PLANTING SEED IN THE OPEN GROUND
Is important for it is just the form that most of the garden sowing
will take. The sowing of seed in hotbeds and flats in the house is of
much interest and importance, but the garden, for the most part, will
go directly into the open ground, and upon the care and judgment with
which the planting is done will depend the success of the season's work.
The ground should be in as good condition for sowing as
possible—neither too dry nor too wet. It should, and this is of much
importance, be warm. The best of seed will not germinate if sown in
wet, cold soil, especially is this true of peas and beans, failures
with these being almost invariably due to too much haste in planting or
unfavorable weather immediately following. It is no unusual thing in a
cold, late spring for these legumes to require repeated replanting and
with the enormously advanced price of all kinds of seeds it will not
pay to take too long chances by undue haste in planting. Usually it is
quite safe to plant nearly all of the garden truck by the tenth of May
at the north but the weather for the recent seasons has been unusual
and much loss was occasioned by adhering too closely to an established
schedule; so, if the season promises to be in any way, except for
earliness, abnormal, it is best to go slowly and not trust all one's
seed to an initial planting but to hold a little in reserve to replant
unfilled areas. Cutworms, too, have caused much devastation the past
few seasons—usually these are troublesome to transplanted things,
mainly cabbage, peppers and tomatoes, but last year they destroyed
beans and other plants impartially, causing much loss.
In planting a seed drill attached to a hand cultivator will be of
great assistance as seed may be drilled in rows or dropped in hills
at different distances apart so rapidly that the entire garden may be
planted in little more time than it takes to do an hundred foot row
by hand, and the drill will do it better, opening up the rows, sowing
the seed and covering all in one operation. If, however, one is not
possessed of this convenient implement one can do very well without by
removing one hoe of the hand cultivator, or by reversing both hoes and
bringing the points together and opening a drill to receive the seed
and covering it with the hoe or rake, or it may even be opened with a
trowel, which though laborious, is a very effectual way.
The soil must always be firmed above the seed after sowing, either
by means of a flat piece of board, with a handle on one surface or,
in the case of large seeds by tramping the rows with the feet; this
firming of the soil is most important, it brings the soil close about
the seed so that the first little root—a very tiny, delicate little
root, feeling its way about in search of nourishment can come at once
into contact with the warm soil and obtain the food and moisture so
critically needed at this juncture of its little life. The firming
of the soil conserves the moisture, preventing the entrance of dry,
hot air, and to obtain this further the ground after being tramped
down should be gone over lightly with rake or trowel and a dust-mulch
produced. In fact, all through one's gardening processes one must keep
the dust-mulch in evidence for it means conservation of moisture and
fertility and freedom from weeds.
Seeds of different sizes, hardness and germination qualities,
require different treatment; fine seeds may be sown in shallow
drills, scattering seeds whose germinary power is known to be low or
questionable quite thickly in the drills; beets are usually sown quite
freely, while radishes—nearly every seed of which may be trusted to
grow—may be scattered at about the distance they are wanted to stand
in the rows; beans, too, may be dropped at about the distance they will
require—six inches or more apart for limas, and as these seeds are
sensitive to cold and dampness it is a wise precaution to set them on
edge, eye down, in the drills. Seeds that germinate slowly, like peas,
are hastened considerably by being soaked over night in warm water,
and many seeds that require considerable time to start are hastened if
warm water be poured into the trenches before the soil is filled in;
this is especially beneficial in very dry soil where germination might
otherwise be delayed until after a rain.
[Illustration: _An orderly arrangement of garden beds_]
It is not necessary that new seed be purchased every spring; if one
has seed of his own saving so that its age is known one can use it
with confidence. Seed purchased of the seedsman is more or less
problematical, but is usually supposed to be of the previous season's
crop, especially is this true of those seedsmen who produce their own
seed on farms located in different sections of the country, and whose
seeds are usually very reliable. However there are many seedsmen, or
jobbers, who purchase the bulk of their seeds in the open market and
cannot guarantee the quality in any way. It is always a great mistake
to purchase cheap seed; it is better to buy seed of a reputable
seedsman who puts his name and reputation back of it, though the price
may be considerably higher than one would pay for the same seed of
the local store or seedsman.
Where one has sufficient old seed of different kinds it is a good idea
to test them out during the late days of winter and so ascertain their
fitness for use. The testing is a simple matter, warmth and moisture
being all that is required. A long tray covered with an inch of sand
kept moist may be marked off in squares and the seed it is desired to
test scattered evenly over the surface, labeling or numbering each
square, then a thick piece of flannel should be wet in warm water and
placed snugly over all and the tray put in a warm place—back of the
furnace, over a radiator or on the back of the kitchen reservoir if a
fire is kept there all the time, until the seeds germinate; it will
then be seen what proportion germinate and how freely one will need to
sow in order to obtain a good stand of plants. If the supply of seed is
large a germination test of seventy-five per cent. will justify its use
but if there is only a limited supply it will be better to purchase
fresh seed or at least sufficient to supplement the home supply. It
is always worth while to save one's own seed if the vegetables have
exceptionally good qualities; this insures trueness to name and often
an improvement over the parent stock; it is not, however, desirable
where a number of varieties of any vegetable is grown in the same
garden as the seed is quite certain to be mixed and the good qualities
of the parent stock to be lost.
In sowing seed in the open ground cultivation should begin as soon
as the seed is sown and covered. In the case of large seed which is
tramped down in the rows and covered an inch or more it is not always
necessary to rake over the rows for a dust-mulch, rarely if it is
likely to rain immediately. Under this condition the rows will be quite
distinct and as soon as the rain is over and the ground slightly dried
off the scuffle-hoe may be run along the rows restoring the dust-mulch,
or creating one. Where the planting is shallow it is an excellent plan
to drop radish seeds at intervals along the row as these will appear
in from three to five days, thus marking the rows so that there will
be no difficulty in following them. When this is done it will not be
necessary to use ground especially for planting radishes so that there
will be a saving in room that may be utilized to advantage for other
vegetables. Lettuce, too, may be grown to advantage by planting a short
strip of seed at the end of rows of other vegetables, where full rows
are not required, as this saves space in the garden and the lettuce if
placed at the ends of the rows nearest the house is easily accessible
and does away with the necessity of walking on the garden after it has
been cultivated, a thing the careful gardener avoids.
With the intensive gardening practised on the small plot where the
vegetables are planted in close rows from a foot to two feet apart,
the ground should be at all times in a fine tilth, free from unworked
strips and trodden paths. It is of little value to cut off the weeds
with the hoe or cultivator if they are to be trodden back in the ground
and so given a new lease of life. The scuffle-hoe is a real boon to
the gardener in obviating this difficulty as in using it one walks
backwards, pushing the hoe from one instead of drawing it towards one
as is done with the common garden hoe; this leaves a beautiful, clean
tilth, absolutely free from trampled areas and nothing cut off by the
hoe will take on a new lease of life over night. More real work can
be accomplished by the use of the scuffle than with any other tool in
the garden; it does not supplant altogether the wheel cultivator but
does its work when used alternately with it; the cultivator breaking
up the soil to a greater depth, and more rapidly than the scuffle, but
the latter destroys far more thoroughly all weeds and reaches closer
to the plants, slipping underneath the leaves and close to the stems
and routing out any and all weeds lurking there. The cultivator leaves
the ground in ridges and aerates it, the scuffle levels it again and
produces a fine dust-mulch which will preserve the moisture until
another rain calls for the use of the cultivator.
Unless the season is a very rainy one, one good cultivation a week,
either with scuffle or cultivator, will keep the garden in excellent
shape, but every rain MUST be followed by cultivation of some sort, for
there is great loss of moisture if this is not done and weeds follow
quickly after rain.
The various weeds with which the garden is afflicted come at separate
intervals—not all together, and when one has eradicated one set of
weeds there is usually a brief interval before the appearance of the
next detachment. But one must have them continually in mind and keep
a sharp lookout for the first tiny seedlings and destroy them before
they have made even one pair of true leaves. Working around individual
plants with a trowel or hand weeder has this advantage that it spies
out the enemy before it would attract attention if the rows were worked
with hoe or cultivator. The severe thinning that such plants as beets,
carrots, endive, salsify, onions and the like require clears the rows
of weeds and helps materially in general cultivation. This thinning
out should always be done prior to cultivating between the rows, then
the paths are left clear and untrodden and the garden is a delight
to look upon. A basket should be carried along the rows to drop the
plants removed so that they may be out of the way when ready to run the
cultivator. Nearly all plants which require thinning may be used in
setting out fresh rows of vegetables and where there are vacant places
in the rows the spaces may be filled up with plants removed from too
crowded areas.
The first weeds to appear in the spring are the chickweed and the
malice[2] that has remained over from the previous year, being a
perennial and a very hardy and persistent one; these two are ploughed
under and give little or no trouble if the work has been well done. The
new crop does not appear until late in the season—usually in July.
Purslaine comes along in June and soon after appears that particular
pest of the garden—red root. All these are very easily eradicated when
small but the red root is an exceedingly hard weed to pull once it has
got a grip on the ground and it must be taken out root and all or it
will come up again with not one but several stout stalks, and a more
tenacious hold than ever on the soil; it is one of the weeds which are
constantly eluding detection until they have gained several inches in
height when they defy the hoe and cultivator and call for strenuous
hand work!
Many of the garden weeds may be utilized for feeding stock. Belgian
hares are fond of the fresh green leaves of malice and pigs enjoy both
that and the purslaine and as the former comes at a time when there
is little green feed available for the hares it may be pulled and fed
rather than turned under. Ragweed is relished by horses and they will
frequently go into a patch of it and eat it in preference to good
clover growing near by.
[Footnote 2: Common name "malice" from its bad reputation; properly,
mallow (_malva rotundifolia_).]