Forehandedness in the Vegetable Garden 
THE REWARDS OF AN EARLY START IN THE VEGETABLE 
GARDEN PLANTING—WHAT ONE MAY DO TO GET EARLIER 
CROPS, BETTER PRODUCTS AND MORE OF THEM 
BY F. F. Rockwell 
Photographs by E. R. Rollins 
I F there is one factor that makes for successful gardening 
overlooked more often than all others, it is getting things 
done promptly on time. 
If you are making a path, or painting the barn, or construct¬ 
ing a tennis court, what you do not do to-day can be done to¬ 
morrow. Not so with the garden's operations. What should 
be done to-day and isn’t, is lost—and only a part, sometimes a 
very small part, is found by attempting to do the same thing 
later. 
The two most general causes for getting behind with the 
garden are lack of working ahead and attempting too much. 
Only great caution and some experience can obviate the latter. 
The former can be oveixome with accurate information—and 
some gumption. The benefits of getting the first spring stuff 
along early are too patent to need emphasis. Do you want to 
begin collecting profits from the investment of time and money 
put into your garden six weeks sooner than you did last year? 
Do you want to have fresh beets, and early cabbage, and sump¬ 
tuous cauliflowers days ahead 
of your routine working 
neighbor? Start things now-! 
Nor will extra early crops 
be your only reward. In 
many cases it will be possible 
for you to get a second crop, 
where under the old system 
you got only one. Your 
transplanted beets, for in¬ 
stance, will be out of the way 
in time for celery, and your 
cabbage and cauliflower for 
later sowings of beets and 
carrots for a winter's supply. 
Not only this, but the long 
season crops, such as potatoes, 
corn and pole beans, will do 
very much better if started 
early, especially in dry sea¬ 
sons, such as we seem to be 
pretty sure of getting every 
summer now. 
The number of vegetables 
which can be hustled along 
several weeks ahead of the 
t me one ordinarily sees them 
ready is much greater than generally supposed. We grow 
thousands of vegetable plants to sell every spring, and outside of 
cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes and celery there is practically no de¬ 
mand, in spite of the fact that just as great advantages are to 
be gained from forcing beets, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, 
melons, onions, squash and several others, including the humble 
potato. A complete list, with the particular methods of handling 
each, is given at the end of this article. 
To get plants as large and nearly matured as is practical be¬ 
fore setting them out in the garden, it is, of course, necessary 
to start them several weeks before the frost has left the ground. 
For this purpose the market gardener makes use of his forcing 
house, but a suitable substitute for the home gardener is to be 
found in the use of the hotbed and coldframe. 
I want to say emphatically that there is a great deal of mis¬ 
conception of the amount of knowledge and care required to 
operate a hotbed, and the cost of getting one. It is no more 
difficult than a score of other things that one has to do in con¬ 
nection with gardening — except, perhaps, that it must be done 
more regularly, as far as the item of giving air to the plants is 
concerned. If this is attended to, there is no reason why the be¬ 
ginner should not achieve success with his first attempt. 
The hotbed is simply a bottomless box, usually six feet wide, 
and approximately thirty inches deep at back and twenty-four 
inches at the front, which gives the glass “sash” used for cover- 
hig it a pitch of six inches. The length depends, of course, upon 
the number of sash to be used. These are 6x3 feet, so that 
dimension can be easily figured out. The material need not be 
expensive; any fairly straight, even edged boards will do. It 
should be placed, of course, in the warmest, most sheltered loca¬ 
tion available, facing south. 
The heating material, natu¬ 
rally, is a matter of vital im¬ 
portance. It is supplied by 
fermenting manure. Horse 
manure is the best, and it 
should be obtained in a fairly 
fresh state and mixed with 
about a third its bulk of 
leaves or short straw, and 
forked over several times to 
get it into a thorough and 
even state of fermentation. 
It is put in to the depth of 
about twelve inches, and well 
trodden down. Over this put 
four to six inches of grwd 
garden loam. 
If you have no regular hot¬ 
bed frame, and yet want to 
make use of this method this 
spring, more manure will be 
required. It must be spread 
in a flat heap on the frozen 
ground, nine feet wide, eigh¬ 
teen inches deep and eighteen 
inches beyond either end of 
the frame, which is set directly on the manure and should be 
twelve inches high at the front and eighteen at back. A cord 
of manure will make a base for three 3x6 sash — enough room 
in which to start everything for a very substantial garden — and 
the manure, after the heat is spent, is as good as ever for fer¬ 
tilizing purposes. 
A cord of manure, delivered, should cost $3 to $5. and you need 
it for your garden anyway. The frame would require 
30 ft. 12" boards 
15 ft. 6" “ 
15 ft. I x battens 
25 ft. 2 X 4 scantling 
By setting the plants out of doors during the day and later night and 
day, they will become hardy enough to transplant 
(36) 
