fan 
EETS, Crosby’s Eevotien (Center) 

Early Wonder (Left) 
Detroit Dark Red (Right) 
i 

Make the most of your space 
If your space is limited, better omit 
corn and potatoes 
And go slow 
buy in equal 
quality on the market, like potatoes, 
winter squash. In- 
delicately flavored 
early 
beans and summer 
never be shipped 
erops like peas, 
that need lots of room. 
on crops that you can 
Jate cabbage and 
stead, favor the 
vegetables like 
cabbage, green 
squash that can 
without some loss of quality. 
leaf lettuce, 
Spading vs. plowing 
Before digging or plowing, spread 242 
to 3 lbs. of good mixed fertilizer over 
feet of soil. Divide 
broadcasting one with 
the other across the 
wind. Or use a fertilizer spreader if 
you have one; it insures uniform dis- 
every 100 square 
into two lots, 
the wind and 
tribution. 
Before you dig, 
test: pick up 4 
easily, the soil 
too wet, don’t dig. 
Now you are ready to dig. The right 
tool, unless you are accustomed to 

Include perennial vegetables when 
possible. Rhubarb, Asparagus, 
Horse Radish and Perennial Onions 
can be grown on one side of the 
garden where they won't inter- 
ith plowing OT cultivating. 
cluded 










whenever space 
the quality of home-grown berries 
is far better than any you can buy. 



make the mud pie 
handful of soil and 
pat it lightly into a mud pie or cake. 
Tf it can be crumbled into loose soil 
is all right to dig. If 



CANTALOUPE, Hale’s Best No. 45 
something else, is the round-pointed 
long handled shovel. If there is any 
slope to your garden, start at the 
lower end, as the natural tendency 
is for soil to work down grade. Start 
by digging a trench the width and 
depth of a spade. Wheel soil from 
this trench to the far end where you 
plan to finish. As you dig, throw the 
earth from the succeeding rows into 
the trench made by the previous 
spade cut. The last trench is filled 
with the earth wheeled from the first. 
If you must plow, be sure the soil 
is right. Many good plots have been 
ruined by plowmen who insist -on 
working when the soil was too wet. 
Before you decide on machine work, 
consider this: by working only an 
hour a day for five days, a man of 
average strength can dig a good-sized 
garden and “leave the soil 
condition than the ordinary tractor 
job, worked with farm equipment 
usually too heavy for garden use. 
Raking can be overdone 
Most inexperienced gardeners spend 
too much time working the soil into 
a dust with a rake. Clods should be 
broken up and trash and stones re- 
moved within reasonable limits. But 
to crush every last lump into dust 
takes entirely too much time for the 
part-time gardener. Tf worked at the 
right “mud-pie” point, most lumps 
will break up in the cultivation that 
follows planting. 
When you lay out the rows— 
A cord stretched from a stake at 
either end of the row will serve as a 


EGG PLANT, Black Beauty 
Practical answers to every-day 
questions about home gardening 






Study the chart on page 18. This 
will tell you how far apart rows 
should be, how long each crop 
takes to mature, and how much 
space you will need to provide the 
vegetables your family likes. After 
you have taken into consideration 
the crops you want to grow, make 
a rough sketch showing the loca- 
tion of each crop, with catch crops, 
intercrops, succession crops indi- 
cated. 













guide in opening a furrow. For smaller 
seeds, press the end of the hoe handle 
into the soil along the line to form a 
14” deep furrow. Finer seeds can be 
this furrow, covered with 
of soil. In heavy clay it 
will pay to use a special covering 
mixture of either pure sand or half 
sand and half peat moss. Sifted com-~- 
post can be substituted for the peat. 
Furrows two to three inches deep for 
peas and beans need not be filled at 
once. An inch of covering at the most 
is enough. Fill the trench with soil 
as the plants grow- 
planted in 
about 44” 
A hill is a hole 
Much damage is done by following 
the advice, “Plant in hills.’ Actually, 
except where heavy rainfall may 
waterlog the soil, cucumbers, squash, 
melons and pumpkins should be 
planted in shallow depressions, S¢v~ 
eral seeds spaced 2” apart. 
Vine crops appreciate all the well- 
rotted manure or compost you can dig 
into the soil. 


