The Garden Magazine 



Vol. XV— No. 4 



Published Monthly 



MAY, 1912 



j One Dollar Fifty Cents a Year 

 I 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.] 



Gardening Discretion 



THIS is the one time of year when the 

 gardener should work slowly and cau- 

 tiously. 



Watch for clear, still nights, when the 

 coldframes must be tightly closed and the 

 transplanted seedlings carefully covered. 

 Newly set lettuce should also be shaded 

 during the hottest part of the day. 



Unless you have individual frames, i. e., 

 bottomless boxes a foot square with glass 

 tops — your melons, squashes, etc., will be 

 safer if not planted till about May 5th. 



Cutworms are likely to break in and steal 

 — or at least destroy — as soon as frost 

 dangers lessen. Mix bran (a quart), 

 Paris green (a teaspoonful) and water 

 (enough to make a paste) and leave a little 

 among newly set plants. Put a ring of the 

 mixture around the base of the best fruit 

 trees. Re-read the March Garden Maga- 

 zine for details. 



Sow late celery, cabbage, kale, turnips, 

 parsnips and potatoes about May 15th. 

 But if you have time start some of the 

 first three under glass now, using them to 

 fill in cleared spinach or pea rows later on. 

 Lettuce and radishes will temporarily fill 

 up between rows. 



Nip the blossoms off strawberry plants 

 set last fall, and one year berry bushes. 

 Don't cut a one-year asparagus bed at all. 

 Dress it twice in May with salt, a pound to 

 twenty square feet of ground. 



A little nitrate of soda will help along 

 the crops that are already up and doing. 

 But in general and for corn and squash, 

 especially, use plenty of manure. Keep 

 it near the surface for the former, the roots 

 feed only about four inches deep. 



Blister beetles and aphides may bother 

 the seedlings. Use kerosene emulsion. 



Jot down these thinning distances: beans, 

 turnips, leeks, 6 inches; corn (in rows), car- 

 rots, beets, onions, salsify, 3 inches; kohl- 

 rabi, parsnips, 4 inches; lettuce, okra, 9 

 inches; potatoes, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, 

 12 to 30 inches; vines 3 to 10 feet. 



Get new strawberry plants by rooting run- 

 ners in small pots plunged near old plants. 



The accompanying map, reproduced 

 from a chart issued by the United States 

 Weather Bureau, is a good subject for 

 study. Of course averages may be de- 

 ceitful, but you should know whether or not 

 it is an average season in your locality, and 

 don't plant tender things too soon! 



IN THE ORNAMENTAL GARDEN 



Some shrubs are already flowering. Prune 

 these lightly as soon as the blossoms fade. 



Bulbs that have bloomed should ripen 

 for a few weeks before being dug up to 

 make way for other plants. 



All the hardy annuals can be trans- 

 planted from frame or flat by May 5th. 

 The tender sorts had best be delayed a 

 fortnight longer. 



Until May 20th, perennials may be 

 shifted and even shrubs and fruit bushes 

 planted provided they are continually 

 kept moist till well established. 



Plant out carnations. Buy rooted chry- 

 santhemum cuttings if you are not rooting 

 your own. 



this month's motto: 



Fight frost, wipe out weeds, obliterate 

 bugs, destroy diseases, maintain moisture, 

 stir the soil. 



The average date of the last killing frost in spring as observed for above 30 years is shown by this inaD. 

 The lesson for the gardener is: Don't plant tender things too early 



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