The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1913-04-11
PREPARING the Garden.

ANY one VINO mas little patcN OF
back yard can have a vegetable gar
den this year. BY all means make the
effort. 1t can not only furnish you
with delicious, fresh vegetables, but
you will get health and pleasure out Of
it's care
If your soil is sandy it will produce
the early crops to great advantage, and
you can get radishes, lettuce, and SIM
liar vegetables several weeks ahead Of
your neighbor with clay garden, but
the sandy soil does not stand the hot
dry weather of the summer months az
well as the clay or loan. For this
reason 1t is usually desirable to cover
a very sandy plot with several inches
OF barnyard manure and loan or black
muck soil to give it some body and
moisture retaining power. This top
dressing should be evenly spread on
just before blowing in the spring and
it should be thoroughly turned under.
A loamy soil Is ideal for general gar.
den crops, the sandy loan being a lit.
tie earlier, and the clay loan a little
better in the hot weather. Loan soils
do not need any other treatment than
manure. every other year, unless the
location is too wet. If this is the
case, either surface or tile drainage
will have to be installed in order to
secure the best results.
Clay, either blue, yellow or red, is
about the toughest proposition the gar.
dener has to tackle. 1t possesses plant
food in abundance and can be made to
bear profitably, but it will need a lot
Of cultivation and treatment of various
kinds before it can be handled with
ease. In the first place it must be
plowed or spaded deeply in order to
break up the solid texture Of the soil.
Large quantities Of we'll rotted ma
nure containing considerable straw
should be plowed under every year,
and at the same time it will be we'll
to plow under about two inches OF
sand, or sandy loan. After the last
crop has been taken off any portion OF
the garden in the fall, SOW the vacant
ground to some fast growing cover
crop and turn it under just before frost
cuts it down. All of these factors will
assist in loosening a heavy firm soil,
allowing better penetration of air and
water, and reducing the tendency of
the soil to form large hard clots.
Don't strip the soil from new gar
den. Turn it under by all means, as
1t will make the texture of the soil
very much better. The greater the
amount of decaying plant matter you
can incorporate in the soil, the better
will be your crop.
Plow or spade your garden as soon
as the soil is dry enough to "scour"
off the plowshare nicely. Flowing be-
fore this will leave the soil in clod-
ded or puddled condition and it will
take a couple of years hard work to
correct this mistake, if the soil is
heavy. With sandy or loamy soils the
time Of blowing is not so important as
they are not liable to form clods, and
they can be plowed when much drier
than a clay. The owner of the clay
patch or the muck garden. has to be
extremely careful regarding this i'm
portant feature. however.
After blowing, the treatment of all
kinds of soil is practically the same.
rake or harrow the soil un-
til the surface, which is known as the
seed bed is as fine as you can possibly
get 1t. The finer the better for all
kinds of seed This is because the par
ticles Of soil can get into closer physi-
cal touch with the little seeds and
plant roots. They hold the soil water
closer, and make their food contents
much more available for the roots,