34 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



February, 1919 



March cut well budded branches of Willow, Red 

 Maple, Peach, Cherry, Forsythia, Japan Quince, 

 Red-bud, Spice-bush or other early bloomers 

 and place them in a moderately warm room in 

 water, which should be changed daily. They 

 will soon burst into blossom. 



Handling and Starting Growing Crops 



(r f - : ^^. If you dug up and stored rhubarb roots 

 SU as suggested last November now 

 'I ,v is the time to bring them in for 

 forcing in the house cellar. Plant 

 the clumps in a warm place (near 

 the furnace, if not too hot and 

 dry) buried in ashes kept constantly moist. 

 It won't be long before the stalks appear. They 

 have small leaves and almost skinless stems. 

 Luscious! 



Late this month or early next place headless 

 barrels over clumps of rhubarb and pack the 

 outsides with a foot or more of fresh manure. 

 This will develop stalks early. 



Start beets, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, 

 Brussels sprouts, celery, kohlrabi,, leek, and 

 parsley, this month for transplating outdoors 

 when spring opens. Sow thinly in flats, transplant 

 when third leaf forms one to two inches apart. 

 Grow in cool quarters. 



Give your palate some new Sensations. See 

 how it likes peppergrass, mustard, fetticus (or 

 corn salad), swiss chard, okra, Florence fennel, 

 kohlrabi, and anything else that the seedsmen 

 carry but which you have not tested. A packet 

 of seeds costs little but it may mean a genuine 

 find for you. 



Just for fun sow a few deep flats sparingly 

 with Early Short Horn carrots in drills six inches 

 apart or place them direct in the hotbed. They 

 should be ready in ten weeks just when you want 

 something new. Between the drills you may 

 sow forcing radishes, which will be out of the way 

 of the carrots in four or five weeks. 



Better buy the few plants of celery, cabbage, 

 tomato, pepper, eggplant, etc., needed for the 

 home garden than bother growing them. If 

 local growers can't supply the desired kinds 

 they can be secured through advertisements 

 or from most seedsmen. 



Spread seed -potatoes in a well lighted, frostless, 

 room a month or more before planting to develop 

 stubby sprouts. Plant carefully so as to not 

 break off these sprouts. Earliness and increased 

 yield are the results. 



It's a good plan to have a "first-early" in each 

 of the crops but to use only a small sowing of it 

 because later varieties are generally superior. 

 Therefore depend on succession sowings of the 

 variety you like best for your main supply. To 

 find out which you do like best it may be neces- 

 sary to test several varieties each year until 

 you find the right one. 



If you want special varieties of plants for trans- 

 planting and haven't facilities for growing them 

 or don't want to "fuss," why not get a local 

 gardener to grow plants from seeds you furnish, 

 allowing him to keep and use or sell any surplus 

 that you do not need? 



Before sowing seed of cabbage and related plants 

 soak it fifteen minutes in mercuric chloride (one 

 tablet in a pint of water) to kill the bacteria 

 that cause black-rot during the growing sea- 

 son. 



February offers about the last chance to start a 

 crop of mushrooms. Don't attempt to grow this 

 crop in the house cellar. The odor from the de- 

 caying manure is too strong. 



For an early supply of parsley, sage, thyme, 

 summer savory, marjoram, and other culinary 

 herbs sow seeds this month. 



For best plants to transplant use paper pots 

 or dirt bands. The latter are merely strips of 

 paper bent to form cylinders and placed in flats 

 to hold them in place. They confine the roots 

 •of each plant just as a pot does. Plants so grown 

 are not more injured when transplanted than if 



taken from ordinary earthen pots. Paper pots 

 are far cheaper than earthen pots. 



Try French artichoke this year. It will grow 

 as far north as Oswego, New York. Write the 

 New York State Experiment Station at Geneva 

 for a bulletin on this vegetable. Start the seed 

 this month. 



Is .the Old Seed Any Good? 



Sprout fifty or one hundred seeds 

 of each lot left or saved from last 

 season. Destroy those that sprout 

 poorly. Mark each package with 

 'the per cent, of living seeds so as to 

 know how thickly to sow them. Seeds properly 

 stored in a dry cool place should sprout well as 

 follows: When one year old: Angelica, turnip- 

 rooted Chevil, Martynia, peanut, Sea-kale; 

 Two years: Chevil, dandelion, sweet marjoram, 

 onion, parsnip, salsify, scorzonera, tansy; Three 

 years: anise, asparagus bean, bean, caraway, 

 American cress, dill, horehound, hyssop, leek, 

 lovage, parsley, pea, rhubarb, sage, savory, 

 thyme; Four years: Balm, carrot, meadowcress, 

 fennel, lentil, mustard, pepper, pumpkin rocket 

 salad, rosemary, tomato, wormwood; Five years 

 or more: Basil, beet, borage, borecole, broccoli, 

 cabbage, cardoon, catnip, cauliflower, celery, 

 chicory, coriander, corn-salad, garden-cress, Para 

 cress, watercress, cucumber, eggplant, endive, 

 gourds, kohlrabi, lettuce, winter marjoram, 

 muskmelon, nasturtium, okra, orach, radish, 

 spinach, squash, strawberry, tomato, turnip, 

 watermelon, wax gourd. 



What About a "Little Glass"? 



-If you have a greenhouse, hotbed or 



\~-coldframe now is the time to make 



r flats — the shallow boxes in which to 



grow seedlings. It's easier to do 



this work now than to wait until 



the rush of spring arrives. 



For hotbeds and coldframes choose a southern 

 exposure, sheltered on the north by hedge, build- 

 ing, fence, or wall. Set the low side of the bed 

 toward the South. Use fresh horse manure 

 for heating; keep the pile moist and turn it twice 

 or oftener before packing in the bed; when the 

 whole pile is steaming fill the bed, spread it evenly 

 but wait till it becomes warm before packing 

 and covering with soil; bank earth around the 

 outside to within three or four inches of the top; 

 sow seeds only when the temperature has fallen 

 in the closed bed to below ninety; in watering 

 spread burlap on the soil to prevent washing; 

 keep the bed covered until the seeds germinate, 

 give gradual ventilation in the warm part of the 

 days. 



Keep coldframes and hotbeds covered during 

 cold weather with mats, old quilts, etc., to exclude 

 frost. Should frost enter keep the sash covered 

 during the day to exclude sunlight until after 

 the ground has thawed inside the frames. 

 Hardy plants will stand frost but not sun while 

 frozen. 



// you haven t any glass at all — not a green- 

 house nor a hotbed — you may start flower plants 

 in the dwelling now, though it is harder to get 

 satisfactory seedlings in steam, hot air, even hot 

 water warmed houses than in the greenhouse or 

 the hotbed. You might try your luck with 

 Cockscomb, China Aster, Verbena, Marguerite 

 Carnation, Sweet Sultan, Periwinkle, Vernon 

 Begonia, the seeds being sown early this month. 

 If well handled the plants should be in two#and 

 one half inch pots by bedding out time. 



Of course, if you are handy with tools you may 

 make your own coldframes and hotbeds. But 

 usually these will cost you more — if you charge 

 for your time — than do the machine made 

 standard ones. These are sold at reasonable 

 prices by all the greenhouse companies. 



If you make your hotbed frames be sure to 

 construct them so they may be taken apart, 

 dried and stored flat under cover during the 



summer. Thus they will occupy little space and 

 will last longer especially if painted before being 

 used each season or two. 



If you have hotbed or greenhouse space to 

 spare plant fair-sized potato tubers "most eyed 

 end up" in flats of sand until sprouted then pot 

 singly in eight inch pots only half full of'soil, the 

 balance to be filled in as the sprouts grow. 



Make first hotbeds by the middle of the month; 

 others at intervals of two weeks. Thus you may 

 have a succession of high, medium, and low 

 temperatures. 



Get catalogues of several greenhouse building 

 companies. You are likely to find items that 

 will save time and labor or otherwise be of great 

 advantage to have. 



Now is the time to discard all plants that have 

 survived their usefulness. The space they occupy 

 will be needed very soon for the spring plantings. 

 "Clean up!" "Throw out!" 



Before planting cuttings and seedlings have the 

 quarters clean and sanitary. Remove all soil 

 inside with extra strong bordeaux mixture and 

 nicotine sulphate combined. When dry, white- 

 wash the wood before putting in the sand or soil. 

 Sterilize the soil with steam if possible or by 

 baking or a drench of formalin. The former 

 two are better than the last because they kill 

 weed seeds as well as the spores of disease, and 

 the eggs of insects and the insects themselves. 



If you don't know how to grow plants from 

 cuttings or "slips" look up the Reminder of 

 February, 1916. 



Experienced people know by a glance when 

 "green-wood" is ripe enough to make cuttings. 

 If you don't know bend the shoot slowly between 

 your thumb and forefinger. If it suddenly snaps 

 in two leaving a clean break like a first class 

 stringless or "snap" bean it is exactly right. 

 But if it crunches it is either too young or too 

 old. After a. few trials you'll recognize the right 

 condition and won't need to make this test. 



For rooting cuttings or "slips" nothing compares 

 with clean, sharp sand of medium texture (size 

 of grains). What will go through a flour sieve 

 is mostly too fine. 



In making cuttings always use a keen edged 

 knife — as sharp as a razor. Make a clean cut, 

 square across the stem or nearly so is better than 

 a long slanting one. Cuttings two to three 

 inches long are convenient lengths for "green 

 . 



More roomf As potting and transplanting 

 time advances make provision for the expansion 

 needed in greenhouse, hotbed and coldframe. 

 If you have a greenhouse provide brackets and 

 shelves for the extra flats. ' 



If your Palms, Ferns or other foliage plants 

 are too large for their pots shift them now to 

 larger ones. 



An Early Start for the Flower Garden 



For earliest Cannas, Dahlias, Glad- 

 ioli, start the "bulbs" this month 

 in pots. Dutch bulbs potted last 

 fall may still be brought in — if 

 ^.you still have a supply. 

 If you will need plants for bedding out next 

 spring propagate from cuttings now — Geranium, 

 Acalypha, Coleus, Achyranthes, Heliotrope, 

 Verbena, bedding Begonias, Petunia, Salvia, 

 etc., from the stock plants lifted before frost 

 last fall. (See "Under Glafs" section of this 

 month's Reminder). 



Now is the time to sow seeds of hardy annuals 

 for next spring's garden. Transplant to the 

 open only when the ground has warmed up. 

 Why not try half a dozen annuals that you don't 

 know except from the catalogue description? 

 Try another half dozen next year until you have 

 gone through the whole list. You are really 

 missing something by not doing this. 



Start seed boxes in the cellar if you have no better 

 arrangement. See Vol. II, page 34 for sugges- 

 tions. 



