The Busy Woman's Garden Book. Ida D. Bennett

The favorable location of the garden is the initial step in its planning. The kitchen garden—always an important auxiliary of the kitchen—is now, in these days, something more; it is becoming more and more a part of the domestic routine; it is a woman's garden, to be planned for and cared for by the women of the family, and in that relation must be considered from all its points of view. Location, then, becomes of first importance. It must be accessible, that its care may demand as little extra work as possible, and that little be given to the actual cultivation and care and not to going back and forth. If one can run out and cultivate a row of lettuce or train up a row of peas while waiting for the irons to heat or the kettle to boil, then one will find the sum total of the garden work far less onerous than where one must calculate on going over the entire plat, or a stated portion of it, at one operation.

A location close to the house, more or less secluded, that one may work free from interruption and espionage and where the vegetables may bask in the sun from early morning till late afternoon, is desirable, and this is best achieved in a southern exposure with the garden rows running north and south.

If the garden plot is protected by buildings or a high fence, or a wind-break of evergreen on the north it will afford a favorable position for the necessary hotbeds and cold frames and the close relationship of the two will work for efficiency in handling.

A warm, mellow, sandy loam is the ideal soil for the vegetable garden, but even a poor soil may be so built up and redeemed by proper cultivation and fertilising as to make the quality of the soil of secondary consideration, but if one can have both at once then one is happy indeed. Tenacious, clayey soil or newly broken sod ground should not, however, be undertaken by a woman, such ground is a man's job.

But it is the warm, sunny location that is vital to the successful cultivation of the garden. All the early vegetables—peas, lettuce, endive and the like—call for abundant sunshine in the cool days of early spring, and, as the season advances and the fall chill is in the air at nightfall, then the warm sunshine will hasten the maturity of such late comers as tomatoes, winter squash, citron and any late-sown vegetables that are used to succeed the earlier growths. Again in the late days of winter or early spring those vegetables that were left in the ground for early use—the parsnips, and salsify, will be available much earlier if given a warm location where the ground thaws readily, rather than a cold exposure that holds frost late in the season.

A piece of ground adjoining other cultivated areas is far preferable to an isolated plot as it may be ploughed in conjunction with the larger piece and so kept in a better grade and condition. An isolated garden plot, which must be prepared separately necessitating a dead furrow in the center, becomes, in the course of a few years a dish shaped area very disagreeable to cultivate; an open area, on two sides at least, obviates this in a measure and renders the ground more level and easily prepared.

Any garden spot, however, should always be ploughed rather than spaded and as deep ploughing as possible should be the rule. If the soil is good go as close to the bottom of it as possible, the shallow ploughing so universal—seldom more than six inches in depth, does not give a mellow bed for any but shallow rooted vegetables. Carrots, salsify, parsnips and similar long-rooted things must fairly drill their way into the hard ground below the shallow cultivation, this resulting in deformed, stunted or many twigged roots, unsalable and of little value for the home table. The long, smooth, beautiful bottoms are only produced by deep cultivation to start with and, of course, the subsequent cultivation must efficiently supplement this. A very excellent method of preparing the ground would be to

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