April. 1913 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



185 



Conducted by Ellen Eddy Shaw 



Making the Small Garden 



The Garden Site — If possible choose 

 for your garden a spot exposed to the 

 sun. Do not try to make a garden under 

 a tree, close to a building or on the north 

 side of the house. Your garden needs 

 direct sunlight and the full benefit of rain. 



First Steps — To prepare for your gar- 

 den work first draw the plan. With the 

 plan made out you can estimate upon the 

 amount of seed necessary to use. The 

 average little seed envelope of fine seed 

 holds 1-32 to 1-16 of an ounce. In plant- 

 ing a large garden it is better to buy seed 

 in bulk, that is, by the ounce. It is cheaper 

 and then you can choose the variety you 

 prefer. 



Estimate after this order for a drill of 

 100 feet in length: 



Parsley § oz. 



Pea 1 oz. 



Radish 1 oz. 



Turnip 3 oz. 



Beets 2 oz. 



Carrots 1 oz. 



Lettuce 1 oz. 



Onion 1 oz. 



The seeds which are planted in hills 

 follow this order: — 1 oz. cabbage seeds 

 gives 200 plants; 1 oz. of muskmelon seed 

 will plant 60 hills; allow 1 peck of potatoes 

 for 100 hills; 1 oz. of pumpkin seed for 30 



hills; 1 oz. of tomato seed gives 1000 plants. 

 Bush beans may be planted in drills, an 

 easy way for children to plant. One quart 

 of bush bean seed is estimated for 100 feet 

 of drill. 



Have the garden stakes, markers and 

 cord all ready for the staking of the garden. 

 Laths may be measured off and cut into 

 strips for the main stakes. Make the 

 stakes one foot long and use them as gar- 

 den rules. Clothes pins split in two are 

 not such bad emergency markers. 



Remove all rubbish from the garden spot. 

 If it be a large one have it plowed. If 

 small dig it up to the depth of at least one 

 foot. Spread with stable manure and 

 spade it in well. 



Look on page 102 of the March 1913, 

 issue of the magazine for an estimate of the 

 amount of fertilizer to use. 



Laying out the Garden — The gar- 

 den should be staked off as a whole and 

 then the indivdual bed, having a stake in 

 each corner, should be strung about with 

 cord. This is a great help in a community 

 garden. The main path of a large garden 

 may be four or five feet wide, the small side 

 paths one and one half to two feet. If the 

 garden is a long narrow strip of land have 

 narrow paths. Children's individual garden 

 plots should not be too large. For the little 

 children a five by three foot plot is quite 

 large enough. But the older children 

 ought to have larger ones eight by five, 

 ten by six, or fifteen by eight feet. 



Stakes or posts of cedar up and down the 

 main path make places for planting vines 

 which, as they grow, take the bare look 

 away from a long main path. Make pro- 

 visions for the water supply in your garden. 



Preparation and Planting — Rake 

 the ground very fine before you think of 



planting. It does not pay at all to try to 

 plant in coarse, stony ground. If your 

 garden is a small home one two stakes, and 

 a cord tied between them, make the best 

 sort of guide for furrow making. In Com- 

 munity gardens this method may be used, 

 or a marking board, as shown in The Gar- 

 den Magazine for March 191 2, page 97, 

 is a great labor saving device; and the single 

 line method shown in the picture is also a 

 good one to employ. In children's work 

 have drills about one foot apart to facili- 

 tate working and so that the children can 

 walk between the drills. There are two 

 methods of planting — namely hill and 

 drill. Drill planting is the planting in a 

 continuous row: most small seed are 

 planted in drills. Make the drills, for the 

 seed usually planted by children, from one 

 quarter to one half inch deep. The rule 

 for seed planting is to place the seed to a 

 depth of four times its own diameter. 

 Children often plant in too shallow drills 

 and the first rain washes all the seed out to 

 the surface of the soil. Hill planting means 

 planting an individual specimen or a small 

 group of plants or seeds in isolated spots 

 so that cultivation can be given all around 

 them. Or in other words it might be 

 called a discontinuous row. As the seeds 

 grow, some of them are thinned out 

 leaving usually about three seedlings 

 to the hill. Soil is often heaped or hilled 

 up about the stalks of the seedlings as 

 they develop. 



Tools and Seeds — Buy good tools. 

 Do not buy toy ones that do not last. In a 

 community garden plan for either a hoe 

 or rake for every two children ; a trowel for 

 each child; for each group of twenty-five, 

 two spading forks, one wheelbarrow and 

 five watering pots. Children can use 

 stakes, markers or any pointed stick as 

 cultivators. 



Seeds from the Department of Agri- 

 culture should be applied for early. This 

 Department provides free seeds to the boys 

 and girls and the schools. For the rest 

 of your seed order, order from any good 

 seedsman. 



A method for making straight drills by stretching 

 a Line through a row of beds 



A garden divided into beds ready for planting. 

 Cedar uprights extend the length of main path 



The first step in garden making is 

 ground of all rubbish 



clear the 



