GARDEN GUIDE POSTS 
Growing food at home is just plain good sense. Millions 
of Americans last year found that vegetables F.O.B. the 
kitchen door taste better than any they can buy. What’s 
more, scientists tell us that only fresh vegetables contain 
the all-important vitamins in abundance. That is why 
most of our home gardeners will continue to grow food 
at home even though the war emergency may seem to 
be over. 
To help you grow better vegetables and to answer the 
questions that home gardeners asked during last season, 
we have completely revised our “GARDEN GUIDE POSTS” 
for this issue of our catalog. 
For Veteran 
Gardeners 
Even old timers will find 
these notes worth saving for 
the many items of infor- 
mation that every gardener 
needs from time to time— 
when to plant, how deep, 
how much seed to buy, etc. 
For New 
Gardeners 
We’ve tried to make this a 
pocket encyclopedia of gar-~ 
dening, with all the basic 
facts you need condensed in 
the shortest and simplest 
form possible. Most of your 
questions can be answered 
by referring to the informa- 
tion given below. 
SITE AND SOIiL 
Most of us have no choice in either 
site or soil and must work with 
what we have, but if selection is 
possible, keep these principles in 
mind: 
1. Locate the garden in an open 
spot that receives at least six 
hours of direct sunlight each day, 
away from the roots of trees that 
might rob the soil of moisture and 
fertility. 
2. A rich sandy loam is the best 
garden soil, but if you have either 
heavy clay or light sand, the 
same materials will improve both 
—decayed vegetable matter—old 
rotted manure, peat moss, com- 
mercial humus or _ well-rotted 
leaves. 
3. Don’t apply lime unless it is 
really needed. Usually a soil that 
will grow good beets is all right. 
If beets do poorly and grow ir- 
regularly, you can add about 50 
lbs. of hydrated lime or 100 lbs. of 
ground limestone to each 1,000 
square feet of garden, If you have 
a pH tester, most flowers and 
vegetables will do well in a soil 
between 6,0 and 7,0, 

4, Do apply fertilizer. Apply 30 lbs. 
of good general fertilizer like 
4-12-4 or 5-10-5 to every thousand 
square feet and you won’t have to 
worry about any deficiencies. 
5. Don’t plant in wet ground. No 
soil is right for. gardening that 
can’t pass the “mud pie” test. To 
make a mud pie test, pick up a 
handful of soil and squeeze it 
slightly. If it balls or packs to- 
gether and won’t crumble when 
you apply light pressure, it is too 
wet to work. 

PLANNING 
1—On level ground, you can run 
rows either east and west or north 
and south, If east-and-west layout 
is used, be sure to plant taller vege- 
tables to the north. On sloping 
ground, the rows must run across 
the slope, not up and down. Other- 
wise all your plant food and much 
of your topsoil will go down the hill 
when it rains. 
_2—Divide the garden into three 
sections if possible, (1) Root vege- 
tables (2) Leaf vegetables and 
(3) Fruit vegetables. By switching 
these three groups every year you 
avoid many soil-borne diseases and 
insects and get better use of fertil- 
izers. This isn’t absolutely neces- 
sary, but it is one of those details 
that the smart gardener watches, 
3—Plan to use your garden full 
time. To do this, you’ll need catch 
crops, intercrops (also called com- 
panion crops) and succession crops. 
Catch crops are early vegetables, 
like spinach, that you grow very 
eatly before a crop like late 
cabbage is set out. Intercrops are 
planted between the rows of 
larger vegetables, like head let- 
tuce between rows of Broccoli. Suc- 
cession crops are catch crops in 
reverse — they follow early crops. 
For instance, Chinese cabbage will 
mature ‘fine heads if planted after 
an early crop of peas has been 
taken off, 


RADISH, Early » 
~ Scarlet Turnip 



LETTUCE 
18 Big Boston 

