Part 2

IN A KITCHEN GARDEN

OF ONE ACRE.

BY E. D. DARLINGTON.

In order to treat this subject in detail, I shall first write on what the kitchen garden should be, where it should be, and how to keep it in the best order to produce the desired results, then take up “What to grow” and “How to grow it.”

SITUATION OF THE GARDEN.

The garden should be situated conveniently near the farm buildings, as it should be visited frequently; a variety of tools are needed in its care, and each should be put away as soon as done with, that it may be preserved in the best order for use. It is often necessary to carry water to help along young transplanted stock that has been overtaken by a dry spell. Where the distance has to be traversed so frequently, it naturally follows that the shorter it is the greater will be the saving in time and the less likely is the garden to be neglected.

The garden should be as nearly level as possible, or, if sloping, not so much so as to be in danger of being washed by heavy rains. If sloping, the slope should lie to the south, or as nearly south as possible. A plantation or hedge of evergreens on the north side of the garden will be found a wonderful aid to the earliness of the garden truck and to the hardiness of the small fruit plants and roots which remain in the ground all winter; if a woods or high hill be directly on the north and northwest of your garden, it will answer nearly as well as the hedge of evergreens. The garden should be so situated as to have good surface drainage; without this or expensive underdraining, it will hardly be possible to raise early or fine vegetables at any profit. These I consider the most essential points in selecting the plot for the garden; of course, a good, rich soil is to be desired, but the gardener can, by the liberal use of manure and thorough cultivation, remedy a deficiency of this kind in a couple of years, while he cannot make a favorable location for early vegetables on a north slope if he should try a lifetime. By a careful study of the varieties in cultivation, and by trials of their merits in your garden and on your table, experience will be gained which will enable you to grow as fine vegetables and fruits on heavy soil as on light, sandy loam, and vice versa.

THE SOIL OF THE GARDEN.

Ground that has been worked in some cultivated farm crop, such as corn or potatoes, is more desirable for starting a garden than fresh sod land, as it is more easily brought into fine condition in the early spring; while grass is one of the hardest weeds to exterminate, especially among small hoed crops, such as strawberries, onions, beets, etc. Sod land is also often full of grubs, which work havoc among the strawberry plants and young melon and squash vines. In either new ground or in the old established garden, it will be of great advantage to put the long, coarse manure on the ground in the fall, and plow it well under as soon as the ground can be cleared of the summer crops. The soil should be left just as it is plowed, without harrowing, leaving the lumps and ridges to the action of the frost. This will be found of especial benefit to heavy soils that are late in drying in the spring; it also adds a great deal to the appearance and cleanliness of the garden, as the weeds, old stalks, etc., are all cut off and burnt before plowing, instead of being left to scatter their seeds with every winter wind.

The gases arising from the decaying of the coarse manure in the soil tend to lighten it, instead of being wasted in the air, as is the case when the manure is in heaps or in the barnyard. By plowing-time in the spring the manure will have assimilated with the soil and will be thoroughly worked through the cultivated surface, thus affording food for the crops in all stages. If such manure is applied in the spring, it will make dry or thin soil still drier, and unless plowed well under, where it would take the roots a long time to reach it, will burn the young plants up if the season should happen to be a dry one. The great value of compost in starting young plants is that it affords rich food in proper form for the tender young rootlets, enabling the young plants to make a quick, tender growth, which is very essential if vegetables of fine quality are desired. By fall manuring and plowing the whole garden is composted, while the action of the frost on the lumps and ridges pulverizes them, leaving the soil in a fine, friable condition.

LAYING OUT THE GARDEN.

It is most convenient to have the garden as nearly square as possible, which in our garden of one acre will be 208 x 208 feet. This makes the length of the rows a very good measure of the quantity to be grown, and affords as many rows to the ground as can be profitably worked, for it is desirable that the rows should be as nearly east and west as possible, and they should be the long way of the plot (if not a square), as it will result in great saving of time in planting and cultivating. Moving the line and drawing the cultivators out of one row and turning into the next, takes nearly as much time as the working of the short row.

In plowing, a good, wide headland should be left at each end of the garden; it should be wide enough to allow the horse and cultivator to come clear out from between the rows and to turn into the next row, without damaging the plants at the ends of the rows by trampling and dragging the cultivator over them.

In winter, while there is plenty of time before the spring opens, the summer campaign should be planned--what vegetables are to be raised and what quantity of each will be needed, in what part of the garden it will be best to plant each variety so that the pollen from different members of the same family, such as cucumbers and cantaloupes, will not mix and spoil each other’s fine flavor. If the soil is of different quality in different parts of the garden, it should be planned so that the heavy and the lighter portions shall be occupied by such crops as will succeed best in the respective soils.

Ease of cultivation and the rotation or succession of crops should also be considered. The small-growing plants which require hand hoeing should be together, and likewise those which are to be worked with the horse cultivator. Where the ground is to bear two crops--one planted after the other has matured and been taken off--it will be of advantage to have such crops together, thus making larger plots for the replowing and a consequent saving of time and work.

Beside these conditions in laying out a new garden, when it comes to the second or succeeding seasons, the crop or crops raised in the plot the year before must be taken into account. The situation of the crop of each particular vegetable should be moved to another part, as each draws certain proportions of the food elements from the soil, and those of a different character should occupy the ground in rotation, that the soil may be kept in the richest state. Thus the quality or size of the crop will not be lessened by being planted in a situation that it has depleted, to some extent, of its own particular food the year before. Reference should also be had to the kind of food which the plant requires, as in the case of strawberries and potatoes, which should not succeed each other without special manures, as they both exhaust, to a great extent, the potash in the soil, so that the soil, having borne a heavy crop of one, would of necessity make but a poor return of the other if planted in direct succession. If this cannot be overcome by a change of location, the gardener will know that the proper food elements have been depleted by the previous crop, and must try to supply them with special manure or commercial fertilizers.

It is of great importance to rapid work and good gardening that all this should be arranged and settled in the gardener’s mind, or better, plotted out on paper, before the first plowing is done in the spring. The plan being kept would be valuable in laying out the garden the succeeding year, as it would show just where each vegetable had been grown and where the different kinds of manure had been applied. If, in addition, the success of the various crops and notes of their growth were marked upon it, it would form a most valuable text-book for the study of improved gardening, each garden being an experimental station and each gardener a student in pursuit of knowledge and advancement in his work, feeding at the same time both physical and intellectual needs.

DIAGRAM OF THE GARDEN.

The accompanying plan may be of use to the novice in gardening on the scale suggested by our subject, as it is planned to admit of a proportionate quantity of such vegetables and fruits as are grown in the ordinary garden, while directions for planting and cultivating the various vegetables will be found in the special descriptions of the several varieties. (See p. 16.)

PROCURING THE SEEDS AND PLANTS.

KEY TO DIAGRAM.

ROW NO. 1. 25 grape vines, planted about 7½ feet apart. The first three years these are trained to plain stakes or bean poles, the space in the rows between the vines being planted with strawberries, peas, beans or some other low-growing crop, to occupy the ground and insure good cultivation. When the vines have made strong canes and have reached the tops of the poles, a post is set at each vine and a trellis made, as described in the chapter on grapes. This row is six feet distant from the north boundary line of the garden.

ROWS NO. 2. These rows are twelve feet distant from each other and from the row of grapes, and are planted with blackberry vines, at a distance of three feet in the rows. Though this may seem like a good deal of “elbow room,” it is as close as they can be planted to keep them in good order; if planted closer they will form an impenetrable jungle by the end of the second season.

ROWS NO. 3. These two rows are planted with red and black raspberries, the rows also twelve feet apart, but the plants set 2½ feet apart in the rows.

ROW NO. 4. This is planted with rhubarb, sage and thyme, currants and gooseberries, and is twelve feet distant from the rows on either side.

ROW NO. 5. Is twelve feet from row No. 4, and is planted with asparagus, as described in the special chapter on that vegetable.

ROWS NO. 6. These two rows are to be planted with spring-set strawberries for the next year’s crop, and are four feet distant from the asparagus and from each other. The strawberries are intended to be grown on the matted row plan, and to be cultivated with the horse cultivator; if they are to be grown in stools, another row can be planted between them, and the whole worked with the wheel or hand hoes.

ROW NO. 7. This row is for watermelons or cantaloupes, and the line of hills is six feet distant from the row on either side. The space in the row between the hills can be planted with egg plants, cabbage, lettuce or such other plants as may be desired.