June, 1913 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



311 



Conducted by Ellen Eddy Shaw 



Working the Garden 



A GREAT deal more could be raised on one 

 little garden spot than most boys and girls 

 imagine to be possible. It pays to keep your 

 garden hard at work and to use all the available 

 space in it. Also have in mind what you are 

 going to put in the place of a given crop after it 

 has matured and been taken out. Suppose you 

 have taken out the early peas, as you will be doing 

 later; what are you going to put in their place? 

 Perhaps late celery or late turnip. 



Then, too, it is possible and economical to plant 

 companion crops. This means to plant two crops 

 right together in the same drill or place. Radishes 

 may be planted with carrots, beets, parsnips or 

 parsley. This may be done because radishes 

 germinate and mature before these others. 



Lettuce may be planted between hills of corn 

 or beans and transplanted into these spaces, too. 

 There are always spaces between rows and these 

 spaces are used profitably in this way too. 



The other day there came to us from head- 

 quarters, the Department of Agriculture, a girl's 

 story of how she made her garden work hard for 

 her. The seeds came from the Department and 

 so she wrote of her results to Washington. The 

 size of her plot was only 16 x 8 ft., not larger than 

 many rooms in dwelling houses. She kept it neat 

 and clean all summer long; nicely corded about 

 was the garden plot with each row of plants labeled 

 as to variety and time of planting. On this page 

 is shown her garden plan. Notice how much she 

 has crowded into one small garden plot. Here is a 

 part of Hermine's letter, too: 



I would like to let you know how I made out with the seeds 

 you sent me last year. The beans were very poor; the beets 

 were fairly good, small but sweet; the lettuce was good; the 

 radishes were poor; the tomatoes were very good. I had some 

 lovely samples exhibited in Horticultural Hall where I received 

 three prizes for vegetables I grew in my garden. 



I received first prize again for the best garden from the 

 Community Club in Roslindale. This makes the second year 

 I have won the first prize. It was my first year that I put 

 things on exhibition in Horticultural Hall in Boston. I received 

 first prize for the best six ears of sweet corn which was three 

 dollars, and third prize for four cucumbers. Mine would have 

 been first prize if judged by size, for they were over a foot long 

 and perfect in shape and the judges told me to be sure and save 

 the seeds. I also raised them from a prize cucumber I grew 

 injroii. I won fifth prize on remaining collection of vegetables. 

 This made eight dollars I won on prizes in 1912, on a little gar- 

 den eight by sixteen feet. I am trying to beat the record this 

 year on a larger garden. I am thirteen years old now. 



My little sister won three prizes also, on a little flower garden 

 not more than five feet square. 



Hermine does not tell in this letter the amount 

 of produce she raised on that little 8 x 16 garden 

 plot. But this I know; that she supplied her 

 own home table all summer long with nice fresh 

 vegetables. We urge you, boys and girls, to keep 

 track of the amount of produce raised from a given 

 plot. And also figure out the money value of your 

 garden. If you never sell anything at all you can 

 figure values from the market prices of vegetables 

 for the time when a special crop of yours matures. 



There is a certain amount of satisfaction in this. 

 Then, if you have kept the record of what your seed 

 cost, you can figure out later the profits for the 

 season of 1913. 



Watch your garden with greater care than ever 

 this year and see if you can puzzle out what are the 

 needs of the soil. You remember that plants are 

 very dependent upon nitrogen, phosphoric acid and 

 potash. These are plant foods. And they are 

 the least likely to be found in the soil all ready and 

 available for plants. You will wonder how you 

 are to tell what the soil needs. Watch your plants 

 and they will tell you. If their foliage is fine and 

 green you may know that nitrogen is not lacking 

 in your garden — at least, it is i.ot lacking this 

 season. It is well to remember that nitrogen is 

 the easiest of all plant goods to lose out of the soil. 

 Nitrogen, then makes leaf growth or foliage. So 

 you will see that this is the food needed for such 

 crops as lettuce, cabbage, and spinach, for example: 

 that is, those vegetables the leaves of which are 

 to be used for food. The grains need nitrogen, 

 too, for their best development. 



Second, suppose the flowering plants are not 

 doing well, not blossoming freely or even beautifully. 

 What does this fact say to you? It says this: 

 add phosphoric acid to the soil. Phosphoric acid, 

 then, helps the flowering p?rt of plants. If the 



Making garden labels would seem to be a most 

 engrossing occupation! 



fruits of a plant (currants, for example) are poor, 

 potash is needed. 



June is a very busy time in all gardens for it is 

 the month when a great deal of the thinning and 

 transplanting must be done. The following tables 

 give the distances which some of the common 

 vegetables and flowers should stand apart. 





VEGETABLE 



TABLE 







Name 



Distance 

 (inches) 



Name 



Distance 

 (inches) 



Beets 

 Cabbage 

 Carrot . 

 Lettuce . 

 Kohlrabi 



3-4 

 18 



2-3 

 10 

 6 



Onion 



Parsnip 



Radish 



Tomato 



Turnip 



4 



4 



2-3 



24-36 



4-6 



FLOWER TABLE 



Name 



Distance 

 (inches) 



Name 



Distance 

 (inches) 



Alyssum, sweet 



4-6 



Pansy .... 



6 



Aster . . 



10 



Petunia 



10 



Calendula . 



8 



Phlox .... 



6-10 



Calliopsis . 



10 



Poppy . . . 



4-8 



Candytuft . 



6 



Portulaca . 



5 



Centaurea 



6 



Stock .... 



12 



Cosmos 



12 



Sunflower 



12 



Godetia 



6 



Sweet peas 



8 



Hollyhocks 



12 



Sweet William 



6 



Mignonette 



6 



Verbena . 



12 



Nasturtium 



8 



Zinnia 



6 



How can one get these different foods into the 

 soil, is the next natural question to ask. Wood 

 ashes contain potash; bone meal supplies phos- 

 phoric acid, while manure, nitrate of soda and 

 humus are all rich in nitrogen. " That old black soil 

 you call muck is excellent to work in with your 

 ordinary garden soil. There is another way to 



supply nitrogen to the soil. Some plants, the 

 legumes or pod bearers, take nitrogen right out of 

 the air and store it on their roots in lumps or 

 nodules in a form ready for the soil to be benefited 

 by it. So clover, alfalfa, cowpeas and soy beans, 

 all of the family of legumes, may be planted late 

 this summer in a vacant place in your garden. 

 That is, if there is such a space. Then, next spring, 

 spade all that plant matter carefully into the soil 

 and you have extra nitrogen ready for plants to 

 use. But, remember, even in the case of legumes, 

 while they take nitrogen for themselves from the 

 air, the other foods must be supplied to the soil 

 direct. It is hard for root crops, such as beets, pota- 

 toes, etc., to gather food successfully for themselves 

 out of the soil; so help them out by adding all 

 these foods to the so ; l. 



In your little garden plot try each year to vary 

 the arrangement and do not always plant the same 

 vegetable in the same place. For you see from 

 taking into account this fact — that different crops 

 take different foods to mature them — you can 

 plan not to take from a given area of the garden 

 the same food year after year. When a second 

 crop is planted use the same reasoning about it. 

 Let us suppose you have taken out of a bed the first 

 crop of radishes, a root crop. What are you next 

 going to put into the bed? You might try pepper 

 plants or cabbage plants, a crop of a different 

 nature. For second plantings use beans, turnips, 

 and sweet corn. Certain other crops you can 

 keep running throughout the entire season by 

 planting seeds at different times. These are 

 called succession crops. You can make plantings 

 of dwarf beans from early May until the middle 

 of August; of kohlrabi from April to July; of 

 lettuce, April to August; of peas from April to the 

 middle of July; and of radish from April until 

 September. 



Look carefully over the garden and see what 

 needs attention. Tomatoes, peppers, cabbages and 

 little celery plants are all ready for transplantings. 

 The tall plants, perhaps, are beginning to bend over. 

 This is doubtless true of the tomatoes and cosmos. 

 If so, tie the plants neatly to stakes, but not too 

 tightly. In early June set out roots of dahlias, also 

 carinas and gladiolus. If you have any old house 

 plants, gifts of last winter,fput them into the ground, 

 pots and all, into a shaded spot of the garden. They 

 will bloom again next winter. Finally, during all 

 these June days, weed, cultivate and transplant. 



SEED BED 

 BEETS LATER. 



BEETS 



ASPARAGUS m 

 SEED LETTUCE -» 



(1) MUSTARD « 

 (Z) ENDIVE •*> 



CARROTS *» 



(1) BEANS *' 



(2) LETTUCE « 



(0 EARLX LETTUCE 

 & KIDNEY BEANS * 



(!) EARLY LETTUCE 

 (Z) LENTILS 



LIMA BEANS u 



BRUSSELS SPROUTS 

 FLAX, zz 



(l) BEANS. f 

 (Z)KOnLRABJ. )l 



TREE f 

 ONIONS 



CHIVES 



BORAGE 

 J 



PARSLEY 

 4 



POLE 

 BEANS 



SUMMER CABBAGE s 



SWEET CORN » 



CABBAGE « 



KALE « 



KOHL-RABI a 



SPIMACN >■> 



ONLONS 



(J) RADISN 

 (Z) COLLARDS 



CUCUMBERS ■' 



TOMATOES /s 

 KONL-RABI f«<*«0 



POTATOES » 



There are thirty-four kinds of vegetables in this 

 16 x 8 ft. garden 



