Starting Vegetables Indoors - By F. F. Rockwell, 



Con- 

 necticut 



LENGTHEN THE GARDEN SEASON THIS YEAR BY MAKING A BEGINNING NOW, WITHOUT A GREENHOUSE — 

 RELIABLE VARIETIES THAT HAVE STOOD THE TEST OF YEARS FROM THE SEED PACKET TO THE GARDEN 



A shallow box on a table 

 Sow each kind separately 



A/I" ANY managers 

 •*■' *• of small gar- 

 dens lose six weeks 

 garden dividends 

 even- year because 

 they do not realize 

 that early plants 

 can be successfully 

 started without a 

 greenhouse, or even 

 a hotbed. 



An early start 

 means not only that 

 your garden re- 

 turns will begin 

 weeks earlier, but 

 that later crops, by 

 becoming well estab- 

 lished early in the 

 season, have a 

 longer season in 

 which to mature, 

 and are in much bet- 

 ter condition to resist 

 prolonged droughts. 



Neither a costly 

 greenhouse nor a 



cumbersome hotbed is essential. And the 

 fact that you will probably require only a 

 few hundred plants gives you a distinct 

 advantage over the large-scale gardener, 

 because you can make use of ready-to-hand 

 conditions which would not be adequate 

 for his use. 



SELECTING THE RIGHT VARIETIES 



In the first place, order your seeds at 

 once. But don't do it in such a hurry as 

 to do it thoughtlessly. Getting good early 

 stuff depends largely upon selecting the 

 right varieties; and let me urge you keep to 

 the known reliable kinds for your mainstay. 

 Here is a list of the vegetables you will 

 want to "start" early. The varieties sug- 

 gested have stood the test of time and 

 "made good." I have grown them all 

 myself, and can give a recommendation 

 first-hand. If your seedsman does not have 

 the identical varieties he can supply you 

 with something of the same type that will 

 be equally good. The proper time for sow- 

 ing indoors is also given in the table below: 



SOW FEBRUARY 1ST TO MARCH 1ST 



Cabbage. Wakefield, Glory of Enkhuisen. 

 Cauliflower. Burpee's Best Early, Snowball. 

 Onion. Prizetaker, Ailsa Craig, Silverskin. 



SOW FEBRUARY 15TH TO MARCH 15TH 



Beets. Crosby's Egyptian, Early Model. 

 Brussels Sprouts. Dalkeith. 

 Celery. White Plume, Golden Self Blanching. 

 Lettuce. Grand Rapids, Mignonette, May King. 



SOW MARCH 1ST TO APRIL 1ST 



Cucumber. Davis Perfect, Fordhook Famous. 

 Eggplant. Black Beauty. 

 Pepper. Ruby King, Chinese Giant. 

 Potatoes. Bovee, Noroton Beauty, Irish Cobbler. 

 Squash. Hubbard, Gregory's Delicious. 



in front of a window is an excellent arrangement for starting seeds indoors, 

 in shallow drills. Use a sharp-edged board as a marker, pressing it into the soil 



Tomato (early). Earliana, Chalk's Early Jewel. 

 Tomato (late). Matchless, Dwarf Giant. 



SOW MARCH I5TH TO APRIL 15TH 



Corn. Golden Bantam, White Cob Cory, 

 Crosby Early. 



Melon, Musk. Netted Gem, Emerald Gem, 

 Hoodoo. 



There is no magic about a greenhouse, 

 in itself, that makes plants grow. If you 

 can provide the same conditions of tem- 

 perature, moisture, and light, that you 

 find in a greenhouse you can start your 

 plants just as well without it as with it. 

 Where plants are to be grown by the 

 thousand, the matter of convenience alone 

 makes the greenhouse a necessity. But 

 for the home gardener, who wants but a 

 few dozen plants of a kind, results as good 

 can be obtained without one. You can 

 grow your own plants cheaper than you 

 can buy them, and more important still, 

 you can grow better plants, as a rule. 



STARTING PLANTS IN THE HOUSE 



There are very few houses indeed, where 

 there is not some room with a sunny 

 window or two, in which the night tem- 

 perature, after February 15th. can easily 

 be kept up to 45 or 50 degrees. 



Now this suggestion need raise no 

 immediate cry of "muss" and "dirt." 

 You can buy a few yards of nice neutral- 

 toned, self-colored, sheathing or building 

 paper, to protect floors or rugs. There 

 is probably an old table available for use! 

 If not, it is a matter of no great ingenuity 

 to construct a temporary shelf, just below 

 the level of the window, which will support 

 a number of "flats." So two of the three 



89 



requisites — light, 

 heat, moisture — are 

 provided almost be- 

 fore you've begun 

 to think about the 

 thing ! 



"Moisture" does 

 not mean keeping 

 the soil in your seed 

 boxes and flats drip- 

 ping wet. The 

 proper amount of 

 water for the soil 

 will be suggested 

 later, but the condi- 

 tion of the air in the 

 room is one of the 

 most important fac- 

 tors in this growing 

 of plants in the 

 house. A hot, dry, 

 stale (deoxygenized) 

 atmosphere will 

 very likely prove 

 fatal to your efforts. 

 Steam heat and fur- 

 nace heat rapidly 

 deprive the air of what moisture it may 

 contain. So the air in the room must be 

 kept "fresh" by giving ventilation at all 

 times when the outdoor temperature will 

 allow it, and also by keeping bowls or 

 saucers of water evaporating on all radi- 

 ators or registers. 



Coal or illuminating gas in any percep- 

 tible quantity will also destroy plant life. 



PREPARING SOIL FOR SEEDS AND PLANTS 



If you have no good soil about that is 

 not frozen solid, the quickest and simplest 

 way to provide the necessary soil will be 

 to get a bushel or two at the nearest florist. 

 If that can't be done, take the crow-bar 

 or pick-ax and break up a few lumps in 

 the garden. Leave these for a few days in 

 a box — for five cents at the grocers, 

 you can get a cracker-box which will hold 

 about a bushel — near the furnace or stove. 

 Let the dirt not only thaw out, but dry 

 out until it will not stick together when 

 compressed in the hand. (If you happen 

 to possess a woodshed with a dirt floor, 

 just the sort of soil you want can be 

 scraped up there — light "chip-dirt" full 

 of rotted bark, chips, and sawdust.) 



To this garden soil add about a third 

 each of old, thoroughly rotted manure 

 and coarse sand. "Leaf-mold" — the light 

 spongy soil formed from decayed leaves 

 and twigs — may be used in place of the 

 manure. It is to be had : n any fence- 

 corner or hollow where leaves collect and 

 rot. If you are too lazy to get the leaf- 

 mold, you can buy either that, or "cocoa- 

 nut fibre," at a florist's. The idea in 

 adding the sand is to "cut" the mixture, 



