April, 1912 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
29 
all the time in that I could afford I sowed my flower seeds; the 
last of jNIay I planted dahlias and gladioli. 
I had never made a vegetable garden, and was doubtful, all 
winter, as to whether I should. But the knowledge that fresh 
vegetables are not always to be had here as in the city market and 
a nervous dread of the weeds and desolation that would reign in 
the unworked part sent me at it. Not counting the strawberry 
bed, it measures twenty feet by fifty. Fifty cents ploughed and 
dragged it — deviled it, the Man said — and it really seemed as 
though the plough had left quack grass unturned while meanly 
hunting stones to throw up. More raking; a larger mausoleum! 
The sand that was left, between stones, was so very light that 
I bought fifty pounds of pulverized sheep manure to use on it. 
I was so ignorant of vegetable growing that I had to consult 
neighbors or magazines to learn when to plant, how much, how 
far apart, etc. I sowed radishes, two short rows of lettuce and 
a pint of Telephone peas. I planted ten hills of Evergreen corn 
and, ten days later, ten more hills, with pie pumpkin seed in 
everv other one. I planted four hills of White Spine cucumber, 
nine hills of Osage 
musk melons, twelve 
Dwarf Stone tomato 
plants, a dozen early 
cabbage plants and a 
short row of carrots. 
I used two large 
trowelfuls of the 
sheep manure for 
every hill and scat¬ 
tered it generously in 
the seed trenches, 
mixing it well with 
the earth. 
We had a very wet 
spring, which was 
bad, because every¬ 
thing rooted close to 
the surface, though 
all grew vigorously 
.and looked fine. “You 
must have bewitched 
the ground — it never 
:grew things like this 
before — but just you 
wait till July,” said 
■everybody. 
I waited, and I 
-hoed. There were 
weeds enough, after 
their previous years 
of reveling there, to keep me going; but when they were slaugh¬ 
tered I kept at it. From mid-May to mid-July I was the Woman 
with the Hoe. I knew that with the summer drouth would come 
the garden’s question, to be or not to be; for I had no water ex- 
'Cept in the well on the place; and pump water I would not, 
for flowers or vegetables either. 
The radishes and lettuce came on and were crisp and delicious, 
the radishes of wonderful size and the only unwormy ones grown 
■on sand around here, which I cannot account for. The hot 
weather hit the peas just as they were filling, and they struck 
then and there. We had three meals from them and pulled them 
up to make room for perennial seedlings — but peas were then 
eighty cents a peck, so we enjoyed them. 
The cut worms took five of my twelve tomato plants, and I 
saved the rest by putting bottomless tin cans around them. The 
manure and hoeing must have suited their notions, for they 
rthrove amazingly, and we had ripe tomatoes in plenty on 
the table from the last of July on until early in the autumn. 
The grapes were a great surprise. The way the stubby things 
began to eat and grow in the spring was astonishing, and they set 
full of bunches and brought them to luscious green and purple 
maturity with a fervor of gratitude for my well-meant but igno¬ 
rant attentions that touched my heart — and my palate. 
In June began a drouth of weeks’ duration. The corn rolled 
and the vines drooped pitifully, but I hoed straight through and 
talked to them encouragingly, and the corn and melons and toma¬ 
toes grew in spite of the worst heat in twenty years and no 
water. Then came a big rain, two weeks of fine growth and 
another drouth, not so long as the first. The two weeks gave the 
cucumbers a splendid start, and they gave us a hundred fine long 
fellows for slicing before frost. In all I gathered a bushel of 
tomatoes, sixty ears of green corn, a half bushel of carrots, be¬ 
sides leaves for bouquets all summer, forty prime musk melons 
and ten fair cabbages — only fair, because I did not get ashes and 
salt on them soon enough. 
My vines were not troubled with insects. I frustrated a few 
tomato worms, but 
the green brutes that 
the ants make love to 
injured the corn in 
spite of tobacco tea, 
as they did the cos¬ 
mos, sunflowers and 
aster roots. 
Did it pay? Well, 
that’s as you look at 
it. The flowers paid, 
of course; one grows 
them for satisfaction 
and gets it — and I 
got flowers for the 
whole neighborhood 
— from the beds of 
Madonna lilies and 
the wealth of moon- 
penny daisies alone. 
Besides, it is certainly 
solid satisfaction to 
bring in from one’s 
own garden the beau¬ 
ty and good taste 
that I brought one 
August morning and 
snapped for future 
encouragement. 
Probably the time 
spent on the vegeta¬ 
bles would have earned the money to buy them if they had been 
buyable, fresh and good when I wanted them, which they were 
not. If one were doing housekeeping only it certainly would 
have paid, for we were using tomatoes freely when they were 
fifteen cents a quart at the stores, we often gave cucumbers to 
the neighbors while they were two for five cents, and our large 
melons would have cost ten cents each. One of them weighed two 
and a half pounds. 
The work was mostly done in the early morning and after 
supper when it was cool and pleasant — though, through May and 
June the garden called and I answered when it was neither the 
one nor the other. 
Values are relative, and whether or not gardening pays de¬ 
pends upon how well one likes or how much one hates garden¬ 
ing. In one respect it paid. I proved that one woman and one 
hoe, with Fertilizer for grand vizier, can grow a good garden in 
gravel and snap her fingers at drouth and heat. 
By the early part of August the vegetable garden was in full swing. The first planting 
of corn was bearing, and the second showed a good growth 
