My Suburban Garden 
HOW A PRACTICAL GREENHOUSE WAS BUILT AT MODERATE COST—ADDING A BARN AND CHICKEN 
HOUSE TO THE GARDEN EQUIPMENT—THE BEAN ARCH SYSTEM—A RECEIPT FOR MAKING HENS LAY 
Warren H. Miller 
W E were so much encouraged by the performance of our hot 
frame, with its crop of lettuce in mid-January, that we de¬ 
cided to “shake the same tree again” on a larger scale. I had no 
intention of letting myself be drawn into a regular greenhouse 
scheme, with a hot-water heating plant that would have to be fed 
day and night. I am a busy commuter and have quite enough 
A corner of the garden on May 20: beans for six, four 30-foot rows. The lettuce in 
hotframe is ready to set out 
to do to keep the furnace from going out unawares (which it 
is always seeking a favorable opportunity to do), and all we 
wanted was something to grow the more hardy vegetables in 
winter, something that would start all sorts of early seedlings 
for the garden in February—tomatoes, egg plants, lettuce, 
radishes, celery, peppers, cabbages and flowers. If a hotbed 
could do this on a small scale, why could not a glorified 
hotbed, in which one could stand up and work, do it still 
better? So I built the little .9 -x 12-foot' greenhouse, at 
a cost of $24 for eight 6 x/j-tpot - glass -sashes, $4 for 
boards and $4 for timber, and paint. 
I first sawed out eight., 12-foot trunks from my forest 
trees and four 9-fooLones. These I sawed bevel, to match 
the corner posts, and piled them in pairs,, one above the 
other, spiking .than to 3" x 3" posts ,at the corners and 
to rough 3" stakes on the in§idp.;. Parallel to these, and 
3 feet inside of them, went two second pairs of logs. This 
gave me a rectangle 9 x i 2 feet, with two 3 x 12-foot beds 
in it, which were forthwith filled with fresh fermenting 
manure destined to furnish the heat for the little green¬ 
house. Next went on the /g" x 12" top trim boards, nailed 
to the four corner posts, bringing the total height of the 
greenhouse wall up to three feet; and earth was then 
banked up outside of the logs to the bottom of these trim 
boards and sodded, the slopes being planted in Cuthbert 
raspberries. Two 3" x 3" central upright posts now went 
in at each end and on them the main ridge pole, a 4" x 4" Here 
smooth-dressed timber, set in a notch in the upright with 
its corners up and down. To this was hinged the eight sash 
frames, four on a side, with their lower sashes resting on bevel 
moulding nailed to the top of the trim boards. Plain vertical 
planking, with weather strips nailed on the joints, closed in the 
ends. The whole was given a coat of white paint and the green¬ 
house stood finished. I could have had triangular glass sashes 
made at the mill for the ends, but the cornicing of No. 2 
crown moulding had to agree with the house architecture, so 
I did not bother with any special sash work. 
1 he 3 x 12-foot beds inside were given a top dressing of 
rich soil and planted in February to all the standard early 
vegetables. On very cold nights I have a lantern in the 
house to help out with the heat; otherwise it requires no 
attention. 1 also got rid of the outside nuisance by putting 
in a set of window shade-rollers under the roof sashes. The 
rollers are on the usual iron roller brackets, secured inside 
the trim plank at the eaves, and the shade pulls upward to the 
ridge by a cord through a small galvanized pulley stapled to 
the ridge. This greenhouse is no trouble at all and we can 
grow almost anything in it except the really tender hothouse 
exotics. Its central walk is 3 feet wide, floored with concrete 
with a basin aquarium 6 feet long by 18" wide, and the inner 
logs are left in natural bark. 
Between the north pergola and the space allotted to barn 
and chicken house is about 40 x 25 feet of room. Along the 
privet hedge side of this I put in a border of raspberries and 
blackberries 4 feet wide, with a Baldwin apple tree at each 
l j ie end, corresponding to the two Kiefifer pears still standing 
where the old west border was. A Satsuma Japanese plum 
went in the border midway between the Baldwins as a filler, 
and on the north side I put in another Champion quince, to help 
the first one set fruit. This plot was now surrounded by a 
rectangle of young fruit trees, leaving a bed 20 feet x 40 feet, 
which at once received the title “West Garden.” What should 
we plant there? If I were starting from the beginning, I should 
certainly set it in asparagus, as here is a large bed, apart from 
are the same beans in July — a solid wall, all you can eat and preserve, 
peach tree was planted in April 
The young 
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