50 Home Vegetable Gardening 



Wood ashes form another valuable manure which 

 should be carefully saved. Beside the plant food 

 contained, they have a most excellent effect upon the 

 mechanical condition of almost every soil. Ashes 

 should not be put in the compost heap, because there 

 are special uses for them, such as dusting on squash 

 or melon vines, or using on the onion bed, which 

 makes it desirable to keep them separate. Wood 

 ashes may frequently be bought for fifty cents a 

 barrel, and at this price a few barrels for the home 

 garden will be a good investment. 



Coal ashes contain practically no available plant 

 food, but are well worth saving to use on stiflF soils, 

 for paths, etc. 



VALUE OF GREEN MANURING 



Another source of organic manures, altogether 

 too little appreciated, is what is termed "green 

 manuring" — the plowing under of growing crops to 

 enrich the land. Even in the home garden this sys- 

 tem should be taken advantage of whenever possible. 

 In farm practice, clover is the most valuable crop 

 to use for this purpose, but on account of the length 

 of time necessary to grow it, it is useful for the vege- 

 table garden only when there is sufficient room to 

 have clover growing on, say, one half-acre plot, 

 while the garden occupies, for two years, another 

 half-acre; and then changing the two about. This 



