The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
541 
Dirt Bands for Early Planting 
D VANTAGES SECURED.—Vegetable garden¬ 
ers have long known the advantages of having 
pot-grown plants for their early settings of tomato, 
pepper, cabbage and cauliflower plants. A pot-grown 
tomato plant, many times, will set and ripen fruit 
a .week or 10 days before tomatoes may be picked 
from an ordinary frame-grown plant set the same 
date. The reason is apparent. A bed-grown plant, 
when pulled up for transplanting to the field, has 
the roots badly disturbed and torn loose from the 
surrounding earth, while the pot-grown plant, to a 
certain extent, has its roots protected from this 
mutilation, as they never have become fastened to 
the surrounding bed soil. For the purpose of this 
root protection dirt bands are becoming more popu¬ 
lar each year, as more gardeners become ac¬ 
quainted with their merits. The old-fashioned clay 
pots, in their day, were a splendid help in securing 
strong, sturdy plants for early setting, but then 
great drawback was their extreme weight, their 
great danger of breakage and the inconvenience of 
having to save and store them from 
year to year. Also the first cost was 
excessive, and prohibited the use of a 
sufficient number to carry on sucess- 
ful operations unless a gardener was 
possessed of a great amount of capital 
which he was willing to permanently 
tie up. The advent of dirt bands did 
away with breakage, storage, handling 
of empties, and by their cheapness they 
obviated the necessity of tying up any 
great amount of capital. 
HOW BAND IS MADE. — A dirt 
band is simply a ring or strip of paper 
which can be filled with soil. A 3-in. 
dirt band, which is the standard size, 
can be made by cutting a sheet of 
wrapping paper into 3-in. strips, each 
strip about 10 in. long, and pasting 
the ends together so it is formed into 
a ring. When this is done you have a 
dirt band. Of course they can oc 
purchased readymade more cheaply 
than one can make them at home, a 
3-in. pot or band costing around $3 per 
thousand, and much less in larger 
quantities. Some bands come creased 
so that they open square instead of 
round, thus taking up less room in 
the greenhouse. 
HOW THEY ARE USED.—To use 
properly these bands are placed in 
flats that will hold perhaps 24 when 
filled with earth. The operation is as 
follows: The flats, about 4 in. deep, 
made from cases in which canned 
goods are shipped, have first a paper 
sheet placed in the bottom. This sheet 
generally is an old newspaper folded 
to fit the flat. Then the bands are 
placed on this paper and filled with 
suitable soil. They are then ready to receive the 
seed or plants which are later to be transplanted 
to the field. The care given these bands is just the 
same as the care given to an equal number of earth¬ 
en-potted plants. The use of the false paper bot¬ 
toms in the flats is simply for the purpose of pre¬ 
venting the roots of the plants in the bands from 
growing out of the bottom of the bands and fasten¬ 
ing 'to the bottom of the flats as they do when no 
paper is used. The paper is a sort of insulator or 
protector which tears away from the bottom of the 
flat when the bands are lifted out. 
SETTING PLANTS.—When ready for the field 
the flats are placed on wagons or other means of 
transportation, carried to the field, and set along 
the rows at proper distances. Then a man takes a 
trowel in one hand and the flat under his arm and 
walks along the rows. He inserts the trowel under 
a band, between it and the false bottom, and lifts 
the band and its contents on his trowel and trans¬ 
fers the bottomless band to the proper place where 
it is to stay. Dirt is drawn about the band and the 
work is done. The roots soon start out from the 
bottomless band and quickly fasten to the surround¬ 
ing soil. There is no time lost in jarring and knock¬ 
ing the sides of the band, as is done with the earth¬ 
en pot, and there is no crumbling of the dirt away 
from the roots, as sometimes happens when one tries 
to pry a plant from the old-style pot. You simply 
drop the dirt bands in place and do not have to come 
back and tramp down the ground picking up the 
empties. The only empties are the flats, one to 
each 24 plants. 
the field and planted as a second crop to follow 
after peas, bean's, cabbage, etc. By this method the 
cucumbers get away from the striped bug or beetle, 
as you can easily protect them in the frames, and 
when taken to the field they are large enough to 
grow away from the beetles if given half care. The 
better a person becomes acquainted with bands the 
greater variety of uses he will find for them. It 
will well repay any gardener to keep on hand a 
thousand or more of each of the 2-in. and 3-in. 
sizes, for he will find some use for them at all times 
during the growing season. c. o. wahvorij. 
A Small Garden for Eight People 
I have a plot of ground plowed last Fall about 250 
ft. square. I want to raise on this sufficient vegetables 
this Summer to supply.a family of eight and also pro¬ 
vide sufficient excess to do enough canning to last until 
next season : in other words have this ground raise 
enough to keep the family for a year. Is it possible 
to do this? If so will you let me have a plan for the 
best lay-out of the ground, quantities to plant and 
sequence of the different crops, name and quantity of 
the best fertilizer for my purpose? o. m. a. 
T certainly is possible to grow 
enough vegetables to supply a larger 
family than eight on a plot of ground 
250 ft. square by following this plan: 
Two rows of Early Ohio potatoes; 
four rows Green Mountain potatoes; 
two rows Mayflower sweet corn; two 
rows Metropolitan sweet corn; one 
row Alaska peas; two rows Hundred¬ 
fold peas; one-half row Bonny Best 
tomatoes; one and a half row Stone to¬ 
matoes; one row Rocky Ford musk- 
melons; one row Mountain Sweet wa¬ 
termelons; one row sweet potatoes; 
one row bush or pole Lima beans; one- 
half row Refugee wax beans: one-half 
row Stringless green beans; one-quar¬ 
ter row Charleston Wakefield cab¬ 
bage; three rows All Season cabbage; 
one row Crosby Egyptian beets: one- 
half row Danvers carrots; one-half 
row New Model parsnip; one-half row 
Erfurt Early cauliflower; one row 
Easy Blanching celery; one row Em¬ 
peror celery; one-quarter row cucum¬ 
ber; the same of Ruby King pepper 
and New York eggplant; one row of 
Big Boston and New York lettuce; one 
row I’rizetaker onion seed: one-half 
row Crimson Giant radish: the same 
of Victoria spinach; one-half row Bos¬ 
ton Marrow squash; one-half row Pur¬ 
ple Top and rutabaga turnip. 
If the rows are each 250 ft. long, the 
above list will take loss than half of 
the plot mentioned. The rows of mel¬ 
ons and squashes should be <> ft. apart. 
The peas, potatoes, sweet corn, toma¬ 
toes, eggplants, peppers, cabbage, cel¬ 
ery and cauliflower should be 3 ft.; 
beans, 2 ft.; beets, carrots, onions, pars¬ 
nips, lettuce, radishes, onions, and turnips, 4 ft. 
apart. After the potatoes are dug a second planting 
of turnips, spinach, lettuce and string beans can 
be made and when the peas, lettuce and spinach 
are off, late sweet corn, cauliflower and celery can 
be planted. The quantity of seed needed for the 
above would be about as follows: One peck early 
potatoes, half bushel late potatoes, one pint early 
sweet corn, one pint late sweet corn. 1 lb. Alaska 
peas, 2 lbs. Hundredfold peas, 40 Bonny Best to¬ 
mato plants, 100 Stone tomato plants, one packet 
muskmelon, one packet watermelon, 125 sweet po¬ 
tato plants, 1 lb. Lima beans, 1 lb. Refugee wax 
beans, 1 lb. stringless green beans (two plantings), 
two dozen early cabbage plants, four dozen All Sea¬ 
son cabbage, 1 oz. beet seed, % oz. carrot, y» oz. 
parsnip, four dozen cauliflower plants, 500 Easy 
Blanching celery, 500 Emperor celery, one packet 
cucumber seed, two dozen pepper plants, one dozen 
eggplants, 250 lettuce plants, 1 oz. onion seed or 4 
qts. sets, 1 oz. radish seed, 2 oz. Victoria spinach, 
2 oz. Bloomsdale spinach for Fall, one packet squash, 
1 oz. turnip. 
Fertilizer running about 4-10-S should be used, 
where potatoes, peas and beans are planted. Pull 
a little soil over them, then sow fertilizer, about an 
ordinary pailful on row, and cover this lightly with 
more earth. Where melons, cucumbers and squash 
are planted, put a large handful in each hill, and 
mix thoroughly with the earth a week or two be¬ 
fore planting seed. Where the tomato, eggplants, 
cabbage, peppers and cauliflower are planted sow a 
small handful around each plant, and work in 
COEN AND LIMA BEANS.—Dirt bands are cheap 
enough to be used for crops such as sweet corn and 
Lima beans, crops which it is almost impossible to 
transplant successfully. For these crops the 2-in. 
bands are ideal. Three kernels of sweet corn may 
be planted in a dirt band of this size, and when 
the stalks are 3 in. high the bands can be taken to 
the field and set in the permanent positions. With 
2-in. bands nearly 700 hills of corn may be started 
under a 3x0 sash. Planted two in each band, Lima 
beans get two weeks’ start before it is safe to plant 
in the open ground, and when transferred to the 
field they are almost large enough and tough enough 
to withstand the onslaughts of the slugs and snails 
which many times are the means of blasting the 
hopes of the bean grower. 
FILLING IN MISSING HILLS.—Another use 
of the bands is for the purpose of starting pumpkin 
seeds in order that they may be set out in spaces 
left where hills of sweet corn have missed, thus 
leaving vacant spots in the corn field. Replanting 
of bills of early sweet corn is very unsatisfactory 
MRS. F. H. UNGER 
One of the most popular contributors The R. N.-Y. lias ever 
from J:lie reason that the grower wishes the crop to 
mature and be pulled in a short season, and lias no 
time to bother going over the field several extra 
times to gather the ears from bills that have been 
replanted. Pumpkins fill in here perfectly. Two 
or three weeks after corn lias been planted we go 
over tlie cornfield, and where we find a vacant bill 
due to crows, wireworms, etc., we set a dirt band 
containing two or three pumpkin vines 3 in. high. 
The regular cultivation of the corn takes care of 
these bills, and later on we have several pumpkins 
to sell. This is done where the growers are in the 
habit of sowing at the last cultivation some cover 
crop such as Alsike, vetch or rye. If it is intended 
to plow the cornstalks under as soon as tlie ears 
are gathered, then, of course, tlie dirt bands with 
pumpkins are not used. 
GROWING SECOND CROPS.—But it is not only 
in growing early tomatoes, peppers, etc. that the 
dirt bands have a place, but they are even more 
important as helps in growing the later or second 
crops. We have been taught to believe that the late 
or second follow-up crops are such as cabbage, 
cauliflower, lettuce and the other so-called hardy 
crops, the ones that in the latitude of New York 
City would naturally be set out not later than Au¬ 
gust 1 to mature by freezing weather. But by using 
dirt bands, we can set cucumbers, etc., in August 
and secure a crop the same season. It is very little 
trouble to plant a few thousand dirt bands of cu¬ 
cumber seeds say about July 1. the date of planting 
pickles here. They will grow splendidly in the 
bands until August 1, when they can be taken to 
