Garden Suggestions 
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CONDUCTED BY F. F. ROCKWELL 
Author of Howe Vegetable Gardening and Gardening 
Indoors and Under Glass 
Getting the Flower Beds Ready 
I T is a common practice to rake a little 
here, or dig up a few spadefuls there, 
according as there are a few seeds to be 
put in, or a few plants to be set out. This 
makeshift method of working the ground 
over will not give satisfactory results. 
Also, in the end it makes much more 
work, as any little-at-a-time policy usually 
does. So. just as soon as your earliest 
vegetables are planted and set out, turn 
your attention in earnest to the flower¬ 
beds and borders, and make a quick, 
thorough job of them. Give them, first 
of all, a good dressing of manure. That 
which has been used for a winter mulch 
or removed from a spent hot-bed will be 
just the thing. If no yard manure is to 
be had, get a bag or two of sheep ma¬ 
nure or commercial cattle or horse or 
cattle manure, which is dry, pulverized, 
convenient to handle and can be had 
quickly by freight if your local grain or 
fertilizer man does not handle it. These 
things are to be preferred to fertilizer 
alone, as they add some humus to the 
soil. Decayed leaves, leaf-mold, or ant- 
similar organic compost, used in connec¬ 
tion with bone meal (or bone meal, tank¬ 
age and potash) will give good results. 
Spade the beds up as deep as possible 
without turning up the subsoil, and rake 
them down fine and smooth, whether you 
ai e ready to plant everything- yet or not. 
If you can get the first crop of weeds 
staited and raked out before planting, so 
much the better. And the smoothly raked, 
dry surface will help keep the spring 
1 ains that have soaked down into the 
soil from evaporating away again. For 
another thing, be careful' to clear the 
beds of tree-roots, as these marauders 
like to get into the mellow, well-prepared 
beds and thieve the plant-food placed 
there for the flowers. If the beds or 
borders are near trees, cut down deep 
around the edges with an “edger.” 
W hen you are buying plants at the 
florists, do not wait until the last thing, 
just a few days before Decoration Day, 
when everyone about the place is rushed 
to the utmost, but go as early as you can, 
while stocks of the various plants are 
still full, and you can take time to look 
things over and pick out just what you 
want. Most people insist on having the 
largest plants they can find, and only 
those in full bloom. A small or medium¬ 
sized plant, well budded, that looks 
thrifty, will often give much better re¬ 
sults. 
Looking After the Lawn 
Nothing more quickly detracts from 
the appearance of the place than a 
scraggly, poorly kept lawn. If yours is 
not all it should be, spring is the time to 
repair it. The usual method is to go 
down to the hardware store, buy a pack¬ 
age of gilt-edge, blue-ribbon, gold-medal, 
high-priced lawn grass seed, in a highly 
lithographed carton, come home, scatter 
it over the lawn and then wonder why 
nothing happens. But if you want to 
improve the lawn the task is a little big¬ 
ger one. hirst, order your grass-seed 
from the most reliable seedsman you 
know; most of them make two mixtures, 
one for shady lawns. Then, while you 
are waiting for that to arrive, get out 
onto the lawn with spade, wheel-barrow 
and iron rake. Dig up all large weeds, 
dandelions, etc., and fill in any holes that 
may be left, and all hollows or sags in 
the lawn, with clean, fresh loam. (If the 
lawn is large and very uneven this will 
probably require several cart-loads of 
loam.) Beat this down firmly with the 
back of the spade. Try the same method 
on any humps or mounds that may be 
visible. Then, after a good, soaking rain, 
or a thorough watering, if the rain is not 
forthcoming, give a heavy dressing of 
bone dust or sheep manure; go over the 
whole lawn vigorously with the iron rake, 
loosening up the soil as much as possible 
without actually rooting the grass out, 
and roughening up the surface of the 
patches of loam, and sow the seed, going- 
over the plot twice, the second time at 
right angles to the first. Then go over 
the whole with a roller or pat down the 
barest patches with the back of the spade. 
Keep chickens, dogs and children off. A 
very light mulch of fine, dry manure, or 
of grass clippings, will be beneficial if 
available. Water occasionally, in the 
evening until the seed is well started. 
Thereafter a sharp lookout should be kept 
for inroads by weeds, particularly dande¬ 
lions. 
Weeding and Weeders 
One of the best weed-killing imple¬ 
ments in tbe garden is the iron rake; yet 
ordinarily, after the seed-bed is pre¬ 
pared, it bangs on a nail until tbe next 
planting job requires its use. Witbin ten 
days after planting go over all the ground 
between rows of lettuce, cabbage, etc. If 
you are careful you can rake lightly 
across the rows of onions, beets, etc., 
breaking up the soil crust and destroying 
thousands of sprouting weeds without in¬ 
juring the legitimate crops in the slight¬ 
est. When the seeds are up, the little 
plants two inches or so high, even if 
there is not a zveed visible, go carefully 
over the rows with the double wheel-hoe, 
set to shave just as close to the plants as 
possible. The disk attachment can be so 
set that it shaves dirt away from the 
plant. Some types of wheel-hoes can be 
fitted with plant guards that make very 
close work possible. If the garden is 
very clean this first hoeing may be all 
that is necessary for another week or so. 
But if the rows are all weedy, get after 
them at once, for no garden fact is surer 
than that the sooner 'you: go over the 
rowed stuff the first time the less work 
it will be. There are several types of 
hand weeder, any of which, when one 
gets the knack of using it, will lessen the 
drudgery of hand weeding. For myself, 
I prefer the kind that is known as 
"Lang's,” with a sharp, bent blade and a 
strap fitting over the middle fingers, 
which can be had of most seed houses at 
a small price. After this weeding, and 
the necessary tramping and compacting 
of the soil, it is a good plan to go over 
the rows with the rake or hoe attach¬ 
ments on, and loosen up the soil for an 
inch or two to restore the mulch of fine 
soil, which should always be preserved. 
And above all, in hand weeding, two 
things should be carefully observed: 
Break up every inch of surface, whether 
a weed is visible or not; it is just as im¬ 
portant to “get" the sprouted seedlings 
that have not yet appeared above ground 
as those that have. Pull out every zveed 
by the roots; a broken-off weed left to 
sprout again will be much worse than if 
it had not been touched. 
(Continued on page 420) 
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