March 2*, W91. ) 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
237 
L OUDOIf says :—“The arrangement and laying out of a kitchen 
garden embraces a variety of considerations, some relative to 
local circumstances, as situation, exposure, and soil, and others 
■depending on the skill of the artist, as form, laying out of the area, 
:and water. Both require the utmost deliberation ; for next to a 
badly designed ill-placed house, a misplaced, ill-arranged, and un¬ 
productive kitchen garden is the greatest evil of a country resi¬ 
dence.” I have never laid out a brand new kitchen garden of any 
great size, but I have renovated and remodelled four large kitchen 
gardens in different parts of the country, made new walks in some 
of them, levelled and relaid old walks with Box edging m others. 
‘Old useless trees have been grubbed out, and where the soil was 
thin I generally dug it out to the depth of 3 feet and made it up 
’with good earth, drained, trenched, and manured the ground accord¬ 
ing to its requirements. Young fruit trees were planted in all of 
them, both in open quarters and borders, by the sides of walks, and 
at the bottom of walls, and in some of these gardens I have had the 
pleasure of seeing them grow and make fine fruitful specimens. 
In making a new garden we mast be guided to a great extent by 
circumstances. The size must be determined by the requirements 
of the family, the nature of the soil, situation, and climate. Poor 
light soil will not produce the same quantity of vegetables on a 
giv’en space that good rich land will, therefore the latter will yield 
more and better vegetables than almost double the space of the 
former. 
The situation and climate must be taken into consideration. 
Low damp sites should be avoided if possib’e. The garden must 
be open to the south, and well sheltered from the north, east, 
nnd west winds, by plantations at some little distance, and 
enclosed on all sides by walls from 13 to 14 feet high, according 
to its size, for growing choice fruits. A slip of grorfnd may be 
left outside the walls so that they can be utilised for training- 
fruit trees on both sides. If the walls are built of stone they 
ought to be faced with bricks inside and out, and arrangements 
made when building for placing a temporary coping of wood, to 
project 6 inches from the top of them for protecting the trees 
from frost when in bloom, and the fruits from rain in the 
^autumn. This coping can be placed so that it may be easily 
removed, and stored away when it is not required. If the walls 
are wired it will be a great saving to them, as it will obviate the 
necessity of driving nails into them when training the trees. 
In laying out a kitchen garden make it, if possible, in the 
form of a parallelogram, and a little longer north and south than 
■east and west, in order to shorten the north aspect of the wall, 
which is of little service in some localities for growing choice 
fruits. It is a rare occurrence, even on a small scale of a few' 
^cres, to find a piece of ground all one level, and the soil of one 
uniform depth. Therefore it is necessary before building the 
walls that the ground be levelled to suit the situation, no matter 
W'hether it is a dead level or an inclined plane, or a series of 
inclined planes ; the cheapest and best way is to keep the levels 
as near to the natural inclination of the ground as possible, so as 
to make the garden harmonise with the adjacent ground when it 
is finished. After the levels of the walls have been fixed the 
walks can be levelled. These should be made first, but not 
finished with gravel. If necessary, a drain should be put in the 
No. 561 .—Yol. XXII., Third Series. 
centre of each walk with cesspools and gratings at suitable dis¬ 
tances apart, to carry off the surface water during heavy rain¬ 
falls, and, if found needful, drains from any of the quarters of 
the garden may be led into them. 
When the walks have been made, the different quarters of the 
garden should bo trenched and the surface levelled to suit the 
walks. In places w'herc the ground is too high the surface soil 
should be removed when trenching, and the subsoil taken out to 
the depth of 2^ feet or more below the level of the Box edging 
according to the nature of the soil, and the good earth put back 
on the top ; and in places where the ground is too low the surface 
soil should be taken off in the same way and the low places filled 
to the bottom level w'ith the subsoil taken from the high places, 
and the good earth put back on the top of this. The soil in the 
w'all borders need not be more than 2 feet deep, which should slope 
gently from the foot of the wall to the walk in front of it. It is 
a well-known fact that Peach and other fruit trees produce better 
crops and finer fruits when grown in borders of this depth than in 
those that are deeper. The roots in shallow borders have more heat 
and air by being near the surface, and in consequence the trees ripen 
their wood better than those planted in deep borders in which the 
roots penetrate away from the influence of the sun. 
The forcing and plant houses, lean-to and span-roofed pits and 
frames, and indeed all the garden offices, should be arranged so as 
to occupy the north end of the garden with a straight gravel walk 
in front of them. This arrangement, if carried out, will allow the 
main portion of the garden to be laid out in regular quarters, which 
look better, and are easier worked and cropped, than ground which 
is broken up with houses placed hei’e and there. Besides that, the 
garden wall look better, and it will not be shaded, and will have 
the full benefit of all sunshine, and a free current of air 
tlu’oughout. 
The walks should be gravel, and in moderate sized gardens not 
less than G feet wide, and run parallel to the walls. I think Box 
edging preferable to all others for a kitchen garden if kept in 
proper order. The ground along the sides of the walk (where the 
Box is to be laid) must be made firm, smooth, and level before it is 
nitched out to receive the Box edging. The nitch should be cut 
with a gentle slope towards the inside of the walk, against which 
the Box is laid, and the roots covered with earth as the work pro¬ 
ceeds, and tramped firmly with the feet before finishing it off and 
removing the earth not needed to support it. 
The inside wall borders may be from 20 to 24 feet wide and the 
outer borders in the slip from 12 to 14 feet, according to the size of 
the garden, with a walk in the centre of the garden and one or 
more cross walks according to circumstances. A good supply of 
water is absolutely necessary in all kitchen gardens. In places 
where it is practicable to have it by gravitation pipes should be laid 
round the walks and hydrants placed at suitable distances, so that 
the fruit trees can be syringed and cleaned when required 
with little trouble, and other crops watered in dry seasons.— 
A. Pettigrew, Canlijf. 
[In another column will be found the plan of a kitchen garden, 
for which Mr. Hugh Pettigrew, foreman in Cardiff Castle Gardens, 
was awarded the prize offered by the Cardiff Gardeners’ Mutual 
Improvement Association. The prize consisted of a set of drawing 
instruments, given by Messrs. Stephen Treseder and Alfred Kettle- 
well. Mr. Pettigrew, sen., in sending the plan for our inspection 
sent also the above notes of his own experience, possibly thinking 
those of his promising young son a little lacking in practical 
details. Be this as it may, we have pleasure in publishing both 
contributions, and they will be suggestive to persons who are 
either contemplating the formation of new or the renovation of old 
gardens. The plan, as will be seen, is a good one. The original 
is 25 by 17 inches, drawn to a scale of 20 feet to an inch ; it is 
admirably executed, and if the father can excel the son in writing 
we doubt very much if, wflth all his talent, he could have surpassel 
No. 2217.—Yol. LXXXIY., Old Series. 
