

Poor Soil 
DON’T plant in water-logged or poorly- 
drained soil. If your garden doesn’t 
drain readily, find another plot or pro- 
vide tile drainage. No soil will grow 
good root crops that dries out hard and 
compact. If the cost of conditioning such 
soil is too high, as in plots to be used 
only one year, omit carrots, beets, etc., 
and concentrate on leafy vegetables and 
those that produce above ground, such 
as tomatoes, peppers, etc. You can re- 
make such soil by adding vwell-rotted 
organic matter. This may be old manure, 
spent mushroom manure, peat moss, 
rotted compost, etc. If ashes have weather- 
ed for at least a year, they will help break 
up clay also. So will an application of 
lime or gypsun. Light sands can also 
be improved by adding liberal amounts of 
organic matter. 
Extra Feeding 
DON’T DEPEND on organic matter only 
for feeding your vegetables. While it 
has some fertility value, it won't provide 
enough. Remember that vegetables grow- 
ing in a garden are in an artificial en- 
vironment. You don’t want natural 
growth; you want crops to mature as 
soon as possible, and this means extra 
feeding with suitable fertilizers. Properly 
used, chemical fertilizers furnish plant 
food at lowest cost in most readily avail- 
able form. 
Make provisions for 
through the summer. 
extra feedings 
Correcting Acid or Alkaline Soils 
Acid soil conditions may be corrected by 



BROCCOLI, Italian 
Green Sprouting 
SQUASH, 
Table Queen 



KOHLRABI, 
Early White Vienna 
PreGame ey Where? Why? 
the use of lime, preferably as ground lime- 
stone, which has a longer effect. However, 
do not apply lime unless it is really need- 
ed. A good check on the need for lime 
is the way your beets grow. Usually a 
soil that will grow good beets contains 
enough lime. If you have trouble with 
beets, and clovers do not grow well in 
your vicinity, it will pay you to have 
your soil tested. (We have soil test kits 
that will show you the right amount of 
lime to apply.) 
Alkaline soil conditions may cause bleach- 
ing and stunting of plants. This can be 
remedied by using soil sulphur or gypsum. 
Here, again, caution should be used to 
find out, by soil tests, the right amount to 
use for your particular soil and crops. 
Most garden plants do best in a soil that 
is neither strongly alkaline or acid but 
nearly neutral, A soil test of pH 6.0 to 
7.0 is ideal, for most crops. 
Spading the Garden 
The average home garden can be dug 
easily in five or six days, if done in 
stages. Usually a hand-dug garden is 
in better condition than one that has 
been plowed. Start by digging a trench 
the depth and width of a spade. Wheel 
the dirt from this trench around to 
the other side of the garden, where you 
plan to finish digging. Throw the dirt 
from succeeding rows into the trench 
made by the the previous spade cut. The 
last cut is then filled with the earth 
wheeled from the first. 
Spading vs. Plowing 
Many a garden plot has been ruined hy 
a heavy tractor that worked it too wet. 



BEANS, Burpee’s 
Stringless Green Pod 
Be sure your soil passes the mud pie 
test before you allow a plowman to touch 
it. Too often, regular farm equipment 
is too heavy for working garden soils. 
DON’T work your soil too much. Re- 
member that after you finish digging 
or plowing your soil has been fluffed 
up and loosened, so plant roots can grow 
through it easily. Every time you go over 
it you are packing it down, making it 
less suitable fer growing plants. Most 
inexperienced gardeners overdo surface 
preparation by trying to work the surface 
into a fine dust. Clods should be broken 
up, stones raked off and trash removed, 
in sensible limits. If the soil was dug 
at the right mud pie point, most lumps 
should break up without too much addi- 
tional cultivation. 
Use a cord or garden line stretched across 
the garden in laying out rows, Crooked 
rows increase the work needed. Also, 
they waste space. Open furrows for sow- 
ing seed by running the end of a hoe 
handle along a taut cord. For most seeds 
this should not be more than 1" deep; 
1‘’ deep for peas, beans, corn, etc. Fine 
seeds should not be covered more than 
4’ in the furrow. If your soil cakes or 
crusts badly, use clean sand, or a mixture 
of 50-50 sand and leaf mold, or peat moss, 
to cover the seed. This loose mixture 
does not cake and allows the tender 
seedlings to break through readily. 
Where it is important to catch light 
rainfall, corn, peas, beans, etc. can, be 
sown at the bottom of a 3” to 4” fur- 
row, but should not be covered with 
more than 1” of soil. 


