The Garden Magazine 
Von Vill_No. 2 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY 
SEPTEMBER, 1908 
} ONE DOLLAR A YEAR 
| FIFTEEN CENTS A COPY 
[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 
generally taken as a standard. Allow ‘six days’ difference 
for every hundred miles of latitude.] 
A Really Busy Month 
AE eeOUeE September sees the end 
of the growing season outdoors, the 
gardener who is up to date will find plenty 
of work in preparing for the harvesting 
of this year’s crops and for the starting of 
early crops for next spring. The amateur 
who keepsat it all this month will gain several 
weeks on his neighbor next spring. 
There are four important things to be done: 
1. First of all, send for the bulb dealers’ 
catalogues. Make your selections of named 
varieties of your favorite flowers and get 
your order in immediately. Ask the dealer 
to ship “as received,” and by the end of 
August the early flowering bulbs can be 
started to give flowers at Christmas. The 
bulk of the order for outdoor planting will 
reach you by the end of the month. In 
buying bulbs, make the bulk of your order 
from well tried favorites, but also buy a few 
novelities to test out. If you don’t try 
novelties you lose half the fun of gardening. 
2. Prepare for winter! Clear up all 
useless litter and burn over all crops that 
have been afflicted with disease or insects. 
Get protecting litter ready to put over half 
tender plants on the approach of frost. 
Order supplies of straw, mats for hotbeds, 
and anything that will be needed to protect 
from the winter’s cold. See that the storage 
cellars for root crops are well cleaned out and 
ventilated. If mold has been prevalent, 
burn some formaldehyde candles. Wash 
over shelving with a solution of salicylic acid. 
For outdoor storage of root crops, dig holes 
and sink barrels to the rim, having first 
knocked out the bottom. Puta layer of straw 
over the bottom and everything is ready. 
3. Get ready for spring. Take cuttings 
of tender bedding plants that will give stock 
for propagating from in early spring; 
don’t attempt to carry over the same plants 
from now until next year. Get seed beds 
ready for perennials, either in the open or in 
frames. See that you have sufficient seeds 
of hardy vegetables for sowing this month 
and next. It’s worth while risking the loss 
of a little seed if you can get an extra crop 
a few weeks earlier than usual. 
4. Overhaul shrubberies and _ borders. 
Don’t defer until half the foliage has gone 
the inspection of all your plantations to see 
just where things can be improved. Make 
up your mind now as to what needs removing 
and rearranging in October or spring. Tie 
a cord on every tree or shrub that is to be 
moved. In this way, you will avoid the 
chance of forgetting the most important 
alterations that you have contemplated. 
COMING OF FROST 
In the northern sections early frost may be 
expected by the end of this month. Some- 
times it strikes with great severity and kills 
all the tender outdoor plants. You can 
often save them for several weeks by being 
prepared for this one early snap. A shield 
of cheesecloth thrown over the beds when 
frost is expected will insure results. 
Clean up the vines from melon beds as 
soon as they are frosted. 
Harvest field corn before frost. Get in 
the root crops too, except that rutabaga 
may stand outdoors for another month. 
SOW VEGETABLES 
For the Christmas dinner, sow a few feet 
of spinach now. Risk a few peas of the 
round seeded sorts on a warm sandy soil — 
they may come up early in the spring. Make 
sowings of lettuce from the last week in 
August until the middle of the month, and 
have salads under the snow. Sow strap 
leaf turnip for winter storage. Radishes 
may be sown now in succession every ten 
days until November. 
For earliest spring salads, sow corn salad 
out in the open now. This will give a green 
vegetable in March if lightly protected with 
litter in the heart of winter. 
Save three weeks on next season’s onions 
by sowing seed now. Also plant sets of Welsh 
onion before September roth to give salad 
greens in the spring.» Late cabbages which 
are still growing should be bent over so as to 
break the roots and hasten maturity. 
Celery should be ready for a first handling 
and must be earthed up slightly now, the 
final banking to be done later. Sow cabbage 
and broccoli in coldframes to give earliest 
plants for transplanting. During September 
sow down any meadows for hay, and lawns 
that have been properly prepared may be 
seeded now with a first class mixture. If 
the land is heavy, better cultivate thoroughly 
and let lie idle over winter. For late fall 
and spring pasture, sow rye. Land that has 
lain fallow can now be plowed up and 
seeded down to either of these purposes or 
to winter grain. 
SMALL FRUITS AND STRAWBERRIES 
It is not yet too late to plant pot-grown 
strawberries for fruiting next June. If you 
are moving runners from your own beds 
and have sufficiently cultivated and pulver- 
ized the soil, with plenty of manure for winter 
protection and spring feeding, you can make 
strawberry beds up till October and get fair 
results. But don’t expect results without 
special care. Now is the time to take hard 
wood cuttings of currants, gooseberries, and 
grapes. Tie them in bundles and insert them 
in the ground deeply for planting out in the 
spring. Buy currant and gooseberry bushes 
uow,in the Southerly portions plant grapes. 
Don’t forget to pick early ripening fruits 
a little bit before they are really ripe. That 
is the only way to have them keep a reason- 
able time. Autumn and winter kinds can 
remain on the trees much longer and will be 
all the better. Select trees now that are to 
give you grafting wood. You can see their 
bearing qualities and other good points better 
at this time. Don’t trust to memory, but 
mark each one with a label, explaining why 
it is selected. If you have young seedling 
peaches and don’t wish to wait several years, 
most likely to reap disappointment, bud over 
the seedlings now with some recognized 
variety that does well in your district. 
FLOWER SEEDS FOR PRESENT SOWING 
Any time during this month. sow hardy 
perennials in prepared seed beds in the open 
or in frames for plants that will bloom next 
year. Sow poppies and other hardy annuals 
such as sweet peas towards the end of the 
month. Gather seeds of native flowers 
which you wish to naturalize and sow 
immediately in shaded, well-drained spots 
where the ground has humus and moisture. 
Protect outdoor seed beds by a light screen 
of lath or cheesecloth to break the direct 
rays of the sun, but don’t exclude air. 
GET THE GREENHOUSE READY 
See that everything is in order for getting to 
work. Have the pipes and joints overhauled 
and any leaks properly fixed. You may be 
called upon to start up a mild fire at almost 
any time to keep down mildew. Bring 
inside azaleas and bougainvilleas, that are to 
flower next Easter. Sow English cucumbers 
for forcing, if you would have a new delicate 
vegetable. See that all glass is in good 
repair, for broken glass means loss of heat, 
and that means money. 
