i82 Home Vegetable Gardening 



your garden from washing out in heavy rains, and 

 capture and save from being washed away and 

 wasted a good deal of left-over plant food; it will 

 serve as just so much real manure for your garden; 

 it will improve the mechanical condition of the soil, 

 and it will add the important element of humus 

 to it. 



In addition to these things, you will have an at- 

 tractive and luxuriant garden spot, instead of an 

 unsightly bare one. And in clearing off these 

 patches for rye, beware of w^aste. If you have hens, 

 or by chance a pig, they will relish old heads of 

 lettuce, old pea-vines, still green after the last pick- 

 ing, and the stumps and outer leaves of cabbage. 

 Even if you have not this means of utilizing your 

 garden's by-products, do not let them go to waste. 

 Put everything into a square pile — old sods, weeds, 

 vegetable tops, refuse, dirt, leaves, lawn sweepings — 

 anything that will rot. Tread this pile down thor- 

 oughly; give it a soaking once in a while if within 

 reach of the hose, and two or three turnings with a 

 fork. Next spring when you are looking for every 

 available pound of manure with which to enrich 

 your garden, this compost heap will stand you in 

 good stead. 



Burn now your old pea-brush, tomato poles and 

 everything that is not worth keeping over for next 

 year. Do not leave these things lying around to 



