TOMATO, Jubilee CANTALOUPE, Hale's Best EGG PLANT, Black Beauty 



HOW? WHEN? WHERE? WHY? 



_ . ..'..'../.. . /. 



Extra Feeding 



DON'T DEPEND on organic matter 

 only for feeding your vegetables. 

 While it has some fertility value, it 

 won't provide enough. Remember 

 that vegetables growing in a garden 

 are in an artificial environment. You 

 don't want natural growth; you want 

 crops to mature as soon as possible, 

 and this means extra feeding with 

 suitable fertilizers. Properly used, 

 chemical fertilizers furnish plant food 

 at lowest cost in most readily avail- 

 able form. 



DO make provisions for extra feed- 

 ings through the summer as plants 

 grow and take fertility from the soil. 



When to Use Lime 



DON'T apply lime unless it is really 

 needed! It is good, of course, for the 

 purpose of breaking up heavy clay 

 soil. A good check on the need for 

 lime is the way your beets grow. Usu- 

 ally a garden soil that will grow good 

 beets contains enough lime. If beets 

 do poorly, or if sheep sorrel grows 

 vigorously, apply about 50 lbs. of 

 hydrated lime or 100 lbs. of ground 

 limestone to every 1,000 sq. ft. of 

 garden. If you have a pH tester, most 

 flowers and vegetables grow well in a 

 soil that tests between 6.0 and 7.0. 



Before You Dig 



Before digging or plowing the garden, 

 apply 2V 2 to 3 lbs. of balanced fer- 

 tilizer over every 100 sq. ft. of garden. 

 Divide fertilizer into two lots, sowing 

 one with the wind and the other 



across the wind. Or, better yet, use 

 a fertilizer spreader. 

 Next, make a mud pie test. Pick up 

 a handful of soil and pat it lightly 

 into a mud pie or cake. If this can be 

 crumbled into loose soil easily, the soil 

 is all right to dig. If it hangs together, 

 it is too wet: don't dig. 



Spading the Garden 



The average home garden can be dug 

 easily in five or six days, if done in 

 stages. Usually, a hand-dug garden is 

 in better condition than one that has 

 been plowed. Start by digging a 

 trench the depth and width of a spade. 

 Wheel the dirt from this trench around 

 to the other side of the garden, where 

 you plan to finish digging. Throw the 

 dirt from succeeding rows into the 

 trench made by the previous spade 

 cut. The last cut is then filled with 

 the earth wheeled from the first. 



Spading vs. Plowing 



DON'T allow bad plowing to spoil 

 your soil. Many a garden plot has 

 been ruined by a heavy tractor that 

 worked it too wet. Be sure your soil 

 passes the mud pie test before you 

 allow a plowman to touch it. Too 

 often, regular farm equipment is too 

 heavy for working garden soils. 

 DON'T work your soil too much. Re- 

 member that after you finish digging 

 or plowing, your soil has been fluffed 

 up and loosened, so plant roots can 

 grow through it easily. Every time 

 you go over it you are packing it 

 down, making it less suitable for 



Practical answers to every-day 

 questions about home gardening 



> growing plants. Most inexperienced 

 gardeners overdo surface preparation 

 i by trying to work the surface into a 

 fine dust. Clods should be broken up, 

 : stones rakea off and trash removed, 

 within sensible limits. If the soil was 

 dug at the right mud pie point, most 

 lumps should break up without too 

 much additional cultivation. 



DO use a cord or garden line stretched 

 across the garden in laying out rows. 

 Crooked rows increase the work 

 needed. Also, they waste space. Open 

 furrows for sowing seed by running 

 the end of a hoe handle along a taut 

 cord. For most seeds this should not 

 be more than y 2 " deep; 1" deep for 

 peas, beans, corn, etc. Fine seeds 

 should not be covered more than l /* n 

 in the furrow. If your soil cakes or 

 crusts badly, use clean sand, or a 

 mixture of 50/50 sand and leaf mold, 

 or peat moss, to cover the seed. This 

 loose mixture does not cake and al- 

 lows the tender seedlings to break 

 through readily. 



Where it is important to catch light 

 rainfall, corn, peas, beans, etc. can be 

 sown at the bottom of a 3" to 4" fur- 

 row, but should not be covered with 

 more than 1" of soil. 



1 A hill is a hole! Many gardeners think 

 a "hill" for planting squash, cucum- 

 bers and melons is actually a pile of 

 earth. But a hill means a shallow de- 

 pression filled with rich earth, not a 

 mound. This depression catches extra 

 moisture that the vine crops need for 

 rapid growth. Vine crops will grow 

 better if you can dig in lots of well- 

 rotted manure or compost underneath. 



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