Part 2

Having the plan of work all settled, the next thing is to know what is to be grown, the varieties of each that are best adapted to the situation and soil of the garden, and where they can be procured of the best quality. Under this head come the seeds needed for the vegetables and the roots, tips and runners for the plantings of small fruits. This should be done as soon as convenient, as I have found by experience it is a great saving to have the entire supply of seeds on hand a week or two before it is possible to begin planting. This is an important item, as I have sometimes lost my crop from planting inferior seed purchased at the last moment from the commissioned seeds that are sold in the country stores. It does not pay to economize or try to garden with poor seeds; it is a waste of time and labor in planting, and a waste of ground and manure, as the inferior vegetables raised will hardly cover the original cost of the seed. The gardener who sells his products, unless his crops are of the best, will soon find his trade falling off, and will be compelled to seek new customers each market day. Personally, I have found it more satisfactory and productive of better results to buy each season almost all the seeds needed from some reliable seedsman, rather than to depend on those of my own saving. For instance, such as peas, sweet corn and other vegetables, where the earlier the crop is ready to market the greater the profit; these mature much earlier if the seed is procured from reliable seedsmen who have their supplies grown in the North. Such northern grown seeds retain their instinct to hurry up and mature in a short season, while in one’s own saving they begin even in the first year to grow more leisurely and to accommodate themselves to the longer season. In the case of peas, those grown in Northern New York and Canada, such as are sold by all our leading seedsmen, will mature from one to two weeks earlier than those saved in our own neighborhood. The northern peas are also generally free from the weevil or striped bug, which bores the large round hole in all the home-saved peas and destroys their germinating power. So it is with almost every known variety of vegetable; each has some special locality in which it reaches a higher degree of perfection than in others less favorably situated. While, of course, these facts are of interest to the gardener, they are only learned after years of experience, and it is the seedsman’s business to know the peculiarities of the different varieties, and to raise or procure his stock from the best strains grown in the most favorable localities. It is for the gardener to purchase from a seedsman whom he knows to be thoroughly reliable, and whose interest it will be to serve him with prompt shipments and carefully-selected strains of the vegetables desired. All this is equally true of the nursery-man or small-fruit grower from whom the supply of roots and plants is to be purchased. On no part of the farm is “_Pedigree Stock_” of more importance than in the kitchen garden. I will speak further on of the saving of seeds, and refer now only to those which it is necessary to buy. First, it is often a saving of several days to have the seed on hand, as it is sometimes impossible to foretell just when you will need the seed to plant a certain plot, how soon the ground will be fit to work, or how soon will come the opportunity, in the press of other work; if you have the seed at hand that part is always ready, and this is quite an item where the garden frequently has to be attended to in the intervals of farm work. Next, it is a cash saving to order all your seeds at one time. If, as is most frequently the case, you have to send to some large city for your supply, by procuring all that you need at one time, you have but one freight or express charge to pay. In making up your order, stick to the old varieties that you know suit your soil and your market; all the more if your market is your own table, for the greatest pleasure in gardening is in testing the merits of your fruits and vegetables with the appetite engendered by their culture. Also take into consideration the preferences of the household department as to the cooking merits of the different varieties. Do not experiment with your main crop of any vegetable, but do not neglect to try such new varieties as seem to possess merit, for the varieties are being continually improved by good culture and selection, as well as by hybridization or cross-breeding. To have a fine garden, the gardener must know the merits of all new and old varieties, and be as progressive as is the successful man in any other line of business. I know of nothing so interesting as watching the growth and development of some new and improved variety that has been recommended to the gardening public in the most glowing terms, and often in glowing colors on a beautiful colored plate. Although I have been “taken in” fully as often as the average gardener of my experience, I have been many times repaid all trouble and outlay by the numerous successes that I have met with and the great improvement in some of the varieties grown. Sometimes I have made quite a nice little sum out of these novelties, when I have been able to sell the selected seed of the new variety to some other seedsman or to my neighbors. In these new varieties, more than in any others, do you need to order early, or, instead of the seed that you desire and which is to make reputation and money for you, “being something superior to anything ever grown before,” you may get one of those provoking little slips stating that the seedsman “regrets to inform you that, owing to the great demand, the supply is exhausted for this season, and hopes that the substituted kind will do as well.”

HOTBEDS AND COLD FRAMES.

With a garden of this size I would have hotbeds, cold frames and rich seed beds of fine light soil; these I would not have in the garden itself unless that be the most convenient place. Where there is time to attend to them, they will be a measure of economy, it being much cheaper to raise than to buy the plants, if you use more than a few dozens, while, if you have the time and room, quite a business can be done by supplying your neighbors who do not garden on such an extensive scale. It is best to locate the frames on the sunny side of a barnyard wall, or against a building that will shield them from the north wind and make a warm nook for them on sunshiny days. They should be situated conveniently near both to the manure pile and to a good supply of water, where they will constantly be under the eye in passing to and from the farm work and will not suffer neglect from being forgotten or overlooked. It is quite important that there should be good drainage from these beds, as they are most needed at a rainy time of the year; dampness is not only injurious to the young plants, but it also takes up a great deal of the heat which should go toward forwarding the growth of the young plants. The sashes can be bought, ready painted and glazed, at the planing mills in most cities, and this is much the cheapest way to procure them, as they can often be bought for what the bare sash would cost in a small order at a country shop. They come 3¼ feet wide by 6 feet in length, and are 1½ to 2 inches in thickness, and if stored in the dry when not in use, and are treated to an occasional coat of paint, will last a lifetime.

Three or four sash would be amply sufficient for a garden of an acre if used in succession, sowing one lot of seed as the preceding planting is set out in the garden; though, of course, more sash can be handled without any great increase of labor, and the season much advanced by growing radishes, lettuce, beets, etc., to maturity under the glass.

[Illustration: Illustration showing the manner of making the hotbed when sunk below the surface of the ground.]

In making the hotbed, dig a trench a few inches short of six feet in width, or as wide as the sashes will cover, about two feet in depth and as long as the combined width of the number of sashes which you wish to use. This is then to be boarded up with rough boards, but they should be neatly joined and plastering laths or building paper tacked over the cracks, so as not to waste the heat. The back or north side of this frame should be 6 or 8 inches higher than the front, so that the rain may run off the sashes. The sashes held at an angle in this manner will also receive more sunlight for the front part of the bed than if front and back were level. The whole frame of the bed should be banked round with the dirt thrown out, or better with fresh stable manure, which will help to keep it warm and will make a bank to drain away any surface water, which, being very cold in the spring, would, if allowed to penetrate the bed, tend to chill the heat of the fermenting manure, and consequently check the growth of the young and tender plants, even if it did not generate that great enemy of all young plants, fungus or mildew, causing them to rot or “damp off.”

[Illustration: Illustration showing the manner of constructing a hotbed above the surface of the ground.]

Or, if there is plenty of fresh stable manure at hand, it can be corded in a pile two feet high and extending a foot wider than the sash frame on all sides; and when the frame has been put in position on the heap, the manure should be carried up on the outside nearly to the top of the boards, making a warm jacket for the plants within. A portable frame of boards is made for the sash to rest on, twelve inches high at the back and eight inches in front. This style of bed does away with any digging and secures good drainage for the bed. It would probably be the most satisfactory way for the gardener, who is also a farmer, as the bed can easily be removed as soon as it has served its purpose for the season, and the manure, which has become well rotted by this time will make an excellent compost for corn, melons, celery, etc. The frame and sash can also be set on a good piece of ground in the fall and filled with young lettuce plants in the early part of October, which will furnish salad throughout the winter.

The manure and litter which are to produce the heat for the bed should be thoroughly forked over and heaped together a week or ten days before the beds are to be started. While a large proportion of the material should be fresh horse stable manure, where a large quantity of heating material is needed, it can be mixed with any litter obtainable, such as straw, leaves from the woods, weeds, cut fodder, or anything that will furnish bulk and that will decay rapidly, and, by decaying, produce heat; when the material has all been gathered and heaped solidly together, a good sprinkling with water, hot, if possible, will aid in starting the fermentation. In about a week or two, when the heat of the heap has gone down to 95° or 100°, the manure should be placed in the beds and well trampled down; it should come up to within eight inches of the front of the frame and should be covered with about three and a half or four inches of fine, rich soil. It is a good plan to sift the dirt through a coal sieve, as it then makes a fine bed for the seeds and young plants.

Place the sashes on as soon as this is done; handling the manure and repacking it will produce some fresh heat and it will still be too warm to sow any seed, but the heat will destroy such weed seeds as may be in the soil, and the steam and gases arising from the manure will tend to put the soil in the finest possible condition for forwarding the growth of the young plants. A thermometer should be placed in the soil of the bed every day or two, to see if the temperature has fallen sufficiently to admit of sowing the seeds. As soon as the temperature has fallen to about 75°; or, if no thermometer is at hand, as soon as the top sod is only perceptibly warm to the palm of the hand, the bed should be sprinkled, and as soon as this has dried off a little, rake it up thoroughly and sow the seed. The seed will produce finer and stockier plants if sown in drills about six inches apart, which will admit light and air to the roots of the plants, and will permit a weekly hoeing. In planting seeds, the depth of their covering should be about five times the diameter of the seed, and this covering should be firmly packed around them after planting. The starting and planting of these beds must be calculated, so as to have the plants ready to set out as soon as the garden can be worked. In this vicinity (Philadelphia) the first sowing of cauliflowers, lettuce, beets and early cabbage should be made about February 15th, or even earlier, depending on the forwardness of the season or of your own particular garden. The plants will then be of a suitable size for transplanting by the time the early part of the garden has been plowed. If the sashes are covered with old carpets or straw on cold nights, it will be a great saving of the heating power of the manure and will prevent the young plants from being chilled. The young plants should be treated to fresh air whenever the outside temperature is not too cold, that they may not become “drawn,” or “spindle up” into long, slim stems. As planting-out time approaches, the young plants should be left uncovered as frequently as is safe, that they may become sufficiently hardy not to miss the covering when removed to the open ground.

Tomatoes, peppers and egg plants and a second sowing of early cabbage should be sown in the same manner about the middle of March. If a few extra early plants are wanted, they can be transplanted into the earliest beds when the cabbage and other plants have been set out in the garden, and the sash again put on. If some sweet potatoes are buried about two inches deep in the dirt of one of the cabbage frames, and kept warm, they will produce a fine lot of sprouts, or, as they are called, “sets,” which can be broken off and planted in the garden when the weather has become sufficiently warm. If a number are wanted, or there is danger of their growing too large, they can be taken off and “heeled in” in another sash until planting time, and the potatoes put back again, as they will produce two or three crops of the sets. Or a hill of cucumbers can be planted in the centre of each sash as a second crop, and by the time it would be warm enough to leave them uncovered, these will have filled up the frame with bearing vines, gaining at least a month on those planted in the open ground.

While the cabbage, cauliflower, beets and lettuce may be planted out as soon as all danger of frost is over, the tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, etc., should not be set out until the thermometer stands at over 60° all night, or until the oak leaves are as large as a five-cent piece. In a small hotbed it is best to have a partition between each sash and the one next to it, so that such as are tender varieties may be kept warm and the more hardy cabbage may have plenty of fresh air, for if the latter should become “drawn,” all the advantages of an early start will be lost and the plants may become entirely worthless.

Sowings of seeds for early plants may be made in the same manner as above described for hotbeds, in cold frames, which are the same without the artificial heat germinated by fermenting manure, depending solely on the heat of the sun and the protection of the sash to forward the plants. They can be planted about two weeks later than the dates given for the respective vegetables in hotbeds, and the plants will be ready for setting out about the same length of time later than those raised with the artificial heat. These frames can also be used for wintering over a few fall-sown cabbage plants, which are useful in a very early season and can be kept full of parsley, lettuce, etc., making a pleasant variety of greens for the table during the winter.

As soon as it is warm enough to dig them and bring them into fine order, seed beds should be made in a sheltered spot of the garden, for the sowings of late cabbage and celery, which will be spoken of in detail under the special directions for growing these vegetables.

TOOLS.

Although not positively necessary, it is of great advantage to have a variety of tools for thoroughly working the soil and to facilitate the labor of planting and harvesting the crops, and exterminating weeds. If, however, the garden is as well cultivated as it should be, there will be no chance for weeds to start, as they will all be destroyed in their earliest stages.

While there is a general assortment of tools on every farm suitable for use in the garden, I will give a short list of some especially adapted for use in the kitchen garden and the modes and purposes of using them.

First is the PLOW. For the first plowing in the spring, and for the general plowing in the fall, I use a large two-horse plow, which takes a generous slice and will put the manure down as may be wished and return the enriched soil to the surface in the spring, again turning in another coat of manure, if it is to be had in sufficient quantities to do so. So long as the fresh manure does not come in direct contact with the young plants, I do not think it is possible to put in too much, at least in the first three years of the garden. In my soil, which is rather heavy, I plow six to eight inches deep; in light soil I would plow deeper, as the roots penetrate it much more rapidly. For working among the strawberries and permanent rows of small fruits, I use a light one-horse plow, with a swingle tree just wide enough to permit the horse to move freely; this plow is also used in plowing out the potatoes and in preparing the ground for a second crop. If the share is kept sharp, as it always should be, it will be found very useful in the cultivation of the berries, melons, etc., as with a good plowman it will go deep or shallow, or will slip around some point to be missed much easier than the cultivator.

When these plows are not in use I give the mould-board and all bright parts a coat of thick whitewash; this keeps them from rusting, so that plowing a single round leaves them bright and shining. A coat of this on all bright tools, spades, hoes, etc., in the fall, will keep them in the best order through the winter, so that no time will be lost getting them into good working condition in the spring.

A good companion to the light plow is a one-horse HARROW, of a V shape, with long, slender teeth. It is a splendid tool for making a good, deep bed of fine earth for seed sowing or setting out small plants. Where more land has been plowed than is needed for immediate planting, I run over it with this implement when working the balance of the garden, so keeping it clear of weeds and in fine condition for planting. It is especially convenient to have the ground in this shape for planting cabbage, celery, tomatoes, etc., as you can take advantage of a good shower to set them out while the ground is thoroughly wet. My plan is to commence planting when the rain begins, the fresh plants having the full benefit of the shower.

The ROLLER and the Harrow generally go in succession, and a light one-horse roller will be found very convenient, but the large farm roller will do equally good work where one is at hand and there is room for it to be used. A small hand roller, about three feet in width, for rolling in small drilled seeds, such as beets, onions, turnips, etc., and by which the dirt can be settled over a row of peas or corn when only a few rows are planted at once, will many times repay the labor of making it. A piece of six- or eight-inch drain pipe, with the bell knocked off, an iron bar run through the centre for an axle, and the whole inside filled with mortar or concrete and allowed to get perfectly hard, will make as fine a hand roller as need be, or one can very easily be made from a smooth section of a tree trunk. This implement would probably be much more useful than the one-horse roller. It always pays to roll ground every time it is plowed, and too much stress cannot be laid on the value of firmly compacting the soil around freshly sown seed.