5. A plan made in winter is more helpful than many 

 booKs at planting time 



6. A good time to plan the garden— when the snow 

 is on the ground 



A delightful confusion, but you will raise more 

 and better vegetables if you make a plan 



How to Plan the Vegetable Garden— By Edith Loring Fullerton 



THE BEST WAY TO RUN THE ROWS— SCHEMES FOR SAVING SPACE, AVOID- 

 ING HAND-LABOR, AND GROWING TWO CROPS ON THE SAME GROUND 



Photographs by H. B. Fullerton; diagrams from sketches by the author 



THE way to have more and better vege- 

 tables for less work is to plan the 

 garden in February instead of waiting until 

 May. Every one who fails to draw a diagram 

 of his garden is likely to be swamped by the 

 spring rush. Without a plan you are sure 

 to plant too much of one thing and not enough 

 of another. The only possible objection to 

 planning the garden in winter is that it may 

 "seem like work." The obvious reply is, 

 "Don't make work of it. Enjoy it." If 

 you have never tasted the joys of planning, 

 begin now. 



HOW TO RUN THE ROWS 



Let us consider first a medium-sized gar- 

 den with a southern exposure and protection 

 from the north winds. This, of course, will 

 be the earliest garden, for it gets all the sun- 

 light there is. (See Fig. 8.) If the rows run 

 east and west, the rays of the sun strike only 

 the southern side of the row. If, however, 

 they run north and south, the sun's rays 

 strike the eastern side of the row in the morn- 

 ing and the western side in the afternoon. 

 The latter method seems to me to produce a 

 more even and vigorous growth. Again, sup- 

 pose the rows are planted east and west, the 



•II 1/1 IN II I II III l>:| 



i I if ( J ij i L.U::i:^i/i 



$C 



^&— Q~ 



"S- 



: W 



o- 



JO 



8. To prove that the ideal exposure for a garden 

 is toward the south: also that the sun's rays strike 

 every portion of rows that run north and south, 

 while only the south side of rows running east and 

 west get the benefit of the sun 



southern sun of summer will continuously 

 draw the rows one way, southward only, thus 

 pulling them out of plumb. This is another 

 point in favor of north-and-south planting, 

 for rows thus planted are drawn eastward 

 by the morning sun, and this lean is corrected 

 by the afternoon sun. 



If the garden faces north (and by this I 

 mean is unprotected from the north winds), 

 would it not be possible to protect it on the 

 northern and western sides by a hedge of 

 privet, a vine-covered trellis or a grape 

 arbor? The latter in this case would give 

 the greatest amount of protection if made in 

 the old-fashioned lattice style. Even a high 

 board fence can be made a thing of beauty by 

 covering it with vines, particularly climbing 

 roses. 



If your garden faces southeast and is 

 entirely cut off from the western sun (Fig. 9), 

 it will be better to run the rows northwest 

 and southeast in order to get the greatest 

 duration of sunlight, for in this situation 

 every available ray is most valuable. 



No matter how your garden may face, no 

 matter what angles, curves or dimensions it 

 may possess, you will see at once and very 

 clearly the best thing to be done when you 

 have it before you on paper with the area 

 reached by the sun's rays laid out upon it. 



a "combination" garden 



Suppose you live in the suburbs upon a 

 lot not more than 50 x 100 feet or even less. 

 You can surely spare a little ground for a 

 vegetable garden. I know of one such dear 

 little home plot and this is how it was laid out. 

 (Fig. 10.) It is a corner lot. On the west and 

 south run the streets of a suburban village, 

 with broad curbs and stone sidewalks. It is 

 a fenceless town; hence it was easy to coax a 

 lawn right down to the walk. A few ever- 

 greens were dumped in a procession at the 

 southwest corner, an unhappy dogwood 

 (naturally a shade-loving tree) was trying to 

 live on the sunny west side, while fruit-trees 

 were located on the almost sunless eastern 

 side of the house. It was undoubtedly a 

 creation of some landscape gardener who 

 12 



had to a certainty missed his calling, but he 

 accidentally did one thing very wisely, and we 

 forgave him. As he had exhausted all avail- 

 able space except the back-fence line, and 

 had a number of small arbor-vitas plants, he 

 placed them along the north boundary, and 

 they "did the rest," soon forming a beautiful, 

 close and therefore effective wind - break, 

 which was of great service to the garden. 



A detailed plan of this garden is shown in 

 Figure 11. 



The first back bed at the eastern end was 

 sown to lettuce and radishes, half and half; 

 the second bed, beets; the third, beans; the 

 fourth, tomatoes; the fifth, ccrn. The front 

 beds were full of flowers which screened the 

 low-growing vegetables, while the taller ones 

 made a fine background for the gay colors. 

 These were the flowers used, all of them 

 show}' kinds, suitable for cutting: The first 

 bed at the eastern end, phlox; the second, 

 nicotiana; the third, nasturtiums, climbing 

 over a small fir-tree; the fourth, scabiosa; 

 and the fifth, verbenas. The western bound- 

 ary of the garden was an althea hedge against 

 a wire fence. The fence was covered with 



9. Showing why a garden that faces southeast should 

 have its rows run northwest and southeast 



