My Suburban Garden 
PLANTING FOR WORK WITH THE WHEEL-HOE—THE PROBLEM OF TOMATO 
TRELLISES—WEEDING VERSUS CALISTHENICS—A SECOND-YEAR SUCCESS 
Warren H. Miller 
The garden in February of 
the second year, showing 
young peach and cherries 
planted from the nursery 
the previous October 
L ATE in February I 
sneaked out into the 
country, attended a trap- 
shooting contest and 
planted lettuce, radishes, 
pansies, cosmos, holly¬ 
hocks, peppers and cab¬ 
bages in the hotframe. 
When we opened up the 
house early in March they 
were up and getting along 
finely. Often, during the 
city visit, I had given an 
evening to the planning 
of this year’s garden, and 
the seeds for it were al¬ 
ready ordered. It was a 
combination of the wheel- 
hoe system and the old- 
fashioned bed system. I 
had not yet learned to ap¬ 
preciate the wheel-hoe as 
a weeder, and for a busy 
commuter weeds are the 
great problem—after the 
soil is in shape. Not having a gardener to fight 
weeds, nor much time to do it yourself, some method 
of destroying them wholesale must be provided for, 
or the weeds will not leave you a single vegetable 
that you can call your own ! 
The wheel-hoe is the only tool I know of that 
will take out weeds wholesale, but the rows of plants 
must be spaced to leave room for it to work in—at 
least 18 " apart. In other words, instead of a sys¬ 
tem of beds and paths, there is a sort of path be¬ 
tween each row of vegetables spaced 18 ", instead of 
9 " or 12 ", which is more wasteful of land than the 
old-fashioned bed system. Now, a commuter's gar¬ 
den is usually short on land, but unless it is going to £ ar i y Spring: 
be long on weeds also, the wheel-hoe system is the plants in 
only sensible plan. But there are certain vegetables 
which can be sown so thick and grow so fast that the weeds never 
get a look-in, notably lettuce, radishes, carrots, beets and turnips, 
so 1 decided to experiment a little with beds, leaving the main 
garden on the wheel-hoe system. 
On each side of the central garden path I laid out beds 4 x 12 
feet in area, one radish, one lettuce, one carrot, and one salsify. 
They all succeeded except the last, which, being a narrow-bladed 
plant, soon got full of weeds. For the same reason, the beds of 
leeks, onions and onion sets did not yield anything, for the rows 
of sets were too close for the wheel-hoe, and the close-sown beds 
of leeks and little onions for table garnish got full of weeds be¬ 
fore those little plants ever amounted to anything. The close- 
sown carrot bed was a wonder for yielding basketfuls of those 
little, tender carrots which the French use so much in soups and 
stews. For full-grown carrots for winter storage, such a bed 
will not do, as they require about 4 " in the rows and periodical 
visits of the wheel-hoe to discourage the weeds. 
The twenty tomato vines in staggered rows of ten, three feet 
in the row, were 
well placed. These 
vines should always 
be set out in a group 
and in some regular 
formation that can 
be reached by a trel¬ 
lis system, never 
scattered about iso¬ 
lated locations un¬ 
less you want' to tend 
each one like a baby. 
Set them out about 
the fifteenth of May, 
never earlier, as 
note the young trees shown above and the whole east garden In strawberries—400 
a plot 30 feet square, providing a family of six with enough to eat and preserve 
they are very sensitive to frost, and a week later hoe up a hill 
around each high enough to reach the first pair of leaf stems. 
The stalk so covered will at once put out a quantity of little extra 
roots, and the plant will shoot up husky and stocky. But by 
July ist you will have to build a trellis for them, for the heavy, 
green tomatoes will quickly break down the branches. The trel¬ 
lis should be of ijj" x ijj" yellow pine, two stringers high, run 
on posts eight feet apart along each side of a row of plants, with 
cross braces at each plant. Barrel-hoops and four stakes at each 
plant are good — if you have the hoops! I had not, nor any time 
to hunt some up, but I made that trellis in a single Saturday after¬ 
noon. The man who is not adept at making such a trellis can 
buy individual supports made of heavy wire built along the line 
of hoops, and these will give complete satisfaction and last for¬ 
ever. 
The twenty tomato vines gave tomatoes enough for family use 
until late in October, but not enough for preserving and pickles, 
so the next year thirty-two plants were set out on the opposite 
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