July, 1913 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
humus and nitrogen. Our back yard was prairie soil two years 
ago, so that it has been used for garden only one year, and, while 
it has been well cultivated, some prairie sod was still in evidence. 
This rawness of soil and lack of humus we overcame by covering 
our plot with some two to three inches of well-decomposed com¬ 
post from the horse stable, which was mixed into the soil as deeply 
as possible with an ordinary spading fork. The peculiar thing 
of our Western soils is that, while, as we said before, they are 
rich in the mineral elements, these elements are not available to 
plants until they have 
been made so through 
the action of the soil 
bacteria, which un¬ 
der normal conditions 
are not present to any 
extent, but which be- 
c o m e very active 
when introduced 
through the use of 
stable compost. 
We are getting- 
somewhat ahead of 
our story, for before 
we started work on 
our garden plot we 
made our plan on 
paper, which we were 
to follow as closely as 
possible during the 
season. This twenty- 
foot-square space was 
divided up, first, by 
making a row for on¬ 
ions six inches from 
the east edge of the 
plot. Another row of 
onions was located 
twelve inches farther 
west, then another 
one-foot row was de¬ 
voted to early rad¬ 
ishes, after which a 
space one and a half 
feet was left before 
the early celery row 
was made. Then an¬ 
other row of early 
radishes was put in. 
Our idea in this was 
to get our radishes 
and lettuce out of the 
way by the time the 
early celery should be 
big enough to need 
this extra space. One 
foot from the second 
radish row a row of 
early beets was plant¬ 
ed, which was to be followed with late celery. One foot from 
the beets was a row of lettuce, which was planted from flats 
started in the hotbed. Another foot brought us to the row of 
early cabbage. The rest of the vegetables for the plot would 
require more space, so that we allowed two feet between rows 
of cabbage, a row of late cauliflower, and a row divided nearly 
equally between Swiss chard, eggplant, and pepper. This left us 
five feet and a half with which we were undecided as to how to 
proceed. We wanted a row of tomatoes, which we planted one 
and a half feet from the west side of the plot, expecting to prune 
to one stem and tie to stakes so that the tomatoes would not 
occupy any great amount of space. Between this and the Swiss 
chard we left a row which we planted to snap beans. 
April 25th we started our planting by setting the two rows in 
onions with plants grown in flats in the hotbed. We had hoped 
to use Prize Taker for this purpose, but a heavy unforeseen 
freeze destroyed our plants in the hotbed so that we had to use 
some that were planted a little later, which happened to be 
Yellow Globe Dan¬ 
vers. These onions 
were set three inches 
apart in the row and 
thrived from the 
start, although con¬ 
siderable cold weath¬ 
er came after the 
plants were set in the 
ground. Five days 
previous to this time, 
however, April 19th, 
our first row of rad¬ 
ishes was sown. The 
early celery, which 
was Golden Self- 
Blanching, started in 
flats, was transplant¬ 
ed to the plot May 
15th. The next day 
the row of lettuce 
(New York Head) 
was transplant¬ 
ed from flats six 
inches apart in the 
row. The row of 
Early Eclipse beets 
was sown April 25th, 
with a row of cab¬ 
bage (Savoy Drum¬ 
head and Early Win- 
ningstadt) set twelve 
inches apart in the 
row, April 30th. 
Early Snowball cauli¬ 
flower was set the 
same distance in a 
row May 16th. May 
10th a third of a row 
was planted to Swiss 
chard, and the row 
completed on May 
23d with Chinese 
Giant pepper and 
Black Beauty egg¬ 
plant. May 20th the 
row of Fordhook Fa¬ 
vorite beans was 
planted. May 23d the 
last row was set to tomatoes, being placed eighteen inches apart 
in the row. These were the Earliana, and were pot-grown plants 
which had been grown in a greenhouse and hardened in the 
coldframe. 
Between the rows of late vegetables, lettuce and radishes were 
sown at intervals so as to keep a succession of these two veg¬ 
etables. The second sowing of radish was made June 18th, one 
foot from the celery. The third planting was made June 28th, 
one foot from the beans. In the place in the row intended for 
Care in planning and planting, and subsequent proper cultivation make for success in vege¬ 
table gardening 
The early celery plants, instead of being banked with earth, were wrapped in newspaper 
on July 30th, and two weeks later were ready for use 
