To have early vegetables start the seeds in a hotbed, coldframe or in the house if the former are not available 
Grow Your Own Vegetables 
THE WHOLE ART OF STARTING THE PLANTS INDOORS OR IN A HOTBED OR COLDFRAME 
—JUST HOW TO MAKE FLATS, SOW THE SEEDS AND HARDEN OFF THE SEEDLING PLANTS 
by F. F. Rockwell 
[This is the second of a series of articles which will cover in a thorough and practical way the subject of amateur vegetable gardening. The aim is 
to furnish information covering every detail of what to do and in such a form that it will be clear to the very beginner just how to do it. Each article 
and its tabular data will give the information needed at the time of its publication, so as not to confuse the home-gardener with an overwhelming quantity 
of detail; that is, the reader will learn what is to be done at the proper time for doing that particular thing. Those who follow the suggestions made, 
from the selection of seed to the storing of winter vegetables, may confidently expect a successful garden .] 
I F you expect to have a vegetable garden this year—and no 
matter how small your available ground is, you certainly 
should be planning one—don’t miss the fun of starting your own 
plants. It is not necessary to have a greenhouse to do this. You 
can make a hotbed or coldframe with little expense, or, if you do 
not care to go to the trouble of doing this, any warm sunny window 
in a heated living-room will answer the purpose. 
Have you ever put a packet of little dry brown seeds in 
the ground and watched daily for the earth to crack above 
them? If not, you have missed one of the most interesting 
experiences possible! And if part of your seed sowing is 
done now, while winter reigns without, and the leafless trees, 
“Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet 
birds sang,’’ 
are bent against a cheerless sky, you will 
find your little experiment increased ten¬ 
fold in interest, and you will watch for the 
first green seed-leaf pushing aside the 
mold with a keenness of expectation and 
a satisfaction that will repay your trouble 
a thousand times. 
It is not a difficult art — this matter 
of starting your own plants. Let me 
emphasize at the outset that the main 
factor of success will be regular attention. 
It won’t take many minutes a day, but 
it will take a few minutes every day. 
Don’t forget that, and if you are thinking 
of starting a few plants with the idea 
that you can spend a few hours to-day 
sowing the seed, and, in three or four 
weeks, half a day transplanting them, 
and later a day setting them out in your 
garden, you would better give up the 
plan now, and later on spend at the florist 
ten times what your seed would have cost for some plants whose 
pedigree you know nothing about. 
It is very much better to start your own plants, and you will 
find it a good deal of fun, too. Do not be scared away from the 
undertaking because you may have read somewhere that this, 
that, or the other condition, which you found it impossible to 
comply with, was absolutely essential to success. Unfortunately, 
some of our writers about these matters are given to describing 
in detail their own methods, and assuming that no others can 
succeed. By way of illustration—and of encouragement to the 
beginner—I recently found, in an article on starting plants, the 
statement that if a temperature never below 6o° and never above 
8o° could not be maintained (in the room 
where seed-boxes were to be placed) it 
would be best to wait until such a tem¬ 
perature could be had. Such a temperature 
may be preferable, but it is not by any 
means essential. In fact, I am inclined to 
believe the beginner, who has not yet had 
a chance to learn the amount of ventila¬ 
tion, moisture and care which such a 
degree of warmth makes necessary, would 
have better success with the ordinary 
vegetables in a cooler place. One spring 
1 started thousands of plants in an old 
leaky greenhouse where the temperature 
at night on several occasions went down 
to 34 0 , and frequently at noon climbed 
to ioo°, and yet the plants came through 
finely. Of course this was going to the 
other extreme, but it shows what can be 
done. 
So if you have a bright sunny room, 
where the night temperature is never lower 
than 40°, and if you have decided that 
you will attend to your seed-boxes properly 
All the apparatus necessary for starting seeds 
indoors are flats, a sieve and a_ watering-can 
(hm) 
