keer HOME GARDENING GUIDE hereon ee 
SPADING AND PLOWING 
The right tool, unless you are accus- 
tomed to 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. 
There’s a trick to spading for best re- 
sults. Drive the spade straight down. 
Dig a trench and lay the soil from the 
trench, aside at the end. Now spade 
with the blade not parallel to the trench 
but at right angles to it, Lift it up and 
turn the spade over so that the top soil, 
humus and plant food which you have 
added are dropped underneath and into 
the trench you have spaded previously. 
When the last row is dug, carry the 
soil removed from the first row to fill 
in the last trench, If the good soil is 
deep, spade to a depth of 8 to 12 inches. 
If the top soil is shallow, avoid digging 
up the subsoil. Pulverize the soil, break- 
ing up clods with an iron rake and 
remove stones or trash, Just before 
planting any area of the garden, work 
that part finely and smooth off with a 
rake before laying out the rows. 
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. 
LAYING OUT THE ROWS 
Laying out the rows with military pre- 
cision pays off at thinning and cultiva- 
tion times. Ragged, irregular rows of 
root crops particularly, are very difficult 
to thin properly—-results in loss of yield 
and seed from over of under thinning. 
Straight lines of well established plants 
will not permit weed encroachment ex- 
sept in the easy-to-cultivate areas be- 
tween the rows themselves. 
A cord stretched from a stake at either 
end of the row will serve as a guide 
in opening a furrow. For smaller seeds, 
press the end of the hoe handle into 
the soil along the line to form a 2” 
deep furrow. Finer seeds can be planted 
in this furrow, covered with about 1/4” 
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 compost 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. 
PLANTING IN HILLS 
Hills are ‘holes’ on points, and dis- 
tinguished from drills, which are rows. 
Plants sown in hills are usually either 
vines, or large bushes, which need so 
much room in the row they cannot be 
sown in drills. For example, cucumbers, 
melons, squash, sweet corn, bush squash 
and tomatoes. 
The procedure is to stretch a line, just 
as you would for a seed drill, and along 
this mark the location of the hills at 
the proper intervals. 
When the seeds sprout they should be 
thinned out to the required number of 
plants. For those that grow in bush form, 
one plant to a hill is all that should be 
grown, Sweet corn is sometimes grown 
three plants to a hill; and vine crops 
the same. Thinning should be gradual, 
at first enough to insure each infant 
plant a chance to grow without inter- 
ference from neighbors. Then as the 
plants become established the weakest 
should be eliminated until only the 
desired number remain. 
The Old Gardener—On Spading and Sweet Corn 
When the soil can be 
crumbled in your 
hand it is dry enough 
to spade. Spading wet 
soil forms clods that 
are difficult to break 
~ up. Mould a ball of 
soil in your hand and 
pat it to make a mud 
pie. If the pie holds 
b / together the soil is 
A) yi too wet to spade. 
If you are going to tackle a sizable job 
of spading, it’s good strategy to work at it 
only an hour a day. Then you'll be done 
before you realize it and the job will not 
be so exhausting. é 
Some joker once said, ‘Don't spade up 4 
bigger garden for yourself than your wife 
can take care of.’’ At our house we enjoy 
adventuring in the garden so much we 
argue good naturedly to see who gets to 
work on it, The windup is that except for 
the plowing we share the whole fun, Find- 
ing and classifying garden weeds and bugs, 
“who found them first,/’ and what to do 
about them along with all the other inter- 
esting daily changes makes our garden a 
major conversation topic. 
The joy that comes from out-of-doors exer- 
cise, the fresh air, the savings in food bills 
plus the sheer extra-goodness of the food 
itself are such great rewards that we never 
consider gardening as ‘’work." 
And speaking of extra food goodness, for 
instance, there’s no comparison between 
home grown sweet corn and the kind you 
have to pay good money for. 
Most sweet corn is really sweet only if 
it’s home-grown. It must be cooked within 
an hour of the time it's picked if you want 
the true sugar flavor, As soon as it's picked, 
the sugar begins to turn to starch, and six 
hours after its picked, most of the sweetness 
is gone. So if you really want sweet, sweet 
corn, grow your own. 
If you've got the freezer space to spare 
this year try quick freezing a few packages 
of corn on the cob. Tastes extra fine in those 
mid-winter months when fresh sweet corn 
isn't available or so limited in quantity 
that the price is beyond eating tempetation, 
MANGEL WURZEL 
(SEE BEETS, STOCK) 
MELONS 
MUSKMELON AND CANTALOUPE 
Easily injured by cool weather, Before 
planting, spade liberal forkful of well 
rotted manure into each hill. Plant 8 to 
10 seeds to a hill. Thin plants to four per 
hill after third leaf develops, and train 
vines in different directions. On moist 
ground, use shingles to hold melons off 
ground to prevent rotting. If grown in 
cool weather or where nights are cold, 
will not bear well and melons will have 
poor flavor. 
BENDER’S SURPRISE—Similar to Tip Top. 
Coarse netted 7-lb., oblong fruit, distinctly 
ribbed hard greenish-yellow skin. Flesh 
bright salmon. 95 days to maturity. 
HALE’S BEST—Flesh thick, deep salmon- 
pink, sweet and tasty. Heavily netted rind, 
with faint stripe. Small seed cavity. Out- 
standing variety, resistant to powdery mil- 
dew. 4 lbs. 86 days. 
HEARTS OF GOLD OR IMPROVED HOODOO 
—Nearly round 2-lb. fruit, distinctly ribbed, 
deep green with fine grey netting. Thick, 
deep salmon flesh, tender sweet, Edible in 
94 days. 
HONEY ROCK OR SUGAR ROCK—Round, 
4-lb. fruit. Gray-green skin, coarse, sparse 
netting, Orange-salmon, thick flesh, fine 
flavor. 85 days. 
PRIDE OF WISCONSIN—Small seed cavity 
and thick, orange flesh, excellent flavor. 
Matures early. Large size. A new melon 
which is deservedly becoming a leader. 
92 days. 
ROCKY FORD — Fruits small with rather 
large red cavities. Nearly round, 2!/ lbs. 
No ribs. Flesh thick and green with golden 
tinge at center, Very juicy and spicy. Excel- 
lent quality. 92 days to maturity. 
GOLDEN DELIGHT—Winner of the 1952 All 
America Bronze Medal, Delicious orange or 
salmon flesh. Fruits elongated and firmer 
than most of its class. 
WATERMELON 
Requires about same culture as musk- 
melon, except the vines need more 
room. fertilize each hill liberally and 
cultivate thoroughly. 
COLE’S EARLY—An early variety for the 
North. Medium size fruit, short oval with 
alternate dark and light green stripes. Pink- 
ted flesh, black seeds and teuder rind. 75 
days. 
DIXIE QUEEN—Very prolific. Bright-red, 
crisp, splendid quality fibreglass flesh, Few 
small, white seeds, 85 days. 
KLECKLEY’S SWEET OR WONDERMELON— 
Large, cylindrical, dark bluish-green, with 
thin, tender rind. Bright red, juicy, sweet 
flesh, creamy-white seeds with traces of 
brown, 85 days. 
a 
NEW HAMPSHIRE MIDGET 
Icebox size, strawberry-red 
flesh with a very good flavor. 
Attractive, distinctive, grows on 
a small vigorous vine and has 
rather large black seeds for its 
size, 78 days. Packet 15c. 
eee EEE 
NEW HAMPSHIRE MIDGET—Icebox size, 
very good flavored strawberry red flesh. 
The best midget so far produced and rec- 
ommended where standard or large sized 
watermelons do not mature satisfactorily. 
78 days. Pkt. 15 cents. 
STONE MOUNTAIN—Also called Dixie Belle. 
High quality shipping variety. Fruits very 
large, oval-round, blunt ends. Dark green, 
tough rind. Flesh rich, scarlet, fine grained, 
sweet. Seed white with black tips. 90 days. 
TOM WATSON—Red heart strain. Large 
fruit, uniform cylindrical, with tough elastic 
rind, faintly veined, 90 days. 
HAWKESBURY—Large 25-40 lbs. Oblong. 
Flesh dark red, sweet and of good quality. 
1I—N 
