

THE PATRIOTIC GARDEN 



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"Carrying On" In Tour Oxtfn War Garden a. kruhm 



TO BE or not to be," a faithful, 

 patriotic gardener — that is the ques- 

 tion of this month. Baseball and 

 picnics, ioo degrees in the shade and 

 plenty of mosquitoes after sunset, are a few 

 of the many distractions apt to put a damper 

 on garden enthusiasm. BUT 



The gardener who faithfully "carries on" 

 now in spite of temptations and troubles 

 will see his efforts crowned with triumph 

 when, in his neighbor's garden, bugs, drouth, 

 and weeds proclaim their complete victory. 

 For, while every factor in nature combines 

 to make July the month of bountiful crops, 

 animal enemies also work overtime to get 

 their share of loot out of the horn of plenty. 



Vigilance is the keynote to the month's 

 work. You have to protect what you've 

 got, plant for the late harvest, and fight for 

 what you expect. Besides bearing banner 

 crops, fertile soils attract a ravaging army of 

 bugs, etc. Either fight them or make up 

 your mind that they are going to get the best 

 of your garden. 



One fine morning you'll go out into the 

 garden to discover that every third or fourth 

 plant in the late cabbage patch looks sickly, 

 the bottom leaves wilting, yellow, and the 

 whole plant looks done for. When you pull 

 it up you find that the plant is deprived of 

 all the little fibrous roots, the stem is hollow, 

 and within, several specimens of some maggot 

 are having a regular picnic. Destroy plant 

 and all, and sterilize the soil with any of the 

 many preparations available for that purpose. 



Next day, you look over your fine onion 

 patch and discover some of the plants covered 

 with a fine, powder-like growth, called 

 mildew. If the plants have not started to 

 wilt, thank good fortune, rush for the knap- 

 sack sprayer and give the patch a bath of 

 bordeaux, of course if you mix an arsenate 

 with the bordeaux the one spray will also kill 

 chewing bugs, etc. 



Nor should you stop at spraying the 

 onions! Go through the beets to prevent 

 leaf spot; through the beans to fight their 

 "spotted fever" called "anthracnose"; 

 through the celery to ward off leaf spot and 

 blight; through the cucumbers, potatoes, 

 tomatoes, and melons to prevent either 

 blight or mildew. Remember always — you 

 can prevent these things, but never cure 

 them. 



Beans of the dwarf or bush varieties are 

 among the most profitable crops in the July 

 garden. While, as a rule, level cultivation 

 is best for all crops, it pays tc slightly hill 



the bean rows for two reasons: it holds the 

 pods off the ground and keeps the wheelhoe 

 or cultivator away from the plants. This 

 latter point is particularly important because 

 after blooming, and throughout the bearing 

 period, the bean plants send out many lateral 

 roots just beneath the surface of the soil. 

 Cutting these roots with the cultivator short- 

 ens the bearing season of the plants. 



Cabbage of the Jersey Wakefield type or 

 Copenhagen Market variety, will yield its 

 first heads the early part of this month from 

 plants started early in April. It is one of 

 the shortcomings of these extra early kinds 

 that they will burst quickly unless their 

 growth is "checked." Do this by bending 



Make use of space between late-growing crops by plant- 

 ing short-time ones, as for example — lettuce among the 

 tomatoes 



over the heads to one side or another. This 

 breaks some of the side roots and arrests de- 

 velopment. 



Just about the time the extra early lettuces 

 are past their prime, endive is at its best 

 in combination with late lettuce of the crisp 

 head varieties. Don't fail to tie up endive 

 in conical bunches as soon as plants average 

 12 inches across. It bleaches, and tempers 

 the bitter flavor. 



This is the crucial period in the life of 

 every tomato plant. It must be trained to 

 produce food, or it will develop enormous 

 plants of herbage which not even animals will 



264 



eat. Early in the month set a 5 or 6 foot stake 

 alongside of every plant. Reduce the plant 

 to 3 of the strongest branches. Remove all 

 side shoots, suckers, at the leaf joints, etc. 

 Tie plants to stakes. Within two weeks, they 

 will have reached the top of the stakes and 

 will be full of blossoms and small fruits. 



Since tomato plants are ordinarily set at 

 least 2§ to 3 feet apart in the rows, the space 

 between them may be utilized throughout 

 the month. Lettuce lends itself particularly 

 well to inter-cropping. Both All Seasons 

 and Iceberg form fine, solid heads between the 

 shade-producing tomato rows. 



Surprising quantities of pickles may be 

 grown on few hills, if the centre shoots of 

 cucumber vines are pinched out when they 

 have reached the boundaries of space allotted 

 to them. A space size 10 in. x 10 ft. will ac- 

 commodate nine hills, feeding three plants 

 each. It is nothing unusual for a cucumber 

 plant to produce a dozen four inch pickles. 

 Multiply this by 27 and ! 



Some crops crave water more than others, 

 celery for instance. It makes its most vig- 

 orous growth this month, but it must have 

 water. Remember that it is better to give 

 one copious watering once a week than to 

 turn on the hose every evening for a "sprink- 

 ling." Don't hill celery while the foliage is 

 wet. I have found it very convenient to 

 use heavy paper wrappers for bleaching, 

 rather than soil or cumbersome boards. The 

 soil is apt to discolor the stalks, while the 

 boards are difficult to secure and awkward 

 to handle. 



Whenever I see a man make a bonfire 

 these days without having a piece' of tin 

 sheeting or some old tub under it, to catch the 

 ashes, I feel like shouting at him "stop that 

 waste." Wood ashes are a very high-class 

 fertilizer and are about the best thing you can 

 put on your onion rows, right next to the 

 plants. In the home garden, under ordinary 

 soil conditions, but with diligent cultivation, 

 three applications of wood ashes between 

 middle of July and end of August will increase 

 the yield of onions fifty per cent. A pint 

 cupful of ashes to every ten feet of row is 

 about right. 



Now is the time to see that every row does 

 its duty, and makes way for the next crop 

 as soon as possible. Consider beans for in- 

 stance. Any of the sixty day varieties, like 

 Bountiful, Stringless Green Pod or any of 

 the various Golden Wax strains sown middle 

 of April will have yielded the bulk of their 

 crop by middle of July. True, they will keep 

 on bearing some pods right along, but not 



