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LETTUCE, Bronze Beauty 

Make the most of your space 
Tf your space is limited, better omit 
crops like peas, corn and potatoes 
that need lots of room. And go slow 
on crops that you can buy in equal 
quality on the market, like potatoes, 
late cabbage and winter squash. In- 
stead, favor the delicately flavored 
vegetables like leaf lettuce, early 
cabbage, green beans and summer 
squash that can never be shipped 
without some loss of quality. 
Spading vs. plowing 
Before digging or plowing, spread 2% 
to 3 lbs. of good mixed fertilizer over 
every 100 square feet of soil. Divide 
into two lots, broadcasting one with 
the wind and the other across the 
wind. Or use a fertilizer spreader if 
you have one, it insures uniform dis- 
tribution. 
Before you dig, make the mud pie 
test: pick up a handful of soil and 
pat it lightly into a mud pie or cake. 
Tf it can be crumbled into loose soil 
easily, the soil is all right to dig. If 
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- 
fere with plowing or cultivating. 
Small fruits should be included 
whenever space will permit, since 
the quality of home-grown berries 
is far better than any you can buy. 







CANTALOUPE, Hale’s Best No. 45 
something else, is the round-pointed 
long handled shovel. Tf 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 in better 
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 



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ONIONS, Yellow Globe Dan 
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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 
planted in this furrow, covered with 
about 14” 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- 
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, sev- 
eral seeds spaced 2” apart. 
Vine crops appreciate all the well- 
rotted manure Or compost you can dig 
into the soil. 
