The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1880-03-18
Farmers Gardens.

Farmers generally have poorer gar
dens than people in villages have, and
the gardens of Western farmers are
poorer in every respect than those of
farmers living in the East. The gar
dens on most Western farms are not
laid out with any reference to beauty
or economy in management. They
contain small number of vegetables,
and they are inditferently cultivated.
Those veg etables that are regarded as
luxurious are very rarely found in them.
No effort is generally made to secure a
succession of peas, beans, lettuce and
radishes. AS rule, there is no hot
bed or cold-frame for starting early
vegetables. Nearly if not all the
plants raised in the garden are sown at
the same time, without regard to the
period of their maturity, and, in ma
jority of instances, they receive SUBJ
stantially the same kind of cultivation.
For a farm or garden to be source
OF pleasure and profit it must be laid
out in regard to good taste and econ
omy of working, contain plants valu-
| able as relishes as we'll as those that are
priced as articles of food, and receive
attention from the time the soil is in
condition to be worked in the spring
till the frost closes it in the fall. Many
farmers object to gardens because they
require SO much work continually dur
ing the larger portion of the year.
They prefer to raise field crops that
can be planted. cultivated and har-
vested by machinery. They are con-
tent to have their tables supplied with
a smaller variety of articles since to
produce them involves comparatively
little labor. They willingly allow city
and village people to enjoy all the lux
uries that the garden is capable of pro-
ducing.
BY selecting sui table piece OF land,
| by laying it out in proper manner,
and by procuring hand-drill and small
cultivator, garden vegetables may be
raised as easily as ordinary field crops.
A farm garden should contain an acre
of land This space will produce all
the vegetables the family will want for
consumption, and generally consider
able amount for sale or for feeding to
stock and poultry. For convenience in
working the ground for a garden
should be nearly square in shape.
There is no advantage in having it
fenced, and a fence greatly interferes
with working it. II fowls are kept
near the house the garden should be at
some distance from it, so that the birds
will not injure the vegetables in any
stage of their growth. There is less
trouble in going several rods to a gar
den than in keeping fowls from one
near the house.
Most garden vegetables, as beets,
carrots, parsnips and turnips may be
sown in drills far enough apart to allow
q small horse cultivator to run be-
tween them. When this is done they
are raised with almost as little hard
labor as corn and potatoes. If there is
no fence around the garden the pillow
and cultivator may be run from one
side to the other, and the team turned
on ground that was not plowed. In
planting seeds that are slow in coming
up it is well to drop a radish, cabbage,
or caulifower seed every five or six
inches in the row. They terminate
very quickly, show where the row is,
and allow the ground to be marked be-
fore the weeds get a start. If the
rows are quite straight the cultivator
may be run close to the plants, render
ing but little hand-work necessary. The
radishes will be large enough to eat, and
the cabbage plants of size to remove
by the time the other plants are ready
to thin out.
Late cabbages and turnips may be
raised on the same spot of ground from
which early peas, beans and lettuce
were harvested. 1t is best to keep all
the ground in q garden we'll occupied
by growing plants during as large por-
ton OF the season as possible, 50 that
weeds will have poor chance to take
root. Manure that has been in q heap
for year, and has become thoroughly
decomposed, is best for a vegetable
garden. as it imparts no bad flavor to
: roots, while it is generally free from