The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XV — No. 2 



Pl'Bl ISHFn MON III I Y 



MARCH, 1912 



5 One Doi 



I Fifteen 



i.i.au Fifty Cents a Yeah 

 Cents a Copy 



^MONTHS 



[For the purpose of reckoning dates, New York is 

 generally taken as a standard. Allow six days' difference 

 for every hundred miles of latitude.] 



March Manoeuvres 



THE amount of garden work you do in 

 March depends upon, first, the kind 

 of season; and second, the thoroughness 

 with which you did the February tasks. 

 This is the worst month of all for the piling 

 up of work. Get every job behind you as 

 quickly as possible. If conditions — 

 weather included — are of the best, these 

 are some of the wise gardener's most 

 important March duties: 



Finish spreading manure; plow or dig 

 up the soil to the depth of at least a foot. 

 Repeat this spading, leveling and raking 

 as often as possible until the ground is 

 needed. 



Now is the time to improve poor soils; 

 add sand or fine cinders to heavy ones, 

 lime or wood ashes to sour ones, muck or 

 clay to sandy ones and well-decayed 

 manure, in generous doses, to all soils. 

 Manure and thorough working are the 

 foundations of a successful garden. 



Plant fruits, trees, bushes, vines and 

 yearling plants, but only after the heavy 

 freezes have left the ground for the season. 

 Cut these back well and prune to clean, 

 unbroken roots before setting. 



Prune, the brambles, fruit-trees and 

 summer-blooming ornamental shrubs and 

 vines before the buds are ready to break. 



Do not prune forsythia, syringa, lilac, 

 and all spring bloomers or you will have 

 no blossoms this season. 



About the End of the Month 



PLANT asparagus and rhubarb. Make 

 -* trenches or hills two to four feet deep, 

 half fill them with almost clear manure 

 adding soil gradually toward the top. 

 Start a few old plants toward early ripen- 



ing by placing boxes or barrels over them, 

 and banking manure around these. 



Remove the mulch from the rest of the 

 old beds and dig them over shallowly with 

 a spading fork. 



Sow outdoors, using judgment: potatoes, 

 lettuce, radishes, peas, onions, spinach, etc. 

 Of course you may have some plants 

 nipped but the chances are equally good 

 for a successful, extra early crop. 



Sow in hotbeds: lettuce, cabbage, Brussels 

 sprouts, cauliflower, squash, melons, cu- 

 cumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. 

 The last three need extra heat; keep them 

 together in a bed where the temperature 

 can be kept high. 



As these and earlier plantings grow and 

 become crowded "prick them out" to 

 other beds or frames, spacing them four 

 inches apart. Look out for the "damp- 

 ing off" disease caused by lack of venti- 

 lation excessive moisture and too high 

 temperature. In other words keep the 

 sashes raised as much and as continu- 

 ously as possible, without ever chilling 

 the plants. 



Transplant seedlings on a warm, bright 

 day, but protect them from sunlight. The 

 slogan of transplanting is "Don't let the 

 roots get dry." Cut back to half the leaf 

 surface of very large plants when trans- 

 planting. 



Don't forget how easily seedlings can be 

 handled in paper pots, old berry baskets 

 and tin cans, and start some therein. 

 Make a note of saving such things for next 

 year's use. 



The Keynote of All Planting 



THE gardener who makes two plants 

 grow where one grew before, defeats 

 his own aims unless the two are of better 

 quality than the one. Never be satisfied 

 till your crops are of the best. The first 

 essential to this end is — good seed. 

 There is no excuse for using anything else; 

 it is not even economy. Buy of the well- 

 known, reliable seed firms; choose selected, 

 proven varieties, and don't begrudge the 

 price you have to pay for them. Look 

 at this side of it : a cucumber vine from one 

 seed may bear twenty-five fruits worth 

 five cents each, a package of perhaps fifty 

 such seeds costs ten cents or so. Aren't 

 you getting your money's worth? Most 

 seeds involve much more expense than 

 cucumbers. Most of the cauliflower seed 

 comes from Holland, the best carrot, celery 

 and radish seed from France, nearly all the 

 sweet pea seed from California, and so on. 

 There is a tremendous difference between 

 well-grown and poorly grown seed, and 



77 



the results therefrom. Don't be "penny 

 wise and pound foolish," buy the best. 



In the Flower Garden 



T_I ERE the activities are much the same 

 *■ -1 as among the vegetables. Sweet- 

 peas, iris, pansies and other very hardy 

 sorts can be planted outdoors, but you 

 need not rush them yet. Others may be 

 started in flats or pots in hotbeds or in- 

 doors. All annual vines deserve, and 

 ornamental grasses require, this sort of 

 treatment. 



A number of perennials will flower this 

 summer if sown now. For instance: Cam- 

 panula Carpatica, Centurea montana, Dian- 

 thus plumarius, Erigeron glabellus, Papaver 

 nudicaule, and Penstemon campanulatus. 



Remove the coarse mulch from hardy 

 perennial borders, around shrubs, etc. 

 Dig in the finer residue as a top dressing. 



The Garden Record 



HPHE really useful garden notebook is 

 -■- a permanent affair that can be 

 referred to every year. A system that is 

 only slightly better than nothing at all is 

 that of marking on a wooden label at the 

 end of each row, the variety and the date 

 of sowing. 



The best plan is to first plan the garden 

 on paper and then to have a sort of "day 

 book" ruled off to contain the following 

 facts for each sowing: kind of vegetable, 

 variety, dates of sowing, transplanting, 

 maturing and harvesting, space given to, 

 yield, length of bearing season and general 

 success. If you get your seed from various 

 sources note this, and if you can be at hand 

 constantly have columns for dates of 

 sprouting, blossoming, spraying, etc. Daily 

 climatic records are also interesting and 

 often very useful. 



At the end of a month or a season copy 

 all data into a well bound ledger. Here 

 is a chance to figure out the actual cash 

 value of the garden and to discover ways 

 to reduce expenses and increase returns. 



Note the Last Chance to 



TDRUNE dormant plants. 



*- Spray with lime-sulphur for San Jose 



scale. 



Discover and destroy brown-tail and 

 gypsy moth nests. 



Change the plan of your garden. 



Divide established clumps of hardy 

 perennials — golden glow, phlox, larkspur, 

 rudbeckia — and other hardy perennials in 

 the same way that you handle old rhubarb 

 plants. 



