92 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 
March, 1912 
Planning and Planting the Home Vegetable Garden 
By F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by Nathan R. Graves 
HERE can be no doubt that the home vege- 
table garden in America is yearly growing 
more popular. The two most important rea- 
sons for this desirable development are 
obvious. In the first place, vegetables fresh 
from one’s own garden are incomparably 
better in quality than those which may be had of the green- 
grocer; and, in the second place, there is the fun of the 
thing; the fun of planting and managing, even if one cannot 
do the actual work, though I hazard the guess that if you 
once get interested in the game you will not stop short of 
slipping on some comfortable old clothes and getting right 
down in the good old dirt. 
At bottom we all have the in- 
stinct for it, and it is a good, 
normal, healthy, pleasure- 
giving instinct, too. Wholly 
aside from these considera- 
tions, and worth giving a 
thought to in these days of 
the “high cost of living,” is 
the fact that the home gar- 
den is a money-saver. For 
several seasons the prices of 
fresh vegetables have been 
high, and are likely to be so 
for several more to come. 
The home garden makes a 
very direct appeal to the 
family bookkeeper. 
SELECTING THE GARDEN 
SITE 
By no means the least of 
garden pleasures is the feel- 
ing that you have proved 
yourself an efhcient gardener 
by going your neighbor one 
better and getting corn or 
tomatoes, for instance, ear- 
lier than he does. In almost 
all garden operations, the 
question of earliness is a very 
important one. LEarliness 
depends upon both .“‘expos- 
ure’ and soil. The garden 
site should, where possible, 
slope gently to the south or 
A Celery garden that is almost as attractive as a field of flowers 
southeast. It should also have protection on the north or 
northwest. This is a point the importance of which is too 
little recognized. A hedge, wall or building so sheltering 
a small garden plot will frequently make a difference of 
several days in the growing of crops. If no such sheltered 
spot is available, it is often feasible to put up a cheap board 
fence as a shield. This offers, incidentally, an ideal spot for 
coldframes or hotbeds, as indicated in the plan on page 97. 
The character of the soil also determines the earliness of 
both operations and crops. ‘The ideal soil is what is known 
as a light sandy loam—the sort that does not stay “soggy” 
long after a rain, that will readily crumble apart again after be- 
ing compressed in the hand. 
Upon my own place there is 
a long strip of land ideally 
“exposed”? — sheltered by a 
hill and a long stone wall, 
which makes a regular pocket 
for the first Spring sunshine; 
but it is never ready to work 
until a week or ten days after 
my garden is started, be- 
cause it is a “muck” loam. 
One must balance the argu- 
ments for and against any 
particular spot for the gar- 
den site, and pick out the best 
available. Do not worry if 
you can’t get something “just 
right.” Every season’s work 
and observation of the re- 
sults obtained by others 
under adverse conditions 
convinces one more and more 
that it is the man (or the 
woman), not the soil, that 
determines the degree of 
success to be achieved. Fur- 
ther, do not feel that the 
garden must be stuck some- 
where “out of sight.” The 
garden may be made an at- 
as is demonstrated more 
fully further on in this article. 
PREPARING THE SOIL 
Another feature which the 
tractive feature of the place, © 
