The kitchen garden yields more necessaries and comforts to the family,
than any other piece of ground on the premises. It is, of consequence,
necessary that it be so located and planned as to be ready of access,
and yield the greatest possible quantity of products for the labor
bestowed upon it; and as locality and plan have much to do with the
labor bestowed upon it and the productions it may yield, both these
subjects should be considered.
As to locality, the kitchen garden should lie in the _warmest_ and _most
sheltered_ spot which may be convenient to the _kitchen_ of the house.
It should, in connection with that, be convenient of access to the
dung-yards of the stables. The size may be such as your necessities or
your convenience may demand. The shape, either a parallelogram or a
square; for it will be recollected, that this is a place allotted, not
for a _show_ or _pleasure_ ground, but for _profit_. If the garden be
large, this shape will better allow the use of the plow to turn up the
soil, which, in a large garden, is a much cheaper, and, when properly
done, a better mode than to spade it; and if small, and it be worked
with the spade, _right_ lines are easier made with the spade than curved
ones. One or more walks, at least eight feet wide, should be made,
leading from a broad gate, or bars, through which a cart and horse, or
oxen, may enter, to draw in manure, or carry out the vegetables; and if
such walk, or walks, do not extend around the garden, which, if in a
large one, they should do, a sufficient area should be thrown out at the
farther extremity, to turn the cart upon. If the soil be free, and
stony, the stones should be taken out _clean_, when large--and if small,
down to the size of a hen's egg--and the surface made as level as
possible, for a loose soil will need no draining. If the soil be a clay,
or clayey loam, it should be underdrained two and a half feet, _to be
perfect_, and the draining so planned as to lead off to a lower spot
outside. This draining _warms_ the soil, opens it for filtration, and
makes it friable. Then, properly fenced, thoroughly manured, and plowed
deep, and left rough--no matter how rough--in the fall of the year, and
as late before the setting in of winter as you dare risk it, that part
of the preparation is accomplished.
The _permanent_ or wide walks of the garden, after being laid out and
graded, should never be plowed nor disturbed, except by the hoe and
rake, to keep down the weeds and grass; yet, if a close, and well-shorn
grass turf be kept upon them, it is perhaps the cheapest and most
cleanly way of keeping the walks. They need only cutting off close with
the hand-hook, in summer.
We have known a great many people, after laying out a kitchen garden,
and preparing it for use, fill it up with fruit trees, supposing that
vegetables will grow quite as well with them as without. This is a wide
mistake. _No tree larger than a currant or gooseberry bush should ever
stand in a vegetable garden._ These fruits being partially used in the
cooking department, as much in the way of vegetables, as of fruits, and
small in size, may be permitted; and they, contrary to the usual
practice, should always stand in _open_ ground, where they can have all
the benefits of the sun and rain to ripen the fruit to perfection, as
well as to receive the cultivation they need, instead of being placed
under fences around the sides of the garden, where they are too
frequently neglected, and become the resort of vermin, or make prolific
harbors for weeds.
Along the main walks, or alleys, the borders for perennial plants, as
well as the currant and gooseberry bushes, should be made--for the plow
should run parallel to, and not at right angles with them. Here may
stand the rhubarbs, the sea kales, the various herbs, or even the
asparagus beds, if a particular quarter be not set apart for them; and,
if it be important, a portion of these main borders may be appropriated
to the more common flowers and small shrubbery, if desired to cultivate
them in a plain way; but not a peach, apricot, or any other larger tree
than a currant or raspberry, should come within it. They not only shade
the small plants, but suck up and rob them of their food and moisture,
and keep off the sun, and prevent the circulation of air--than which
nothing needs all these more than garden vegetables, to have them in
high perfection. If it be necessary, by means of a cold exposure on the
one side, to have a close plantation of shrubbery to screen the garden,
let it be _outside_ the fence, rather than within it; but if within, let
there be a _broad_ walk between such shrubbery and the garden beds, as
their roots will extend under the vegetables, and rob them of their
food.
A walk, alley, or cartway, on the sides of the garden, is always better
_next to the fence_, than to fill that space with anything else, as it
is usually shaded for a portion of the day, and may be better afforded
for such _waste_ purposes than the open, sunny ground within.
It will be observed that _market gardeners_, men who always strive to
make the most profit from their land and labor, and obtain the _best_
vegetables, cultivate them in open fields. Not a tree, nor even a bush
is permitted to stand near the growing crop, if they can prevent it; and
where one is not stinted in the area of his domain, their example should
be followed.
A word upon _plowing_ gardens. Clays, or clayey loams, should always be
manured and plowed in the fall, just before the setting in of the winter
frosts. A world of pounding and hammering of lumps, to make them fine,
in spring, is saved by fall plowing, besides incorporating the manure
more thoroughly with the soil, as well as freezing out and destroying
the eggs of worms and insects which infest it. Thrown up deeply and
roughly with the plow or spade, the frosts act mechanically upon the
soil, and slack and pulverise it so thoroughly that a heavy raking in
early spring, is all that becomes necessary to put it in the finest
condition for seeds, and make it perhaps the very best and most
productive of all garden soils whatever. A light sandy loam is better to
lie compact in winter, and manured and turned up in early spring. Its
friable nature leaves it always open and light, and at all times in the
absence of frost, accessible to the spade or the hoe. On these accounts,
it is usually the most desirable and convenient soil for the kitchen
garden, and on the whole, generally preferred where either kind may be a
matter simply of choice.