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a point to plant a backyard vegetable gar- 
den. No matter how small, it will bring un- 
usual pleasure, besides an abundance of crisp, 
tasty food, chuck full of health-giving vitamins. 
Also, it will prove a real help in balancing your 
household budget during this national emer- 
gency as food costs have steadily increased and 
our large armed forces are requiring great quan- 
tities of food which naturally drain our normal 
supply tremendously. To have such a garden 
requires only a minimum amount of work and 
just a few pennies for seed and fertilizer. 
Mothers, too, will find that children really enjoy 
eating all kinds of fresh vegetables if they can 
select their own meals right out of their own 
backyard garden. They will also take great 
delight in helping to maintain this storehouse of 
vitamins. 
There are many advantages in growing your 
own vegetables. Varieties grown commercially 
must have a tough, coarse texture so they can 
withstand packing, shipping and rough hand- 
ling in markets and stores. This durability 
always sacrifices some delicacy and tastiness 
found in home-grown varieties. 
Freshness, though of minor importance in 
some vegetables, is an outstanding factor in 
many others. Potatoes, turnips, late cabbage 
and the like may be just as nutritious and palat- 
able one month or six months after harvest as 
when fresh; but unless the salad crops such as 
leaf-lettuce, water cress and mustard are ready 
for your table within an hour or so after picking, 
much of their appetizing flavor and delightful 
crispness is lost. Garden fresh peas, right from 
the vine, are a different vegetable from any that 
can be bought; and sweet corn, right out of the 
garden and into the pot, then on to the table, 
all within an hour, will give you genuine taste 
pleasure unsurpassed. 
If you are planning a limited area, it is advis- 
able to select your varieties with care. 
In many cases, varieties, especially of 
garden peas, sweet corn and bush 
beans, require different lengths of time 
in which to reach edible maturity. These 
may be started according to two plans: 
First, by making successional sowings 
of a guick-maturing variety at intervals 
of ten days or two weeks. Second, by 
sowing, all at one time, several varieties 
that require different maturities. 
Tar year every home owner should make it 




Except where there is irrigation, successional 
sowings of one variety of garden peas are not 
as satisfactory as sowing several varieties with 
different ripening periods at one time. This is 
because peas make their best growth and set 
the best crop in cool weather, while the soil is 
moist. With bush beans and sweet corn both 
plans work well, provided the sowings are made 
long enough before the usual date of the earliest 
autumn frost to permit their reaching edible 
maturity. 
As to the garden itself, it is impossible to do 
more than present generalizations and sugges- 
tions because environment and other circum- 
stances vary so greatly that almost no state- 
ment can be made to fit all conditions. Nothing 
can compare with experience which, for- 
tunately, can be gained in gardening at a small 
expense. 
As to soil and situation, make the best of what 
you have. Few of us can pick and choose the 
ideal site, soil and other factors so emphatically 
emphasized by most writers on gardening. Yet 
it is advisable to know what these are so they 
may be recognized and as nearly as possible 
established. 
If a choice of exposure is possible, choose a 
gentle slope toward the east, the southeast or 
the south, because these are the “‘early facings. 
Other conditions being equal, vegetables on 
such slopes will mature earlier and be of higher 
quality. 
A vegetable garden should be away from 
shallow-rooted trees such as maples, willows 
and poplars, which will not only shade the 
ground if situated on the east, south or west, 
but also steal plant food and water from the soil. 
Heavy clay-type soil does not easily absorb 
moisture or readily assimilate plant nutrients; 
yet it is retentive of both. As clay retains mois- 
ture, it is cold and late in the spring, also hard 
to cultivate because of its sticky nature. This ~ 
soil can be improved by working in 4 
mixture of one-third each of peat moss, — 
sand and good loam. Very light sandy — 
soils are easy to work even when wet. 
They are loose and readily receptive 
but not retentive of water and plant 
nutrients, which consequently tend 10 — 
wash out and be lost. Combinations of 
these two extreme types, known 48 — 
loam, especially the sandy loams, are 
better than either type. 

