Easy Plans That Will Really Work 
SAVING TIME AND SPACE IN GROWING CROPS FOR BOTH WINTER AND SUMMER— THE USE AND ABUSE OF 
“COMPANION CROPS COMMON THEORIES THAT MAY MISLEAD 
D ID you ever stop to think that it 
takes you longer to change your seed 
drill from parsnips to onions than it 
does to sow all the onions you are 
likely to want? Did you ever find yourself 
having a couple of narrow strips of your garden 
ready for replanting — with a row or two of 
some vegetable that had not matured be- 
tween, so that you could neither prepare or 
plant them to the best advantage? Has it 
ever made you feel like “cussing” on a hot 
June day to find you had forgotten your 
wrench when you had to alter the width of 
the hoes on your hand cultivator — and then 
found again, later on in the afternoon’s work 
when you had to change them back to the 
original width, that the wrench was missing 
altogether, necessitating a half hour’s fretful 
search? Have you ever found that you could 
not keep ahead of your sweet com and string 
beans in the summer; and that your winter 
beets were so tough that the cook had to begin 
boiling them on wash-day to get them tender 
enough for the Sunday dinner? 
GARDENER OR MERELY GROWER 
A LL these sad conditions are the result of 
neglected garden duties somewhere back 
in February. The good “grower” is by no 
means always a good gardener. The good 
grower knows how to get big crops and to 
maintain the fertility of the soil. The good 
gardener knows not only how to do this, but 
how to secure a continuous supply of the 
things he wants, without recurrent periods 
of “over-production ” or wasteful surpluses. 
And the really efficient gardener knows not 
only how to do both these things, but his 
garden is so arranged that every hour that he 
can spend in it tells to the best advantage; 
and duplication of work, and time wasted in 
shifting from one job to another, and in mak- 
ing changes in his tools, are cut down to 
a minimum. 
REAL PLANNING VS. MAKING A PLAN 
f | 'HERE is all the difference in the world be- 
-*■ tween really planning the garden and 
“making a plan” for the garden. It is one 
thing to sit down and decide what you will 
have for your garden, and then make a 
sketch of it, covering all the things you have 
on your list; it is quite another to arrange, 
and rearrange, and then re-rearrange them, 
until you are satisfied that the combinations 
and sequences are as good or better than any 
of the dozen other combinations which are pos- 
sible. It is as complicated as a game of chess 
— and as interesting. 
First, of course, there is the question of 
what to plant and how much to plant. I 
shall not take up much space in discussing 
that point because you have probably read a 
dozen different suggestions about how to do 
it, and have your own experience in addition. 
But just as an illustration, let us ask how 
many plants of early cauliflower should be 
set out — assuming the family to consist of 
five average appetites, plus a faithful cook. 
What is the answer? From two to four heads, 
according to the size, will be required for a 
meal; say an average of three, unless you grow 
them so well that you have no small ones! 
At the time of the year when the spring- 
planted crop is maturing, a head of cauliflower 
remains in good condition for only a few days 
after reaching full size. Fortunately, how- 
ever, there is quite a variation in the time of 
heading, even among plants from the same 
seed started at the same time, so you can 
figure on having heads in good condition, 
from one planting, for from four to five weeks. 
If it is used twice a week — and that will not 
be too much if you are a genuine lover of 
cauliflower — that will make eight or ten 
gatherings, or about twenty-four to thirty 
heads, to be provided. But cauliflower is a 
rather uncertain crop, even under good con- 
28 
ditions, and it is hardly safe to figure on more 
than eighty per cent, of the planting coming 
through and making good heads. Three 
dozen, therefore, would be the amount, in 
round numbers, to set out. There is not 
space here to take up each vegetable in detail, 
but this will illustrate the fact that the thing 
can be worked out on a mathematical basis 
to a fair degree of accuracy, if you want to 
take the pains to do it. The arrangement of 
the different plantings for the greatest economy 
and efficiency is what we are emphasizing 
now. 
WHAT ABOUT SECOND USE? 
TN THE majority of gardens the most 
important thing to keep in mind in ar- 
ranging or grouping the vegetables to be 
planted, is to make provision for a profitable 
second use of the space available. On a farm 
or a large place where the garden room is not 
at all limited, it may save some time and 
trouble to make only one planting, following 
each crop as it is removed with a catch or 
cover crop to be turned under in the fall or 
the following spring. In this' way the soil 
may be kept stuffed with humus, a rotation 
of crops is secured, and the difficulties of 
garden management are reduced to a mini- 
mum. But most of us are not so fortunate, 
and as much of the space available as possible 
must be utilized at least twice to produce all 
the garden stuff we can profitably make use of. 
As ordinarily planned, each row of vegetables 
is to be followed by a row of something else 
as soon as it is removed. 
This arrangement, however, has two dis- 
tinct disadvantages. It leads the gardener into 
temptation by inducing him to follow a crop 
by a succession planting of the same thing or 
of something similar — such as wax beans 
after early string beans, or late cabbage after 
early cauliflower. This is always undesirable, 
and dangerously so if any disease or insect 
