The Month’s Activities 
A CAREFULLY PLANNED CAMPAIGN FOR THE BUSIEST MONTH IN 
THE GARDENER’S YEAR—WHAT TO DO AND JUST HOW TO DO IT 
Photographs by F. F. Rockwell. E. J. Hall, N. R. Graves and others 
[This article is designed to furnish in compact space and a few plain instructions, information that will enable the busy person, who has not made 
his or her garden preparations ahead, to have a successful garden notwithstanding. The tables and cultural directions, together with the plan provided 
for keeping an accurate record of both the dower and vegetable garden for future reference, will prove of great value to everyone who plants. Do not 
fail to remove and mount this Guide as suggested. It will make this year’s gardening easier and next year’s better. — Editor.] 
I F all the advice that House & Garden and other good horti¬ 
cultural magazines have been giving for the last few months 
had been carried out by every reader, I suppose the professional 
market gardeners would be pretty nearly forced out of business, 
and that there would be no need of this article. But there are 
men who, for lack of time or other good reasons, have not yet 
bought their seeds, started their own vegetable and flower plants, 
had their gardens plowed, and are not now sitting down and im¬ 
patiently waiting the first day warm 
enough to plant. 
It is the person who must begin at once 
and work fast or the one who has no gar¬ 
den at all, as well as the garden enthusiast, 
that this article is designed to help. If you 
have made all your preparations, so much 
the better; but if you have not, it is not too 
late to pitch in now and have a garden 
that will take your neighbors by surprise. 
You can, if you will, plan a Napoleonic 
garden campaign that cannot fail to bring 
a great degree of success; yes, even if you 
have to leave most of the actual labor to a 
hired man — though in that case you will 
lose just half the fun of the thing. 
The first thing to consider is the manure 
heap, or, in lieu of that the commercial 
fertilizer. Get the manure if you can. 
The chances are largely that it will give 
you better results than the chemical fer¬ 
tilizers, especially if you have not had ex¬ 
perience in using the latter. (Read the 
article on page 257.) Buy a few loads of 
well-rotted manure — it should be dark and 
crumbling and free from large lumps — 
from some farmer or livery stable. If 
pigs have run on it is is worth more. Have 
this scattered evenly over the garden plot, 
so as to cover the ground with it. The more you put on, up to 
three inches thick, the more profitable your garden will prove to be. 
This task finished, you are ready for the plowman. (If you 
can't get manure, and have to use chemical fertilizers altogether, 
plow first and put on the fertilizer afterward, as directed later.) 
Get a man who knows his work and will turn your land over to 
the bottom, or sub-soil—four, six, eight inches deep, as the case 
may be. Don't let him start to plow until the soil has dried out 
enough to crumble as it leaves the plowshare. If it’s wet and 
sticky it isn’t ready for plowing. Have him use a reversible plow, 
so as not to leave any wasteful “dead” furrow and unproductive 
tramped corners. 
If your garden patch is too small to plow, get it spaded. Whether 
you yourself do this work, or whether you have it done, see that 
the soil is dug to the bottom and thoroughly turned. By taking a 
strip not quite twice the width of the spade or fork, and cutting 
at each thrust diagonally, you will find the work much lessened. 
Unless you have provided a very heavy coating of manure, the 
addition of some chemical fertilizer after the ground is plowed 
and before harrowing will prove a profitable investment. It 
doesn't matter very much what the brand is; get the analysis as 
near 4-8-10 as you can—that is, 4 per cent, nitrogen, 8 per cent, 
phosphoric acid, 10 per cent, potash. Remember that, as a gen¬ 
eral thing the more you pay per bag the cheaper you are getting 
your real plant food. In addition get fifty or a hundred pounds of 
nitrate of soda to use for top dressing during the season. Three 
hundred and fifty pounds of such a fertilizer will not be too much 
for a quarter-acre garden, if used without manure. If some 
manure is used, cut down the amount of 
fertilizer in proportion. On a calm day 
broadcast the fertilizer evenly over the 
ground. You will get it distributed more 
evenly by making two applications, first 
walking across the garden and then up 
and down the length. It will be well to 
keep half a bag or so for some crops that 
need extra assistance later, also to sow 
where second or succession crops are 
grown. 
Don't put on the fertilizer until you are 
ready to follow its application immediate¬ 
ly with the harrow. Of these there are 
several types (see article on garden tools 
on page 254). The nature of your soil 
will determine which is best for your use. 
As a general thing a disc harrow, fol¬ 
lowed by a spike-tooth harrow for level¬ 
ing the surface, will put things in very 
good shape. But whatever the kind, see 
that the harrowing is kept up until the 
soil is well pulverized and fined to a depth 
of several inches. In a small plot, of 
course, you will have to rely upon the 
iron rake and the wheel hoe or hand hoe 
to do your harrowing with. In this case, 
it will be well to apply fertilizer only to 
that part of the garden which you expect 
to sow or plant within a few days. 
The harrowing should be followed immediately by sowing or 
planting, with a final leveling of the soil with the iron rake: and 
you should finish it off so fine and smooth that a cat couldn’t walk 
across it without leaving very noticeable tracks. In such a fine 
seed-bed, the little rootlets will not dry up in dead air spaces be¬ 
fore striking into the soil; and the little seedlings will not be 
smothered beneath stones, trash and lumps of earth too heavy for 
them to lift. 
This much is preliminary; now for what is to go into the 
ground, after it is ready. The work described above will have 
taken several days—but everything suggested there can be done 
within that short time, remember that. In the meantime there will 
be work for your evenings. The success of this garden campaign 
of yours will depend upon your giving at least a few hours to 
planning carefully ahead the lines of action. After that you can, 
if need be, turn it over to someone else to carry out. 
Measure off your garden plot and make a sketch to scale on a 
paper of convenient size. Then refer to the table on page 246 and 
(Continued on page 249) 
If the soil is at all dry firm the seed into the 
rows with the ball of the foot; then cover 
with loose earth 
( 244 ) 
