172 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



January, 1919 



spring with its tender green leaves which turn 

 a beautiful scarlet in the autumn, and its berries! 

 how wonderful they are. I often wish for a steep 

 bank so I could clothe it with Rosa multiflora, 

 Celastrus scandens, and Yucca with the Japanese 

 Barberry as peacemaker. 



I have the large shrubs planted singly or in 

 groups of two or three with the smaller ones at 

 their feet. The tall ones that include Viburnum 

 Opulus plicatum, and V. lantana, Crataegus 

 coccinea, and Lonicera tatarica; the Rosa rugosa, 

 Rhodotypos kerrioides, Eleagnus longipes, Clethra 



alnifolia, Rosa setigera, dwarf Philadelphus are 

 the shorter ones I like best. Though I like to 

 have the soil well prepared for shrubs, as for the 

 herbaceous plants, I cannot dig out two feet of 

 earth as some advise, for that is far too expensive. 

 So I mark off my bed first with the aid of a gar- 

 den line and some small stakes, after that I have 

 the man remove the sod and spade the ground 

 as deeply as he can, using the mattock where 

 necessary, then he covers the bed with as much 

 manure as I can get — I have never yet had enough 

 — he spades this in, and then I mark the places 



for the holes with stakes, which should be from 

 three to six feet apart according to the size of the 

 shrub. The holes are made about a foot and 

 half deep, with the sod and plenty of manure 

 in the bottom. I always prepare the bed long 

 before needed, and before my order is given, so 

 I can know just what I want and the correct 

 number of each. 



Don't, please don't buy a hundred miscellane- 

 ous shrubs, not knowing what you will get, just 

 because they are cheap. Show your friends 

 that you have a brain and know how to use it. 



VICTORY GARDENS 



FOOD FOB THE 



KITCHEN DGDR 





Building the Garden Plan on a Unit Basis f.f. rockwell 



Fully Meeting the Family Needs, Not Just Big Crops the Object 



MANY, very many, gardeners go astray at 

 the first step in the belief that the 

 chief objective in their gardening is 

 growing big crops. They assume that 

 being a "good grower" is synonymous with a 

 "good gardener." 



Unless the garden is definitely planned to fill 

 the requirements of the home table, it will be a 

 wasteful, and therefore, a poor garden, no matter 

 how large the yields of the individual vegetables 

 obtained may be. In fact, under such conditions, 

 the bigger the yields, the greater the waste! 



The first object in laying out the plan for the 

 garden is, of course, to make it fit as closely as 

 possible the requirements of the kitchen. It is 

 not enough to make every square foot yield the 

 maximum amount of vegetables — because every 

 head of lettuce, or bunch of radishes, or quart of 

 beans which is not used, not only does no good, 

 but might better not have been grown at all — 

 since the soil has been robbed of just so much 

 plant food which might have gone to the produc- 

 tion of something that could have been used. 



Of course, every reader of the Garden Maga- 

 zine is familiar with "succession crops," "com- 

 panion crops," "inter planting," and so forth. 

 But these things are of mo advantage in themselves. 

 They are really technical details which unless one 

 knows definitely what he is aiming at, may do 

 far more harm than good in the garden. In- 

 finitely more important than these details is the 

 general arrangement or grouping of the crops. 

 To obtain the maximum v.sable returns. 



Foundation of the Garden Plan 



INSTEAD of following some "model garden" 

 planned to meet somebody else's requirements 

 the gardener should learn for himself the general 

 principles on which to build his own garden. 

 The arrangement or grouping shown on the 

 accompanying skeleton charts has proved to be, 

 by actual field experiments, an efficient arrange- 

 ment for the general purpose home garden. There 

 are six main groups or cropping divisions of the 

 vegetable garden which together cover the require- 

 ments of the home table throughout the year. 



Group I. — Early Planted Vegetables that May Be 

 Followed by Others 



These are grouped together for two reasons. 

 They may be all planted at approximately the 

 same time — on the same day, if necessary and 

 where the garden is small and the gardener's time 

 limited — and they will mature near enough to- 

 gether so that nearly the entire space occupied 

 by them may be cleared off and forked up for 

 replanting at one time. More intensive culti- 

 vation is possible by interplanting the second 

 crop — that is by sowing the seed or setting the 

 plants before the first crop is quite used up, so 

 that it is getting a start before the first crop is 

 entirely off the ground. This, however, is more 

 work and it has the serious disadvantage of 

 not allowing as thorough preparation of the soil 

 for the second planting. For convenience in 

 starting the planting of the garden, Group I is 

 placed at one end. 



Group 2. — Early Planted Vegetables Which Re- 

 main the Entire Season 



These things are grouped together for the same 

 reason as those in Group I, They may follow 

 directly after Group I, but, as a general rule, 

 it is best to put them at the other end of the 

 garden leaving the space in between for suc- 

 cession plantings and for second plantings. 

 Swiss chard, one vegetable in this group which 

 is gathered more frequently during the entire 

 season than any other vegetable, may advan- 

 tageously be placed near the edge of the garden, 

 where it may be "got at" most readily. Two 

 or three feet of parsley at the end of the Swiss 

 chard row will be found convenient for the same 

 reason (incidentally, parsley is one of the things 

 most generally over-planted 'in the home garden). 

 Under some conditions, it may be advantageous 

 to save the space at the ends of the garden for 

 some vine crops, such as melons, squash, or pie 

 pumpkins, where the vines can run out over the 

 grass. As a general rule, however, it is best to 

 grow the vine crops between rows of corn. 



Group 3. — First Succession Planting and LaW 

 . Planted or Tender Crops 



All of the early planted vegetables which may 

 be followed by others rapidly deteriorate in 

 table quality after they reach maturity. For 

 this reason, only small plantings of these things 

 should be made — a sufficient length of row to 

 yield only what can be used during the time they 

 will remain in good condition. Succession plant- 

 ings of these things are made adjacent to the first 

 planting, because some of these, too, will mature 

 in time to be followed by other things, and 

 because in cultural requirements they are more 

 easily cared for when grouped near the first 

 plantings of the same thing. Following these 

 may come the first planting of the tender vege- 

 tables, which could not safely be put out when 

 the first planting was done. This means in most 

 localities an interval of four weeks or so between 

 the first and second planting, as indicated by the 

 dates on the skeleton plan. 



Group 4. — Second Succession Planting and Crops 

 for Summer and Fall 



The space between Group 3 and Group 2 

 (or between Group 3 and the end of the garden, 

 if Group 2 has been planted next to Group 1), 

 should be utilized for second succession plantings 

 of quick maturing things which will not long 

 remain in condition, and for special late summer 

 and fall crops which do not do well if planted 

 in the spring. (By careful management, some of 

 the space to be occupied by Group 4 may be used 

 for extra early crops planted as soon as the 

 ground can be worked. But it is possible to 

 overdo the policy of "keeping all the ground 

 working all the time." It is not economy to 

 sow seed merely for the purpose of having the 

 ground occupied, and, unless handled very care- 

 fully, it is easier to lose more on the second crop 

 than can be gained on the first). 



Group 5. — Crops for Fall and Winter and Last 

 Succession Planting 

 Group 5 follows as a second planting on the 



