PLANTING THE GARDEN

Most persons make the serious mistake of covering garden seed too deeply. Very small seed needs hardly any covering. Indeed, it does its best, as a general thing, when simply scattered on the surface and pressed down into the soil by a smooth board. This embeds the seed in the soil, which is made firm enough under the pressure of the board to retain a sufficient amount of moisture to assist germination. Very fine seed often fails to sprout if covered too deeply.

But most of the seed of garden vegetables is not fine enough to admit of this method of planting. If a seed-sower is not used, little furrows should be made by drawing a stick through the soil, into which the seed should be dropped as evenly as possible. It should then be covered lightly and the soil should be pressed down with the hoe to make it comparatively firm. The probabilities are that many more plants will come up than it is advisable to let grow. These surplus seedlings should be removed from the rows as soon as the plants get a good start.

Nearly all gardeners make use of the seed-sower. This is an implement that can be adjusted to sow all kinds of seed more evenly than it can be sown by hand, and it can be sown thickly or thinly, as desired, and at any required depth. It cannot be used to much advantage in the very small garden, where only a small quantity of each kind of seed will be made use of, but in large gardens it will be found as much a labor-saver as the garden-cultivator.

It is always advisable to plant for a succession if the garden is large enough to admit of it. By planting at intervals of ten days or two weeks it is possible to have fresh vegetables throughout almost the entire season. Where this is done it will not be advisable to plant very much of any one kind.

Among almost all vegetables there are early, medium, and late varieties. Some of each of these should be planted in all gardens of a size to warrant so doing. In the small garden I would advise the choice of the later varieties, as these are almost without exception superior in flavor to the earlier kinds, which are grown more on account of earliness than quality.