Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1913-06-13
BACK YARD FARMER
Interesting Pointers on Garden
ing for the City Man or
Suburbanite.
WHAT TO PLANT AND WHEN
Advice by an Expert on Agricultural
Matters-care of the Garden
Raising Sweet Peas-Hot
Weather Pointers.
BY PROF. JOHN WILLARD BoLTE.

BY PROF. JOHN WILLARD BOL z.
Every man with available land
should make some kind Of a garden
on It. About one man in three who
could have a nice little garden plot in
the city has one. Almost everybody
in the suburbs has both lawn, flowers
and vegetable garden.
The fascination of this delightful
pastime is amply demonstrated by the
fact that so many people make gar
dens every year and yet the majority
of these gardens are failures to a
greater or less degree. They start
out beautifully, with the warm, fresh
mellow earth turned over from its
winters rest, and the little delicate
seedlings following the warm rains.
The first crops, small things like
radishes and lettuce, develop fairly
we'll and the gardener puts IN his
late crops with great expectations.
When the hot, dry weather of late
June and early July arrives the plants
begin to shrink and shrivel. They
turn brown and enter into kind of
dormant state, neither advancing nor
retreating, worthless as food provid-
ers and certainly unhandsome to view.
This unthrifty summer condition
knocks out the most satisfactory
crops, corn, beans, tomatoes, cucum-
bers, etc. The worst of it is that the
same thing happens to the same gar
dens, year after year, and the best of
it is that 1t need not happen at all
If the gardener will use his head as
much as his back, and use both of
them a good deal.
The two great causes of garden
failures are lack of proper cultivation
and lack of available plant food. In a
humid climate it should never be nee
essary to water the garden If the soil
is in proper condition to hold the nat
ural rainfall. 1t needs to be plowed
deeply, cultivated finely, firmed down
well to make capillary connection be-
tween the soil water below and the
plant roots above, and then the sur
face must be hoed, and hoed and
hoed. Never let up on the hoeing.
A single weed will evaporate many
times its own weight in valuable soil
water every day. II you permit the
top soil to bake or a crust to form,
direct means is established for the
soil water to evaporate and 1t will
leave the soil as rapidly as it would
an open dish and possibly more rap
idly. Do your best to keep your gar
den covered with an inch of fine, dry
dust all the summer through. The
roots will go deep and the plants will
get all the water there is.
Next, fertility: A garden must con-
tain plant food and the best plant
food is rotten vegetable matter Make
a compost heap in some out-of-the-
way corner or in a large box. Here
throw your stable manure, grass clip
pings, leaves, waste vegetables, hen
manure, in fact, anything that will
rot. Keep it moist and keep flies
away from 1t. Grass sod Is an excel
lent foundation for a compost heap
and 1t is extensively used by florists.
Use plenty of the compost on your
garden, plowing 1t under, and be care
ful not to put In too much straw, as
that will dry out the soil. The com
post viii increase the water-holding
capacity of the soil, 1t will permit OF
better ventilation, 1t furnishes plant
food Of all kinds, It lightens heavy
soil and stiffens a sandy one.
II you wish to brace up weak
plants and force them this summer,
I'LL barrel half full Of manure and
cover with water. The liquid result.
ing is the finest kind Of quick acting
fertilizer. Pour It about the plants
to be forced, and the effect will be
Immediately perceptible.