The egg-plant needs two transplantings and does not 
have to be set out until the tomatoes are in the 
ground 
Your Saturday 
Afternoon 
Garden 
THE FOUR MAJOR OPERA¬ 
TIONS OF THE MONTH — 
PREPARING THE SEED BED 
—SOWING SEED, TRANS¬ 
PLANTING, MAKING THE 
SEED BORDER 
D. R. E d s o n 
Tomatoes will do well in almost any soil. If you 
would have them without blemish, support them 
above the ground 
T HERE is a world of difference between making a garden 
and “doing some gardening.” In the former case you are 
master of the situation, and in the latter quite likely to be a slave 
to it. But the former course, although it may seem to involve 
more work at the start, is in reality much the easiest. It is largely 
a matter of thoroughness with the things you do in your garden 
during the first couple of 
months of the season. 
There are some five or six 
“operations” which the gar¬ 
dener, large or small, must 
perform repeatedly for the 
first few weeks, on Saturday 
afternoons, in making the 
garden. 
The first, after the initial 
handling of the soil, which 
was discussed in last month’s 
issue, is: 
Preparing the Seedbed . — 
“Rake a piece of ground 
smooth and plant”—t h a t 
sounds easy enough, but it 
depends upon how you do it. 
If you do it right it is not an easy job or one quickly finished. 
The importance of having the ground deeply and thoroughly 
dug and well broken up was discussed last month. On top of 
that must come thorough work with the iron rake, involving 
plenty of “elbow-grease,” for which no satisfactory substitute has 
yet been discovered. When the seed leaves the packet and 
reaches its new home in the soil it will sprout — provided condi¬ 
tions are right. In Nature gardening, perhaps one seed out of a 
thousand may find 
the right condi¬ 
tions. But the gar¬ 
dener, who has vol¬ 
untarily taken over 
Nature’s job, be¬ 
comes responsible. 
He cannot, of 
course, control the 
temperature, which 
is one of the factors, 
but he can withhold 
his seed until he 
thinks that the tem¬ 
perature is likely to 
Sow seeds of cauliflower late this month — or later— b e favorable f O 1 
letting it follow some early crop what lie wants to 
grow. For the other condition, moisture, he must he, during the 
early stages of growth, quite responsible. And the soil to supply 
it must he made fine enough to pack up close and tight against the 
seed on all sides. A soil that is lumpy, and consequently full of 
small air spaces, will not do. Moreover, the soil must remain 
moist during the period of germination, which, for ordinary gar¬ 
den seeds, takes from six to 
twenty days. For this rea¬ 
son the soil, in addition to 
being fine, must be made 
compact enough to provide 
capillary action, by which 
water is drawn up to the 
surface from the depths be¬ 
low. Leaving the soil too 
loose, although it may have 
been thoroughly dug and 
raked fine on the surface, is 
one of the common causes 
of failure in the beginner’s 
garden. It should seem firm 
beneath the foot when you 
tread on it. 
Seed Solving . — Lay your 
garden line across the freshly raked surface and mark out with 
your hoe handle the first row. Be sure you have your seed drill 
adjusted just right — unless you have used it frequently enough 
before to be familiar with its operations—test it out on the smooth 
floor. Be sure of just exactly what you want to plant that day 
and how much of each thing before you begin, so that your 
work may be systematically laid out. The order of planting that 
is suggested herewith will give you an idea of just how to proceed 
in case the work is 
new to you. 
In using the seed 
drill, here are a few 
things that you 
should see to — that 
the opening plow is 
set at just the right 
d e p t h, an d kept 
tight. Be sure that 
it is also free of 
weeds and rubbish — 
a small piece of sod 
or manure dragging 
along may catch the 
seed as it falls, so 
that it will all be 
VEGETABLES TO PLANT THIS MONTH 
In a Medium-sized Garden. Four Plantings. 
First Planting. —Cabbage, early; lettuce plants; onion sets; peas, smooth; 
radish; spinach; Swiss chard. 
Second Planting. —Beets, plants; beets, early seed; carrots, early; cauli¬ 
flower; leek, in seed border; onion, seed; radish; turnip. 
Third Planting. —Cabbage, summer; cabbage, in seed border, for fall; let¬ 
tuce, seed; parsnip; peas, wrinkled, two varieties; potatoes, early; salsify. 
Fourth Planting. — Beets, summer; carrots, summer; kohl-rabi; lettuce, cos; 
onion, seedlings, Spanish varieties; peas, late; radish. 
For the home vegetable garden it is difficult to find 
any cabbage better than the Savoy 
250 
