fork up the soil and 

 work in well rotted manure and bone dust, 

 if it is desired to replant in the same situa- 

 tion. But do not put the whole clump back. 

 Separate it into sections containing several 

 of the thick fleshy roots, with a bulb or leaf 

 crown attached, in the case of the German 

 Iris; or cut into sections several inches square, 

 in the case of the Japanese class. The extra 

 divisions may be used for planting elsewhere, 

 or to present to some flower-loving friend. 

 The German Ins should be planted quite 

 shallow — about as you find it growing when 

 you go to take it up, with some of the roots 

 almost on a level with the surface. 



Speed Up the Late Planted Crops 



THE success of both the seeds and the 

 plants put in last month, winter cab- 

 bage, cauliflower, br'ussels sprouts, late sweet 

 corn, root crops for storing, etc., will be deter- 

 mined by the growth they make this month. 

 In addition to keeping them frequently cul- 

 tivated and free from weeds, a little extra 

 encouragement in the way of a side dressing 

 with nitrate of soda or some other highly 

 nitrogenous material, such as sheep manure 

 or tankage, will help them to become well 

 established, and lay the foundation for big 

 results in September. Celery especially 

 should be kept growing rapidly. It requires 

 an abundance of water, and even if you 

 can't water the whole garden give the celery 

 plants enough to keep them from getting 

 very thirsty, if you want to make sure of 

 your supply of thick crisp stalks for Thanks- 

 giving. 



Don't Fall Down on Your Orders! 



GET in your fall orders on time. Next 

 month is planting time, and you should 

 be just as busy now in planning what you are 

 going to put in, and in getting off your orders 

 for it, as you are in February or March in 

 getting ready for your spring planting. First 

 of all there are the fall bulbs— (it seems now 

 that the Dutch stocks will arrive in due sea- 

 son). Are you familiar with the finest of the 

 Darwin and Breeder Tulips, such as Dream, Re- 

 membrance, and Rev. H. Ewbank? If not, give 

 yourself a surprise next spring! And the hardy 

 Lilies — one of the most neglected, in proportion 

 to their real value and permanency, of all the 

 classes of hardy flowers. And if you've been 

 putting off, spring after spring, the planting of 

 those ornamental shrubs you decided years ago 

 to get, now's your chance! 



