Every one will now be at work in the garden. A few suggestions may
make your garden better.
PLOWING GARDENS.—We do not like the practice except when the garden is
large, and the owner unable to meet the expense of _spading_. But if
you must plow, let that be well done. Those contemptible little
one-horse plows, with which most gardens are plowed, should be
discarded. The best plowing will be too shallow, but these spindling
little plows, drawn by a little meagre horse, will skim over your
ground, averaging from three to four inches deep, and preparing your
soil to receive the utmost possible detriment from summer droughts.
What chance have young roots, or the finer fibres of plants, to
penetrate more than a few inches of surface-soil? Persons come to our
garden and wonder why some vegetables flourish so well, while they
never have luck with them, “It must be a difference of soil.” No, it
is the difference of working it. Give your vegetables a chance to
descend eighteen or twenty inches if they incline to it, and you will
have no more trouble. A large plow should be used, and you should
stand by and _see_ that it is _put in to the beam_. A garden soil is
usually mellow, and a plow can go to its full depth without hurting
the horses.
SPADING.—This mode of working the ground will always be employed by
those ambitious of having a _first-rate_ garden. Indeed, where there
is much shrubbery and permanent beds, as of asparagus, pie-plant,
strawberry, and plantations of currants, raspberries, etc., spading is
the only method which _can_ be employed.
SPADING SHRUBBERY.—Let very fine manure be spread about roses,
honeysuckles, and ornamental shrubs (where they are not standing in a
grass-lawn). Beginning at the plant, with great care turn over the
soil one or two inches deep, yet so as not to injure the fibres;
gradually deepen the stroke of your spade as you go out from the
plant; at two feet from the shrub you may put in the spade half its
depth, and at three feet to its full depth. You will of course cut
many roots, but they will very soon re-form and send out fibres, and
by the manure spaded in, be supplied with abundant nourishment for the
season.
SPADING FLOWER BEDS.—This requires a practised hand. There is danger
of wounding and displacing clumps of flower-roots, or of filling the
crowns with dirt, or of leaving the surface uneven, and the edges
ragged. If there is a skillful gardener to be had, hire it done, and
watch while he performs, for any man who has seen a thing done in a
garden once, ought to be ashamed if he cannot himself do it
afterwards.
SPADING VEGETABLE BEDS.—Asparagus, pie-plant, strawberries, etc.,
require enriching every year, and to have the manure forked or spaded
in. It is easy to perform this upon strawberries, and a spade is
preferable. A three or four-pronged fork is better for asparagus and
pie-plant. Be careful not to tear or cut the crowns of the plants. No
material injury ensues from clipping the side fibres, _in the spring_;
in summer, when a plant requires all its mouths to supply sap for its
extended surface of leaf, it is not wise to cut the roots or fibres at
all, but only to keep the surface mellow and friable.
DEEP SPADING.—Ames’ garden-spades measure twelve inches in length of
blade. In a good soil the foot may gain one or two additional inches
by a good thrust. Thus the soil is mellowed to the depth of fourteen
inches. This will do very well; but if you aspire to do the very best,
another course must be first pursued. The first spadeful must be
thrown out, and a second depth gained, and then the top soil returned.
This is comparatively slow and laborious, but it need not be done more
than once in five years, and by dividing the garden into sections, and
performing this _thorough-spading_ on one of the sections each year,
the process will be found, practically, less burdensome than it seems
to be.