SMALL GARDENS

Many persons who would like to grow flowers and vegetables do not attempt to grow any because they do not consider that they have a place large enough to justify them in doing so.

Here is where they make a mistake. A garden need not be a large one to be enjoyable. A few plants are better than none. It is possible to make a bit of garden more satisfactory than a large one because it will be more likely to get more attention than would be given to the larger one, and attention is one of the important features of any successful garden.

There will, in the majority of cases, be little nooks and corners here and there about the home grounds in which some plants can be grown by those disposed to make the most of existing conditions. These, if not improved, will be pretty sure to be given over to weeds, or to the accumulation of rubbish of one kind or another, and they will detract from the tidy and clean appearance which should characterize the home everywhere. If the owners of these bits of ground—these possibilities for adding to the attractiveness of home—could be made to realize the amount of pleasure they could be made to afford with very little exertion on their part, the general work of civic improvement societies would be most beneficial, and this would be done at the very place where civic improvement ought to start—the home. There can be no real and lasting improvement in civic undertaking unless the individual home takes up the matter. The civic improvement society that starts out with the idea of improving things generally, but does not begin the good work at the home is working on the idea of making clean the outside of the cup and ignoring the condition inside it. Just as the home is the foundation of society, so must it be made the pivotal point at which any substantial and lasting improvement finds its beginning.

Because the scattered places about the small home in which few plants could be grown will not admit of bed-making, or the "designs" which many persons seem to think indispensable in gardening, is no good reason why we should not take advantage of and make the most of them. If one lives in a community where there are German families he will be surprised at the amount of vegetables they grow in each home-lot. Not an inch of soil is allowed to go to waste. A large amount of the food of the family is grown in places which most Americans would overlook, simply because of the prevailing idea that unless one can do things on a large scale it is not worth while to attempt doing anything. The German has been brought up to not "despise the day of small things," and he profits by the advice. As we might, if we would, and, I am glad to say, as more and more are profiting by year by year as they become aware of the fact that much can be done where conditions are limited.

I would not advise much mixing of varieties. On the contrary, I would prefer to give over each little piece of ground to one plant. Those of low habit I would have near the path, giving the places back of them to taller-growing kinds. Of course, in the majority of small homes, there is not much chance for exercising a choice in the location of one's flowering or vegetable plants; still, it is well to study the possibilities for general effect, and do all that can be done to secure pleasing results. Where plants that grow to a height of three feet are grown, the best place for them is at the rear, or along the boundary of the lot, where they will serve as a background for plants of lower habit.

Children should be encouraged to take an interest in the cultivation of small gardens. They will do this if the parents are willing to help them a little at the start. Show them how to spade up the soil in spring, and how to work it over and over until it is fine and mellow. They will make play of this part of garden work, as it is as natural for a child to dig in the dirt as it is for a pig to wallow in a mud-puddle. Add some kind of fertilizer to the soil, and explain to the boys and girls that it is food for the plants that are to be. Show them how to sow seed, and tell them all you can about the processes of germination, and encourage them to watch for the appearance of the seedlings. In a short time you will have aroused in them such interest in the work they have undertaken that it will be as fascinating to them as a story, and nature will take delight in writing it out for them in daily instalments that constantly increase in interest. The ability to know plants and how to grow them ought to be a part of every child's education.

Don't let a bit of ground go to waste. Have flowers and vegetables, even if there isn't room for more than half a dozen plants—or only one plant for that matter, for that one solitary plant will be a great deal better than none at all.