In deciding upon the site for the home vegetable garden
it is well to dispose once and for all of the old idea that the garden
"patch" must be an ugly spot in the home surroundings. If thoughtfully
planned, carefully planted and thoroughly cared for, it may be made a
beautiful and harmonious feature of the general scheme, lending a touch
of comfortable homeliness that no shrubs, borders, or beds can ever
produce.
With this fact in mind we will not feel restricted to any part of the
premises merely because it is out of sight behind the barn or garage.
In the average moderate-sized place there will not be much choice as to
land. It will be necessary to take what is to be had and then do the
very best that can be done with it. But there will probably be a good
deal of choice as to, first, exposure, and second, convenience. Other
things being equal, select a spot near at hand, easy of access. It may
seem that a difference of only a few hundred yards will mean nothing,
but if one is depending largely upon spare moments for working in and
for watching the garden and in the growing of many vegetables the latter
is almost as important as the former this matter of convenient access
will be of much greater importance than is likely to be at first
recognized. Not until you have had to make a dozen time-wasting trips
for forgotten seeds or tools, or gotten your feet soaking wet by going
out through the dew-drenched grass, will you realize fully what this may
mean.
Exposure.
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But the thing of first importance to consider in picking out the spot
that is to yield you happiness and delicious vegetables all summer, or
even for many years, is the exposure. Pick out the "earliest" spot you
can find a plot sloping a little to the south or east, that seems to
catch sunshine early and hold it late, and that seems to be out of the
direct path of the chilling north and northeast winds. If a building, or
even an old fence, protects it from this direction, your garden will be
helped along wonderfully, for an early start is a great big factor
toward success. If it is not already protected, a board fence, or a
hedge of some low-growing shrubs or young evergreens, will add very
greatly to its usefulness. The importance of having such a protection or
shelter is altogether underestimated by the amateur.
The soil.
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The chances are that you will not find a spot of ideal garden soil
ready for use anywhere upon your place. But all except the very worst of
soils can be brought up to a very high degree of productiveness
especially such small areas as home vegetable gardens require. Large
tracts of soil that are almost pure sand, and others so heavy and mucky
that for centuries they lay uncultivated, have frequently been brought,
in the course of only a few years, to where they yield annually
tremendous crops on a commercial basis. So do not be discouraged about
your soil. Proper treatment of it is much more important, and a garden-
patch of average run-down, or "never-brought-up" soil will produce much
more for the energetic and careful gardener than the richest spot will
grow under average methods of cultivation.
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; or what we term, in one
word, "available" plant food. Practically no soils in long- inhabited
communities remain naturally rich enough to produce big crops. They are
made rich, or kept rich, in two ways; first, by cultivation, which helps
to change the raw plant food stored in the soil into available forms;
and second, by manuring or adding plant food to the soil from outside
sources.
"Sandy" in the sense here used, means a soil containing enough
particles of sand so that water will pass through it without leaving it
pasty and sticky a few days after a rain; "light" enough, as it is
called, so that a handful, under ordinary conditions, will crumble and
fall apart readily after being pressed in the hand. It is not necessary
that the soil be sandy in appearance, but it should be friable.
"Loam: a rich, friable soil," says Webster. That hardly covers it,
but it does describe it. It is soil in which the sand and clay are in
proper proportions, so that neither greatly predominate, and usually
dark in color, from cultivation and enrichment. Such a soil, even to the
untrained eye, just naturally looks as if it would grow things. It is
remarkable how quickly the whole physical appearance of a piece of well
cultivated ground will change. An instance came under my notice last
fall in one of my fields, where a strip containing an acre had been two
years in onions, and a little piece jutting off from the middle of this
had been prepared for them just one season. The rest had not received
any extra manuring or cultivation. When the field was plowed up in the
fall, all three sections were as distinctly noticeable as though
separated by a fence. And I know that next spring's crop of rye, before
it is plowed under, will show the lines of demarcation just as plainly.
To Your Success
Perzina Munroe
http://www.12path.com/HBC/