A CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS
One of the greatest difficulties in gardening is to get things started ahead at the proper time, and yet upon the thoroughness with which this is done the success of the garden must depend, in large measure. The reader may remember that in a previous chapter (Chapter IV) the importance of accurately planning the work ahead was emphasized
I mentioned there the check list used to make sure that everything would be carried out, or started ahead at the proper time--as with the sowing of seeds. The following garden operations, given month by month, will serve not only as a timely reminder of things to be done, but as the basis for such a check list. The importance of the preparations in all matters of gardening, is of course obvious.
JANUARY
Probably one of the good resolutions made with the New Year was a better garden for the coming summer. The psychologists claim that the only hope for resolutions is to nail them down at the start with an action--that seems to have more effect in making an actual impression on the brain. So start the good work along by sending at once for several of the leading seed catalogs.
Planting Plan. Make out a list of what you are going to want this year, and then make your Planting Plan. See Chapter IV.
Seeds. Order your seed. Do it now while the seed store's
stock is full; while he is not rushed; while there is ample time to rectify mistakes if any occur.
Manures. Altogether too few amateur gardeners realize the great
importance of procuring early every pound of manures, of any kind, to be had. It often may be had cheaply at this time of year, and by composting, adding phosphate, and several turnings, if you have any place under cover where it can be collected, you can double its value before spring.
Frames. Even at this season of the year do not fail to air the frames well on warm days. Practically no water will be needed, but if the soil does dry out sufficiently to need it, apply early on a bright morning.
Onions. It will not be too early, this month, to sow onions for spring transplanting outside. Get a packet each of Prizetaker, Ailsa Craig, Mammoth Silver-skin, or Gigantic Gibraltar.
Lettuce. Sow lettuce for spring crop under glass or in frames. Fruit. This is a good month to prune grapes, currants, gooseberries and peach trees, to avoid the rush that will come later.
FEBRUARY
Hotbeds. A little early for making them until after the 15th,
but get all your material ready--manure, selected and stacked; lumber ready for any new ones; sash all in good repair.
Starting Seeds. First part of the month, earliest planting of cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce should be made; and two to four weeks later for main early crop. At this time also, beets and earliest celery.
Tools. Overhaul them all now; order repairs. Get new catalogs and study new improvements and kinds you do not possess.
Poles and brush. Whether you use the old-fashioned sort (now
harder to obtain than they used to be) or make your "poles" and use wire trellis for peas, attend to it now.
Fruit. Finish up last month's work, if not all done. Also examine plum and cherry trees for black-knot.
MARCH
Hotbeds. If not made last of February, should be made at once.
Some of the seed sown last month will be ready for transplanting and going into the frames; also lettuce sown in January. Radish and carrot (forcing varieties) may be sown in alternating rows. Give much more air; water on bright mornings; be careful not to have them caught by suddenly cold nights after a bright warm day.
Seed-sowing under glass. Last sowing of early cabbage and early summer cabbages (like Succession), lettuce, rhubarb (for seedling plants), cauliflower, radish, spinach, turnip, and early tomatoes; towards last of month, late tomatoes and first of peppers, and egg-plant. Sweet peas often find a place in the vegetable garden; start a few early, to set out later; they will do better than if started outside. Start tomatoes for growing in frames. For early potatoes sprout in sand.
Planting, outside. If an early spring, and the ground is sufficiently dry, sow onions, lettuce, beet, radish, (sweet peas), smooth peas, early carrot, cabbage, leek, celery (main crop), and
turnip. Set out new beds of asparagus, rhubarb and sea-kale (be sure to try a few plants of the latter). Manure and fork up old beds of above.
Fruit. Prune now, apple, plum and pear trees.
APRIL
Now the rush is on! Plan your work, and work your plan. But do not yield to the temptation to plant more than you can look out for later on. Remember it is much easier to sow seeds than to pull out weeds.
The Frames. Air! water! and do not let the green plant-lice or the white-fly get a ghost of a chance to start. Almost every day the glass should be lifted entirely off. Care must be taken never to let the soil or flats become dried out; toward the end of the month, if it is bright and warm, begin watering towards evening instead of in early morning, as you should have been doing through the winter. If proper attention is given to ventilation and moisture, there will not be much danger from the green plant-louse (aphis) and white-fly, but at the first sign of one fight them to a finish. Use kerosene emulsion, tobacco dust, tobacco preparations, or Aphine.
Seed sowing. Under glass: tomato, egg-plant and peppers. On sod: corn, cucumbers, melons, early squash, lima beans.
Planting, outside. Onions, lettuce, beet, etc., if not put in
last month; also parsnip, salsify, parsley, wrinkled peas, endive.
Toward the end of this month (or first part of next) second plantings of these. Set out plants of early cabbage (and the cabbage group) lettuce, onion sets, sprouted potatoes, beets, etc.
In the Garden. Cultivate between rows of sowed crops; weed out
by hand just as soon as they are up enough to be seen; watch for cutworms and root-maggots.
Fruit. Thin out all old blackberry canes, dewberry and raspberry canes (if this was not done, as it should have been, directly after the fruiting season last summer). Be ready for first spraying of early-blossoming trees. Set out new strawberry beds, small fruits and fruit trees.
MAY
Keep ahead of the weeds. This is the month when those warm, south, driving rains often keep the ground too wet to work for days at a time, and weeds grow by leaps and bounds. Woe betide the gardener whose rows of sprouting onions, beets, carrots, etc., once become green with wild turnip and other rapid-growing intruders. Clean cultivation and slight hilling of plants set out are also essential.
The Frames. These will not need so much attention now, but care
must be taken to guard tender plants, such as tomatoes, egg-plant and peppers, against sudden late frosts. The sash may be left off most of the time. Water copiously and often.
Planting, outside. First part of the month: early beans, early
corn, okra and late potatoes may be put in; and first tomatoes set out --even if a few are lost--they are readily replaced. Finish setting out cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, beets, etc., from frames. Latter part of month, if warm: corn, cucumbers, some of sods from frames and early squash as traps where late crop is to be planted or set.
Fruit. Be on time with first sprayings of late-blossoming
fruits--apples, etc. Rub off from grape vines the shoots that are not wanted.
JUNE
Frequent, shallow cultivation!
Firm seeds in dry soil. Plant wax beans, lima beans, pole beams, melons, corn, etc., and successive crops of lettuce, radish, etc.
Top-dress growing crops that need special manure (such as nitrate of soda on onions). Prune tomatoes, and cut out some foliage for extra early tomatoes. Toward end of month set celery and late cabbage. Also sow beans, beets, corn, etc., for early fall crops. Spray where necessary. Allow asparagus to grow to tops.
Fruit. Attend to spraying fruit trees and currants and gooseberries. Make pot-layers of strawberries for July setting.
JULY
Maintain frequent, shallow cultivation. Set out late cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, leeks and celery. Sow beans, beets, corn, etc., for late fall crops. Irrigate where needed.
Fruit. Pinch back new canes of blackberry, dewberry and raspberry. Rub off second crop of buds on grapes. Thin out if too many bunches; also on plums, peaches and other fruit too thick, or touching. Pot-layered strawberries may be set out.
AUGUST
Keep the garden clean from late weeds--especially purslane, the hotweather weed pest, which should be always removed from the garden and disposed of or rotted down.
Sow spinach, rutabaga turnip, bush beans and peas for last fall crop. During first part of month, late celery may still be put out. Sow lettuce for early fall crop, in frames. First lot of endive should be tied up for blanching.
Fruit. Strawberries may be set, and pot-layered plants, if
wanted to bear a full crop the following season, should be put in. Thin out and bag grapes.
SEPTEMBER
Frames. Set in lettuce started in August. Sow radishes and successive crop of lettuce. Cooler weather begins to tell on lateplanted crops. Give cabbage, cauliflower, etc., deeper cultivation. "Handle" celery wanted for early use.
Harvest and store onions. Get squash under cover before frost. From the 15th to 25th sow spinach, onions, borecole for wintering over. Sow down thickly to rye all plots as fast as cleared of summer crops; or plow heavy land in ridges. Attend to draining.
Fruit. Trees may be set. Procure barrels for storing fruit in winter. At harvest time it is often impossible to get them at any price.
OCTOBER
Get ready for winter. Blanch rest of endive. Bank celery, to be used before Christmas, where it is. Gather tomatoes, melons, etc., to keep as long as possible. Keep especially clean and well cultivated all crops to be wintered over. Late in the month store cabbage and cauliflower; also beets, carrots, and other root crops. Get boxes, barrels, bins, sand or sphagnum moss ready beforehand, to save time in packing.
Clean the garden; store poles, etc., worth keeping over; burn
everything else that will not rot; and compost everything that will.
Fruit. Harvest apples, etc. Pick winter pears just before hard frosts, and store in dry dark place.
NOVEMBER
Frames. Make deep hotbeds for winter lettuce and radishes. Construct frames for use next spring. See that vegetables in basement, bins, and sheds are safe from freezing. Trench or store celery for spring use. Take in balance of all root crops if any remain in the ground, except, of course, parsnip and salsify for spring use. Put rough manure on asparagus and rhubarb beds. Get mulch ready for spinach, etc., to be wintered over, if they occupy exposed locations.
Fruit. Obtain marsh or salt hay for mulching strawberries. Cut out old wood of cane-fruits--blackberries, etc., if not done after gathering fruit. Look over fruit trees for borers.
DECEMBER
Cover celery stored last month, if trenched out-of-doors. Use only light, loose material at first, gradually covering for winter. Put mulch on spinach, etc.
Fruit. Mulch strawberries. Prune grape-vines; make first application of winter sprays for fruit trees.
AND THEN
Set about procuring manures of all kinds from every available source. Remember that anything which will rot will add to the value of your manure pile. Muck, lime, old plastering, sods, weeds (earth and all), street, stable and yard sweepings--all these and numerous others will increase your garden successes of next year.
CHAPTER XX CONCLUSION
It is with a feeling in which there is something of fear that I close these pages--fear that many of those little things which become second nature to the grower of plants and seem unimportant, but which sometimes are just the things that the beginner wants to know about, may have been inadvertently left out. In every operation described, however, I have tried to mention all necessary details. I would urge the reader, nevertheless, to study as thoroughly as possible all the garden problems with which he will find himself confronted and to this end recommend that he read several of the many garden books which are now to be had. It will be to his advantage to see even the same subjects presented again from other points of view. The more familiar he can make himself, both in theory and in practice, with all the multitude of operations which modern gardening involves, the greater the success he will attain. Personally, the further I have gone into the growing of things--and that has now become my business as well as my pleasure--the more absorbingly interesting I find it. Each season, each crop, offers its own problems and a reward for the correct solution of them. It is a work which, even to the beginner, presents the opportunity of deducting new conclusions, trying new experiments, making new discoveries. It is a work which offers pleasant and healthy recreation to the many whose days must be, for the most part, spent in office or shop; and it gives very substantial help in the world-old problem of making both ends meet.
Let the garden beginner not be disappointed if he does not succeed, for the first season or two, or possibly three, with everything he plants. There is usually a preventable reason for the failure, and studious observation will reveal it. With the modern success in the application of insecticides and fungicides, and the extension of the practice of irrigation, the subject of gardening begins to be reduced to a scientific and (what is more to the point) a sure basis. We are getting control of the uncertain factors. All this affects first, perhaps, the person who grows for profit, but with our present wide circulation of every new idea and discovery in such matters, it must reach soon to every remote home garden patch which is cared for by a wide-awake gardener.
Such a person, from the fact that he or she is reading a new garden book, I take the reader to be. I hope this volume, condensed though it is, has added to your fund of practical garden information; that it will help to grow that proverbial second blade of grass. I have only to add, as I turn again to the problems waiting for me in field and under glass, that I wish you all success in your work--the making of better gardens in America.
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