F. F. Rockwell

“ Even the long-keeping sorts, like squash, potatoes and onions, are very perceptibly more delicious right from the home garden, fresh from the vines or the ground; but when it comes to peas, and corn, and lettuce,—well, there is absolutely nothing to compare with the home garden ones, gathered fresh, in the early slanting sunlight, still gemmed with dew, still crisp and tender and juicy, ready to carry every atom of savory quality, without loss, to the dining table. ”

“ Long before the science in the case was discovered, the soil cultivators had learned by observation the necessity of keeping the soil nicely loosened about their growing crops. Even the lanky and untutored aborigine saw to it that his squaw not only put a bad fish under the hill of maize but plied her shell hoe over it. Plants need to breathe. Their roots need air. You might as well expect to find the rosy glow of happiness on the wan cheeks of a cotton-mill child slave as to expect to see the luxuriant dark green of healthy plant life in a suffocated garden. ”

“ It is to such people that the message of home glass must come as good tidings indeed. For them the gentle art of gardening under glass has seemed a distant and mysterious thing. Little indeed have they realized how easily it might be brought within reach; that instead of being an expensive luxury it would be by no means impossible to make it a paying investment, yielding not only pleasure but profit as well. ”

“ And what provision, when that inevitable day of summer's defeat comes, have you made for saving part of the beauty and joy of your garden, of carrying some rescued plants into the safe stronghold of your house, like minstrels to make merry and cheer the clouded days until the long siege is over, and spring, rejuvenescent, comes to rout the snows? ”

“ The ideal garden soil is a "rich, sandy loam." And the fact cannot be overemphasized that such soils usually are made, not found. Let us analyze that description a bit, for right here we come to the first of the four all-important factors of gardening--food. The others are cultivation, moisture and temperature. "Rich" in the gardener's vocabulary means full of plant food; more than that--and this is a point of vital importance--it means full of plant food ready to be used at once, all prepared and spread out on the garden table, or rather in it, where growing things can at once make use of it ”

“ CHAPTER III SOILS, MANURES AND FERTILIZERS The soil must furnish the whole foundation of plant life. For centuries those who have grown things have realized the vital importance of having the soil rich or well supplied with plant food; and if this is important in growing plants in the field or flower garden, where each vegetable or flower has from one to several cubic feet of earth in which to grow, how imperative it is to have rich soil in a pot or plant box where each plant may have but a few cubic inches! ”

“ I know a doctor in New York, a specialist, who has attained prominence in his profession, and who makes a large income; he tells me that there is nothing in the city that hurts him so much as to have to pay out a nickel whenever he wants an apple. His boyhood home was on a Pennsylvania farm, where apples were as free as water, and he cannot get over the idea of their being one of Nature's gracious gifts, any more than he can overcome his hankering for that crisp, juicy, uncloying flavor of a good apple, which is not quite equaled by the taste of any other fruit. ”

“ In the same way the water stored in the soil after a rain begins at once to escape again into the atmosphere. That on the surface evaporates first, and that which has soaked in begins to soak in through the soil to the surface. It is leaving your garden, through the millions of soil tubes, just as surely as if you had a two-inch pipe and a gasoline engine, pumping it into the gutter night and day! Save your garden by stopping the waste. It is the easiest thing in the world to do--cut the pipe in two. ”

“ I do not know which is the more commonly overlooked, the importance and fun of keeping the living-rooms of the house cheerful with plants and flowers in winter, or the certainty and economy with which it may be done if one will use the plain common-sense methods necessary to make plants succeed. Too much care and coddling is just as sure to make growth forlorn and sickly as too much neglect. ”

“ Do not let up on your fight with weeds, for every good vegetable that is left over can be put to some use. Here and there in the garden will be a strip that has gone by, and as it is now too late to plant, we just let it go. Yet now is the time we should be preparing all such spots for withstanding next summer's drouth! You may remember how strongly was emphasized the necessity for having abundant humus (decayed vegetable matter) in the soil—how it acts like a sponge to retain moisture and keep things growing through the long, dry spells which we seem to be sure of getting every summer. ”

“ But the first distinction to make in plant foods is that between available and non- available foods--that is, between foods which it is possible for the plant to use, and those which must undergo a change of some sort before the plant can take them up, assimilate them, and turn them into a healthy growth of foliage, fruit or root. It is just as readily possible for a plant to starve in a soil abounding in plant food, if that food is not available, as it would be for you to go unnourished in the midst of soups and tender meats if the latter were frozen solid. ”

“ Prone to strange tasks indeed is the hand of Nature which has fashioned these grotesque, clumsy, lifeless looking plants to accumulate nourishment and moisture for months from the niggardly desert sands, and to mature for a few hours' existence only these marvelously fashioned flowers which collapse with the first rays of the heat-giving sunshine. ”

“ It is almost a factory, where he must take his raw materials—earth, water, heat, light, and the wonderful thread of life, and mold these all into a hundred marvelous forms of beauty and utility. Something of art, something of science, something of business, must all be brought to his interesting work. ”

“ Part Two—Vegetables CHAPTER VIII. STARTING THE PLANTS This beautifully prepared garden spot—or rather the plant food in it— is to be transformed into good things for your table, through the ever wonderful agency of plant growth. The thread of life inhering in the tiniest seed, in the smallest plant, is the magic wand that may transmute the soil's dull metal into the gold of flower and fruit. ”

“ MANURES Manure of some sort is essential to the growing of plants in pots or boxes, both because of the plant-food it adds to the soil, and because it improves its mechanical condition and sponginess or water-holding quality. Thoroughly rotted horse manure or horse and cow manure mixed is by far the best. Cow manure alone, or pig manure, is lumpy and cold, and hen, sheep, pigeon or other special manures are not safe in the hands of the beginner, as they are one-sided, being especially rich in nitrogen and likely either to burn the plants or to cause too soft and watery growth. ”

“ If you have room for but one sort in your home garden, plant this for early, and a month later for main crop.
Do not fail to try some of this year's novelties. Half the fun of gardening is in the experimenting. But when you are testing out the new things in comparison with the old, just take a few plants of the latter and give them the same extra care and attention. Very often the reputation of a novelty is built upon the fact that in growing it on trial the gardener has given it unusual care and the best soil and location at his command. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIII MANAGEMENT Experience only can teach the beginner just how to manage his vegetables and plants in this new winter garden. But at the outset he must remember one thing: If it is true that he has control of his miniature world of growing things it is also true that he can leave nothing, as he does with his outside garden, to the treatment of nature. The control is in his hands—the warmth, the moisture, the fresh air, the soil—none can be left to chance ”

“ The currant will stand probably as much abuse as any plant the home gardener will have to deal with. Stuck in a corner, smothered in sod, crowded with old wood, stripped by the currant-worm, it still struggles along from year to year, ever hopefully trying to produce a meager crop of poor fruit. But these are not the sort you want. Although it is so tough, no fruit will respond to good care more quickly. ”

“ Many beginners get the idea that as soon as any plant has filled its pot with roots it must be immediately shifted to a larger one. While this is as a rule true with small plants, being grown on, it is not at all true of mature plants, especially those wanted to bloom in the house. When a shift has been given, at the beginning of the growing period, no further change should be necessary during the winter. It will, however, be well, if not imperative, to furnish food in the form of liquid manures when the soil in the pot has become filled with roots. ”

“ THE THEORY OF MANURING The food of plants consists of chemical elements, or rather, of numerous substances which contain these elements in greater or less degrees. There is not room here to go into the interesting science of this matter. It is evident, however, as we have already seen that the plants must get their food from the soil, that there are but two sources for such food: it must either be in the soil already, or we must put it there. The practice of adding plant food to the soil is what is called manuring. ”

“ The stimulus that compels hundreds to turn with delight to the joy in the creative work of growing things arises from a sound foundation. Comparatively few people, however, realize that this pleasure can be had by them around the entire circle of the months. They look forward to planting time in the spring and accept as inevitable the cessation of their gardening adventures with the first frost. ”

“ The commercial grower cannot afford to grow the very finest fruit. Many of the best varieties are not large enough yielders to be available for his use, and he cannot, on a large scale, so prune and care for his trees that the individual fruits receive the greatest possible amount of sunshine and thinning out—the personal care that is required for the very best quality. Second, there is the beauty and the value that well kept fruit trees add to a place, no matter how small it is. An apple tree in full bloom is one of the most beautiful pictures that Nature ever paints ”

“ CHAPTER II WHY YOU SHOULD GARDEN There are more reasons to-day than ever before why the owner of a small place should have his, or her, own vegetable garden. The days of home weaving, home cheese-making, home meat-packing, are gone. With a thousand and one other things that used to be made or done at home, they have left the fireside and followed the factory chimney. These things could be turned over to machinery. The growing of vegetables cannot be so disposed of. Garden tools have been improved, but they are still the same old one-man affairs—doing one thing, one row at a time. ”

“ The discoverers of it imagined that all agriculture would be revolutionized; all farm and garden practice reduced to an exact science; all older theories of husbandry and tillage thrown by the heels together upon the scrap heap of outworn things. ”