86 
THE GARDEN M A G A Z I N E 
IS THE HOTBED MADE UP YET 
don’t let the new cuttings run away 
A BOL T the first and the most important 
out-door job for the month is the making 
of the hotbed. No matter how wintery no 
time should be lost in getting ready to plant. 
We gave directions for the preparation of the 
manure last month. After the bed is made up, 
wait until the temperature begins to drop — 
gets down to about 85 to 80 degrees F. — be- 
fore you begin to plant — hardy things first, 
and toward the end of the month the tender 
things. While seeds may be sown directly 
in the soil it will really save time, and be more 
convenient in caring for them later, to make a 
few flats for sowing. In this case, a corner of 
the bed may be left with only a couple of inches 
or so of soil, over the manure, where the seed 
flats may be put. 
KEEP ’em FROM CHOKING EACH OTHER! 
CEEDLINGS started last month in the 
^ greenhouse or the early hotbed needing 
close watching and transplant just as soon 
as they are large enough. The better the start 
they get the more danger there is that they 
will injure each other if left even a few days 
too long. Many gardeners transplant di- 
rectly into the soil in the frames. If you have 
been in the habit of doing that, try at least 
part of your plants in flats this season. Make 
them deep enough — at least three inches, and 
for cauliflower and second transplanting of 
tomatoes better three and a half. 
TRANSPLANTING FOR BEGINNERS 
T RANSPLANTING: (1) Go to it just as 
soon as the seedlings are big enough to 
handle. — (2) Don’t feel that you must save 
every little seedling; discard the weak ones at 
the beginning and give the others the room 
they would have taken up. — (3) Don’t do a 
“wobbly looking” job; put the stems well down 
into the soil; almost up to the seed leaves. 
— (4) Sift the soil before transplanting (saves 
finger nails, temper and time!). — {5) Put 
a layer of old manure or compost in the 
bottom of each flat, and press the soil down 
firmly, especially in corners and along sides, 
before you begin to plant. — (6) If no manure 
is available, mix a fourth to a third of 
“ humus,” and a sprinkling of bone meal flour, 
with the soil. — (7) Water the soil thoroughly — 
preferably by placing the flat for a few min- 
utes in a shallow pan or tub and letting it soak 
up from below — before transplanting. Water 
only lightly, to settle the soil, afterward, and 
withhold water for a few days. — (8) Keep the 
plants shaded from hot sun until they “take 
hold.” — (9) Keep in same temperature in 
which they were growing for a week or two, 
when they can be removed to a cooler place, 
such as cold-frames. 
FOR EXTRA FANCY PLANTS, USE POTS! 
A LL plants, whether vegetables or flowers — 
from which extra early results are wanted, 
should be pot-grown. Just try a couple of 
dozen cabbage and lettuce plants in small 
paper pots or dirt bands and set them out 
side by side with flat-grown ones, and note 
the results. For tomatoes, egg-plants, etc., 
four or five inch pots should be used. You can 
set out tomato plants with the first fruit clus- 
ters set and well started as easily as not if 
you will take the trouble to grow the plants. 
And with the handy, inexpensive plant pro- 
tectors now available, you can set them out a 
week or ten days sooner than heretofore. 
W HAT was said in regard to attending 
to transplanting strictly on time applies 
equally to the cuttings put in during the last 
few weeks — only more so! You can see when 
the seedlings are spoiling for attention, but 
the cuttings are likely to get away from you 
underground, before you realize it. The best 
time to “pot up” is when the newly formed 
little roots are but a quarter to a half inch long; 
after they get that far a few days’ neglect may 
allow them to get two or three inches long, and 
in a tangle that will mean breaking off many 
of them in potting, without there being any 
noticeable change in the tops to give warning. 
POINTERS FOR BEGINNERS 
DOTTING: (1) Get at 'em early: better a 
A root just pushing out than two inches long; 
it will come all right in the pot. — (2) Don't use 
DO THIS MONTH 
Send orders that are stili delayed. 
Investigate new garden tools and helps. 
Make-up the hot bed. 
Sow early vegetables at once if not already 
started. 
T ransplant seedlings as soon as ready. 
Provide paper pots for extra strong plants. 
Pot off cuttings as fast as rooted. 
Select or start plants for cut flowers in April and 
early May. 
Start roots or bulbs for potting up. 
Get coldframes into commission. 
Prune grapes before first warm days. 
Prune cane fruits as soon as possible. 
Haul and prepare pea-brush and bean poles. 
PLANT THIS MONTH 
Vegetables Under Class; for forcing in the hot- 
house: cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, dwarf beans. 
In the coolhouse or frames: beets, carrots, lettuce, 
cauliflower, onion sets, peas, radishes, and spinach. 
Under glass for setting out: second plantings of 
beets, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce; and in the first 
part of the month, or by the middle, according to 
locality, first plantings of celery, egg-plant, peppers, 
okra, and tomatoes. 
Out of doors, as soon as ground can be worked: 
plant onion sets; sow smooth peas, lettuce, onions, 
radish, beets, Swiss chard, spinach, and early 
turnips; also celery for plants to be transplanted 
later; and where favorable, well hardened lettuce, 
beet, and cabbage plants from seed sown early 
last month. 
Flowers; Under Glass For Next Fall or Winter 
Use: Begonias, Primulas, Fuchsias, Cineraria, As- 
paragus, Smilax and others mentioned last month, 
from seed. Carnations, Chrysanthemums, etc., 
from cuttings. 
For cut flowers for spring: Clarkia, Calliopsis, As- 
ters, Snapdragons, Gypsophila, Mignonette, etc., 
for transplanting to greenhouse or frames. 
Outside as soon as soil can be worked: Sweet Peas. 
Also transplant or divide, early blooming hardy 
perennials in variety as Pansies and English Dai- 
sies. 
Bulbs under glass, start: Caladiums, Callas, Am- 
aryllis, Oxalis, for summer blooming porch plants; 
and Cannas and Dahlias for setting outside later 
when weather is warm. 
big pots; two inch for most things, or two and 
a half for extra stout Geraniums, will be better 
than larger. If you get stuck and have to use 
big pots, put in plenty of drainage material, 
and place several cuttings in each, near the 
edge. — (3) Use freshly sifted soil, with a little 
sand added if it is heavy; fill the pot, if a small 
one, level full; put the rooted cutting well 
down into it; rap the bottom firmly against 
the bench to settle the soil; press it down still 
firmer with the thumbs; and the job is done! 
After treatment same as for transplanted 
plants. 
don’t LEAVE A HOLE IN THE SPRING 
/''AFTEN there is a gap in the supply of 
cutflowers between the time the winter 
sorts begin to fail, and the first good things 
come out of doors. Make provision now. 
March, 1917 
against getting caught. A few plants picked 
out now and discouraged from flowering will 
bloom freely later; a few of the strongest of the 
seedlings of annuals and early blooming per- 
ennials, if given a little extra room and care 
now, and set out in a bench or in a warm 
frame, will come along two or three weeks 
earlier than the out of door things. On many 
places there are perennials that would be all 
the better for dividing in the spring, and a 
few surplus clumps taken up now and put in 
the greenhouse or a frame will flower freely. 
Look ahead ! 
START ROOTS AND BULBS FOR POTTING 
^ANNAS, Dahlias, Caladiums, I uberous 
'— 4 Begonias and similar things will give 
much quicker and surer results if well started 
before being put outside. Instead of placing 
them directly in pots place in flats of sphag- 
num and sand, on the return pipes or in some 
other warm place, and pot up when they show 
good strong sprouts. The Cannas and Dah- 
lias will be better if cut and placed with a 
single sprout to a pot. Tuberous Begonias 
should be placed at first in pots but little 
bigger than the bulbs, and repotted as they are 
grown on. 
COLD FRAMES AND SASH IN GOOD SHAPE? 
TT IS only a short time now before every 
A square foot of “glass” or cover of any kind 
that is available will be wanted for plants 
growing or being hardened off in the frames. 
Eix up frames the first good day; fix sash on a 
bad day. A good banking up with coal ashes 
or soil will do a great deal toward making an 
old leaky frame serve for another season. 
Cracks can be stuffed with sphagnum; that 
is not as good as a substantial repair, but it is 
better than having the frost strike through and 
nip something. 
LAST CALL FOR GRAPE PRUNING 
TF T HERE is one plant that will “bleed” 
more irrepressibly than anything else it is 
the grape. Also, it requires about the sever- 
est pruning of anything in the garden. So if 
this wonk is still waiting to be done, get at it 
immediately. Grape pruning is a somewhat 
complicated job — if } r ou haven’t done it be- 
fore, look up all the information you have avail- 
able on it. 
GIVE THE CANE FRUITS A CHANCE THIS YEAR 
TAID you cut out the old blackberry and 
raspberry canes last summer or fall, 
after they had fruited? If not, clean them out 
now, as soon as the snow is out of the way. And 
burn them. The new canes — last season’s 
growth — should be headed back a little; quite 
a bit, if you want them to be self-supporting. 
But don’t “prune them up” from the bottom 
“to make them look neat and trim.” 
HAVE YOU ANY PEA-BRUSH? 
T HIS is about the last chance you will 
have to get it. Have it drawn and laid 
in a long low pile, all one way, and the butts 
even. Then lay over it plank, with heavy 
stone on top, concrete fence posts, or any other 
old thing that will give it a good pressing 
down. Before it is used, you can take your 
pruning shears and snip the tops off even. 
Peabrush so “treated” will not only be much 
easier to handle, and look infinitely neater; 
it will go farther, and if space is limited, you 
can get your tall peas six to twelve inches 
closer together with it than with the just-as-it- 
comes straggly kind. 
