CONDUCTED BY F. F. ROCKWELL 
Author of Home Vegetable Gardening and Gardening 
Indoors and Under Glass 
The August Garden 
UGUST always makes me think of 
the three-quarter pole at the races. 
Entries are all pretty well bunched at the 
start; at the half they are strung out, but 
you are still guessing; but as they come 
into the home stretch, the winners and the 
also-rans have separated into two groups, 
and the odds are going up against the lag- 
gers. How does your garden look? 
Straight, clean rows, with fine dry dust 
between them, where never a weed can 
sprout, or two shades of green showing in 
the rows where should be but one, and 
here and there a weed-top ? 
But August usually isn’t too late to 
clean up things, even if one has been slack 
during the last few weeks. The thing to 
keep firmly in mind is that the fall garden 
is just as important as the spring. One 
of the most surprising and agreeable 
things in gardening is the revolution which 
a day or two of conscientious, steady work 
can accomplish in a patch that has been 
neglected but is not hopelessly a mass of 
weeds. Go out into your garden now, and 
resolutely tackle the “bad spots.” By all 
means, let no weeds go to seed. If they 
are too big to be hoed or pulled out, cut 
them off close to the soil, or below it, with 
a knife. This can be done very quickly, 
and will kill or check beyond further in¬ 
jury most garden weeds. The most pro¬ 
lific source of weed seeds in the majority 
of gardens is the strip of early vegetables 
which goes by and is allowed to grow up 
to weeds and ripen seeds insidiously in the 
late fall days when one is no longer think¬ 
ing of them. Keep after the late weeds in 
spent crops, around the edges of the gar¬ 
den, along fences. If you cut weeds which 
have matured but not yet ripened seeds, 
remove them from the garden at once and 
burn them. This is especially true of 
purslane, the worst mid-summer weed pest. 
Unlike most garden weeds, it begins to 
ripen seed almost as soon as it begins to 
grow, and will live in dry weather even 
when pulled completely out of the soil. 
Moreover, every little piece broken or cut 
off will root readily. 
Making the Soil Feed Itself 
While the first and most important job 
for August is keeping this year's and next 
year’s garden clean, there are plenty of 
other things to think of, mainly growing 
humus and green manure on your idle 
soil. Just so soon as a crop is used up or 
too old, cut off the old vines and weeds, 
rake them to one side to dry and burn— 
they may contain weed seed, insect eggs or 
disease spores, which you don’t want to 
put into the soil—and sow some quick¬ 
growing summer or hardy winter “cover” 
or “catch” crop. One good combina¬ 
tion is oats and sorghum; if it’s moist 
and cold the oats will thrive, if hot and dry 
the sorghum. Another is buckwheat and 
crimson clover, for latitudes as far north 
as northern New Jersey ; the buckwheat, 
which grows rapidly and is killed down by 
frost, making a protection for the clover. 
For more northern sections, rye and win¬ 
ter vetch (Vicea villosa ) make a splendid 
combination, adding not only humus but 
nitrogen to the soil, and being ready to 
plow or spade under early the following 
spring. If your garden plot occupies but 
part of your ground, an excellent plan is 
to “rotate” it every second or third year, 
growing Medium Red clover in the mean¬ 
time to fill the soil with humus and abun¬ 
dant nitrogen. To make the clover grow, 
apply wood-ashes or a heavy dressing of 
lime, and in mid-spring or mid-fall a light 
one of potash (muriate or sulphate) be¬ 
fore sowing. 
“At ten o'clock in the morning, 
August 15, sow alfalfa.” Thus the in¬ 
struction a prominent agriculturist gave 
his class; not because alfalfa wouldn’t 
grow as well if sowed at four-thirty P. M., 
but because he wanted to make the proper 
date for sowing stick in their minds. 
Doubtless you have heard more or less of 
alfalfa, the wonder crop of the West. 
You may not have heard that it can be 
grown successfully in most sections of the 
East. If you keep a horse or a cow, or if 
your live stock is only limited to poultry, 
you certainly should have a small patch 
of it. Like clover, or any other legume, 
it thrives in a soil well supplied with lime 
and potash. 
There are still a few things which can 
be put in for late fall and winter crops. 
Turnips and table rutabagas, such as 
Breadstone, are among the most impor¬ 
tant, and a generous sowing should be 
made at once, where some crop has been 
cleared off. And the last sowings of let¬ 
tuce and radishes will be in order. Don’t 
plant the sorts you have been using 
throughout the summer, but bunt up the 
partially used packets—or get some new 
ones—of the earlier varieties: Grand Rap¬ 
ids and Big Boston lettuce, and Crimson 
Giant and Icicle radishes. If the soil is 
too dry to make good germination of the 
lettuce seed probable in the garden, sow it 
in a frame, or any sheltered spot which 
may be made and kept moist and used as 
a seed bed. By the time the plants are 
large enough to transplant — after thinning 
— the beginning of the fall rains will prob¬ 
ably have put the garden soil into better 
shape. Plant enough at this time and a 
week or two later to furnish a supply of 
plants for cold-frame and hot-bed to come 
along from Thanksgiving to Christmas. 
Save on Your Flowers 
A number of the hardy and half-hardy 
perennials and biennials, most of which 
cost but a few cents a packet for seed, can 
be started now and carried over the winter 
in a cold-frame. If sash are used over 
them, they can be taken off the first thing 
in the spring, but most of them, except in 
very cold localities, will come through the 
winter all right with the protection of the 
frames and a good mulching. The ideal 
place for starting them is a hot-bed or 
cold-frame, which can be made and kept 
sufficiently moist and shaded to keep the 
soil cool and prevent its baking or crust¬ 
ing until the little plants are up. The 
shutter, or a frame the same size as a 
regular glass sash and covered with plant 
cloth or bagging, should be supported 
firmly a foot or so above the sash, to pro¬ 
vide ample circulation of air. Give the 
soil a thorough soaking the day before 
planting; scatter the seeds rather thinly, 
press them lightly into the soil and cover 
very lightly. Scatter flowers of sulphur 
over the surface thick enough to make it 
slightly yellow. This discourages mildew. 
When the seedlings are up, a generous 
sprinkling of tobacco dust will keep off 
insects. When the third or fourth leaf 
appears, transplant to four or six inches 
apart each way, in winter quarters, where 
they may remain until transplanted to per¬ 
manent positions the following spring. 
Fall Catalogs 
Send for some of the fall catalogs, 
which will describe in detail the various 
sorts of flowers, including pansies, of 
which you should provide for yourself a 
generous supply, that may be started by 
the method described above. Beside seeds 
for autumn sowing, they cover thoroughly 
the whole question of bulbs, and some of 
the sorts which require early planting, 
such as the Madonna and fall-flowering 
crocus, and which should be ordered at 
once. 
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