Home Vegetable Gardening - F. F. Rockwell (nice books to read .txt) 📗

CHAPTER III

REQUISITES OF THE HOME VEGETABLE GARDEN

 

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

 

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

 

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.

 

This, then, will give you an idea of a good garden soil. Perhaps in

yours there will be too much sand, or too much clay. That will be a

disadvantage, but one which energy and perseverance will soon overcome

to a great extent—by what methods may be learned in Chapter VIII.

 

DRAINAGE

 

There is, however, one other thing you must look out for in selecting

your garden site, and that is drainage. Dig down eight or twelve inches

after you have picked out a favorable spot, and examine the subsoil.

This is the second strata, usually of different texture and color from

the rich surface soil, and harder than it. If you find a sandy or

gravelly bed, no matter how yellow and poor it looks, you have chosen

the right spot. But if it be a stiff, heavy clay, especially a blue

clay, you will have either to drain it or be content with a very late

garden—that is, unless you are at the top of a knoll or on a slope.

Chapter VII contains further suggestions in regard to this problem.

 

SOIL ANTECEDENTS

 

There was a further reason for, mentioning that strip of onion ground.

It is a very practical illustration of what last year’s handling of the

soil means to this year’s garden. If you can pick out a spot, even if

it is not the most desirable in other ways, that has been well enriched

or cultivated for a year or two previous, take that for this year’s

garden. And in the meantime have the spot on which you intend to make

your permanent vegetable garden thoroughly “fitted,” and grow there

this year a crop of potatoes or sweet corn, as suggested in Chapter IX.

Then next year you will have conditions just right to give your

vegetables a great start.

 

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

 

There are other things of minor importance but worth considering, such

as the shape of your garden plot, for instance. The more nearly

rectangular, the more convenient it will be to work and the more easily

kept clean and neat. Have it large enough, or at least open on two

ends, so that a horse can be used in plowing and harrowing. And if by

any means you can have it within reach of an adequate supply of water,

that will be a tremendous help in seasons of protracted drought. Then

again, if you have ground enough, lay off two plots so that you can

take advantage of the practice of rotation, alternating grass, potatoes

or corn with the vegetable garden. Of course it is possible to practice

crop rotation to some extent within the limits of even the small

vegetable garden, but it will be much better, if possible, to rotate

the entire garden-patch.

 

All these things, then, one has to keep in mind in picking the spot

best suited for the home vegetable garden. It should be, if possible,

of convenient access; it should have a warm exposure and be well

enriched, well worked-up soil, not too light nor too heavy, and by all

means well drained. If it has been thoroughly cultivated for a year or

two previous, so much the better. If it is near a supply of water, so

situated that it can be at least plowed and harrowed with a horse, and

large enough to allow the garden proper to be shifted every other year

or two, still more the better.

 

Fill all of these requirements that you can, and then by taking full

advantage of the advantages you have, you can discount the

disadvantages. After all it is careful, persistent work, more than

natural advantages,