The Winslow mail., 1925-06-26
WINSLOW WOMAN
RAISES THRIFTY
GARDEN In YARD

To transform bare, Sunbaked
back yard into lovely garden of
vegetables planted in neat, we'll
kept rows is what Mrs. L. J. Ben
nett did several years ago at her
home on Apache avenue. The sat
isfaction and pleasure she obtained
from this feat has made her d
gardner ever since, and the result
is that while few people in Winslow
believe it practical to raise their
own gardens, Mrs. Bennett serves
vegetables from her own back yard
all through the summer and di
Vides with her neighbors besides.
1t is the opinion of Mrs. Bennett
that it is no harder to raise a
garden here than in any other vi
entity where irrigation is necessary
and in spite of the greater expense
of water in this desert country as
compared to other places, accord
ing to her estimates, her back
yard garden more than pays for it
self and besides, 81 have the pleas
ure of making things grow" she
says. Even if it cost me more
than I got out of it, I would still
consider l was ahead. We spend
money on other pleasures, but this
is one of my pleasures that is prof
table"
There are many people who, like
Mrs. Bennett, find gardening a
PLEASURE and for that reason The
Mail has made it a point to learn
from Mrs. Bennett some of her
secrets" so that its readers may
profit by her experiences. In spite
of the fact that agriculture is now
an occupation of the few, still there
is a primary instinct within people
in general to till the soil, and to
be instrumental in making thing
grow is to have achieved a salts
faction not to be had in any other
work
Mrs. Bennett first prepares her
ground during the winter by cover
ing it with litter from her chicken
house. Besides her garden, she has
between 400 and 600 chickens on
the back of her lot. The straw and
hay that is scattered in the yards
for the chickens to scatch in is
gathered up each month together
with the chicken manure and scat
tered over the garden ground. When
spring comes, the ground is turned
under and put in readiness for the
spring planting.
Intensive farming is Mrs. Ben
netts' motto, and there is hardly an
inch of ground allowed to go to
waste. Onions, radishes, lettuce
and peas were among the first
things she planted and among the
first things to be used. AS she
pulled two rows of onions in her
garden she used one row to plant
carrots in and the other for Sec
ond crop of radishes. The carrots
and radishes are just coming
through the ground now. In the
place where she had planted peas
early in the spring, cabbage plants
are coming along in good shape,
and where her first crop of lettuce
was planted there are tomatoes
and chill plants growing.
In this way a small plot of
ground is made to produce twice
what it normally would. Mrs. Ben
nett finds that by planting an early
crop of sweet corn and then crop
later when the first has already
started to make ears, she can have
corn through the whole summer
and until frost In former years
she had very good success with
Squaw corn, but this year she 81
trying for the first time Golden
Bantam.
Included in Mrs. BENEFITS garden
are cantaloupe vines already in
blossom, cucumbers, squash, car
rots, lettuce, radishes, string beans,
beets, peas, onions, corn, tomatoes,
cabbage. rhubarb, and sunflowers
which she uses for chicken feed;
yet the plot is not more than 25x6O
feet
OF all the plants, she finds to-
matoes the hardest to grow, though
this year from all indications she
is going to have splendid success
with her vines.
In planting cabbage, tomatoes,
cantaloupe and chill, Mrs. Bennett
has found that it pays to put about
twenty seeds to a hill when they
are planted, as the soil here is in
clined to cake so that a few seeds
can not force themselves through.
The pressure of so many seeds all
trying to break through the ground
at one place makes it possible fol-
them to force their way. After the
plants begin to get their second CT
third pairs of leaves, she thins out
the smallest ones and leaves the
stronger plants to make the hill.
Mrs. Bennett advises those who
wish to raise gardens to irrigare
without allowing the water to come
in direct contact with the plants.
She has a corrugation for waite"
between each row of plants which
is banked at each end so that when
it is filled full of water, the water
stands until it soaks into the
ground. Ground irrigated in this
way does not bake as hard as when
the water is applied to the surface
and the plants absorb it to better
advantage.
A little sand mixed with the soil
also prevents the. ground from bak-
ing to a certain extent, Mrs. Ben