58 
House & Garden 
PLANTING THINGS 
TO GROW AND LIVE 
D . R . E D S O N 
JVith this article, the fourth of a series setting down for 
inexperienced gardeners the things they should know about 
plants and plantings, Mr. Edson takes tip the actual work 
of putting the seeds and plants in the soil. The series 
cofnmenced in the January number and will continue 
through several more issues .— Editor. 
W HENEVER Dame Nature gives us a real, 
true, gratuitous impulse, it is usually a good 
plan to follow it. The person who does 
not long to get out and plant something when the 
brown grass begins to green again, and the birds 
come back, and the earth smells sweet and clean, 
is so exceptional as not to be worth considering. 
Alan flatters himself that he is helping and im¬ 
proving upon Nature, but that subtle dame is only 
using him for her own ends! 
Whatever may be the secret source of that 
which urges man or woman to put seeds in the 
ground and set out plants, the work itself should 
be done in such a way that the seeds will grow 
and the plants will live. Gardening has its tech¬ 
nical, work-a-day side as well as its inspiration. 
Hence the beginning gardener must devote some 
time to studying the technique of his avocation. 
Now is the time to plant. It is in the air. Every¬ 
thing wants to grow—will grow with half a 
chance. There is only one trouble with spring 
as the universal planting time—it is too short. 
The cold nights or the wet weather or the late 
frosts seem to hang on interminably. And then, 
before one knows it, the hot, dry weather has 
arrived and it is too late to do many of the things 
which we had planned. 
Shorten the Work 
How can the spring planting season be length¬ 
ened? There is only one way, and that is to 
shorten the work. To do that, you must plant 
long before “settled” weather has arrived. The 
most important preliminary work is to know ex¬ 
actly and deflnitely what you aim to accomplish 
in the garden this season. 
A great deal of the work which is usually left 
until after the planting actually begins may just 
as well be done a week or so beforehand. The 
tools should be on hand, the beds prepared and 
fertilized, all seeds bought and nursery stock and 
plants ordered before a single seed is put into 
the soil. If you see to alb this, there will be a 
good chance that you will get all your planting 
done on time, and done with time enough to have 
it done carefully and properly. Otherwise there 
is bound to be a rush, resulting in hasty and care¬ 
lessly done work. 
The plant foods for your various gardens should 
not only be ordered but be actually on hand by 
the first of this month at the latest—manure 
enough to give a 2" or 3" coating to the garden 
and to work into the top soil of beds of hardy 
perennials, etc. If this cannot be obtained, pro¬ 
cure “commercial” cattle or stable manure sufficient 
to take the place of it. These latter materials 
have been put through a standardizing and drying 
process to make them uniform. In addition to 
this, obtain high grade fertilizers enough to give 
a dressing at the rate of 400 to 600 pounds to a 
quarter of an acre. A small supply each—25 
pounds or more according to the size of your 
garden—of nitrate of soda, fine ground bone, 
coarse ground bone, tankage or dried blood, and, 
if you can find any this season, muriate of potash, 
should be obtained in addition to the above and 
used as suggested in the following paragraphs. 
Such plants as you may be expecting to get 
from a local source, both vegetables and flowers, 
should be selected some time in advance of your 
actual need of them. In picking them out, do not 
he guided by the size alone; the stockiness, grow¬ 
ing condition and the hardiness of the plant are 
all more important than the size. A plant of 
any kind that has grown so rapidly or under such 
cramped and coddled conditions that it is weak 
and “loppy” will receive a serious setback in 
transplanting, even if it is not lost. A much 
smaller plant with firm wood, with a good dark 
color, planted at the right time, will soon outstrip 
it in size and general thriftiness. 
Early Preparations 
The earlier you can plant such things as you 
will be getting from the florist or nurseryman the 
better. If you have given instructions that they 
{Continued on page 96) 
A good garden line is a sure guide in 
getting the rows straight. A stick is 
convenient for marking them out 
Small seeds like lettuce and carrot are 
best sowed direct from the hand, letting 
them slide through the fingers 
Lima beans may go in a double row in a 
ivide trench. Space them about 4" apart 
each way as shown here 
With the back of a garden rake the seeds 
can be covered easily and quickly from 
each side of the roio 
Watering in dry weather makes for easier 
work when it comes to thinning out the 
growing plants 
Feiv seeds are expensive, so do not econo¬ 
mize in their solving.. Some of them will 
fail to germinate 
