Home Vegetable Gardening, F. F. Rockwell [popular novels .txt] 📗

so much the better. Get this manure several days ahead of the time

wanted for use and prepare by stacking in a compact, tramped-down heap.

Turn it over after three or four days, and restack, being careful to

put the former top and sides of the pile now on the inside.

 

Having now ready the heating apparatus and the superstructure of our

miniature greenhouse, the building of it is a very simple matter. If

the ground is frozen, spread the manure in a low, flat heap—nine or

ten feet side, a foot and a half deep, and as long as the number of

sash to be used demands—a cord of manure thus furnishing a bed for

about three sash, not counting for the ends of the string or row. This

heap should be well trodden down and upon it should be placed or built

the box or frame upon which the sash are to rest. In using this method

it will be more convenient to have the frame made up beforehand and

ready to place upon the manure, as shown in one of the illustrations.

This should be at least twelve inches high at the front and some half a

foot higher at the back. Fill in with at least four inches—better six

—of good garden soil containing plenty of humus, that it may allow

water to soak through readily.

 

The other method is to construct the frames on the ground before severe

freezing, and in this case the front should be at least twenty-four

inches high, part of which—not more than half—may be below the ground

level. The 2 x 12 in. planks, when used, are handled as follows: stakes

are driven in to support the back plank some two or three inches above

the ground,—which should, of course, be level. The front plank is sunk

two or three inches into the ground and held upright by stakes on the

outside, nailed on. Remove enough dirt from inside the frame to bank up

the planks about halfway on the outside. When this banking has frozen

to a depth of two or three inches, cover with rough manure or litter to

keep frost from striking through. The manure for heating should be

prepared as above and put in to the depth of a foot, trodden down,

first removing four to six inches of soil to be put back on top of the

manure,—a cord of the latter, in this case, serving seven sashes. The

vegetable to be grown, and the season and climate, will determine the

depth of manure required—it will be from one to two feet,—the latter

depth seldom being necessary. It must not be overlooked that this

manure, when spent for heating purposes, is still as good as ever to

enrich the garden, so that the expense of putting it in and removing it

from the frames is all that you can fairly charge up against your

experiment with hotbeds, if you are interested to know whether they

really pay.

 

The exposure for the hotbeds should be where the sun will strike most

directly and where they will be sheltered from the north. Put up a

fence of rough boards, five or six feet high, or place the frames south

of some building.

 

The coldframe is constructed practically as in the hotbed, except that

if manure is used at all it is for the purpose of enriching the soil

where lettuce, radishes, cucumbers or other crops are to be grown to

maturity in it.

 

If one can put up even a very small frame greenhouse, it will be a

splendid investment both for profit and for pleasure. The cost is lower

than is generally imagined, where one is content with a home-made

structure. Look into it.

 

PREPARING THE SOIL

 

All this may seem like a lot of trouble to go to for such a small thing

as a packet of seed. In reality it is not nearly so much trouble as it

sounds, and then, too, this is for the first season only, a well built

frame lasting for years—forever, if you want to take a little more

time and make it of concrete instead of boards.

 

But now that the frame is made, how to use it is the next question.

 

The first consideration must be the soil. It should be rich, light,

friable. There are some garden loams that will do well just as taken

up, but as a rule better results will be obtained where the soil is

made up specially as follows: rotted sods two parts, old rotted manure

one part, and enough coarse sand added to make the mixture fine and

crumbly, so that, even when moist, it will fall apart when pressed into

a ball in the hand. Such soil is best prepared by cutting out sod, in

the summer, where the grass is green and thick, indicating a rich soil.

Along old fences or the roadside where the wash has settled will be

good places to get limited quantities. Those should be cut with

considerable soil and stacked, grassy sides together, in layers in a

compost pile. If the season proves very dry, occasionally soak the heap

through. In late fall put in the cellar, or wherever solid freezing

will not take place, enough to serve for spring work under glass. The

amount can readily be calculated; soil for three sash, four inches

deep, for instance, would take eighteen feet or a pile three feet

square and two feet high. The fine manure (and sand, if necessary) may

be added in the fall or when using in the spring. Here again it may

seem to the amateur that unnecessary pains are being taken. I can but

repeat what has been suggested all through this book, that it will

require but little more work to do the thing the best way as long as

one is doing it at all, and the results will be not only better, but

practically certain—and that is a tremendously important point about

all gardening operations.

 

SOWING THE SEED

 

Having now our frames provided and our soil composed properly and good

strong tested seed on hand, we are prepared to go about the business of

growing our plants with a practical certainty of success—a much more

comfortable feeling than if, because something or other had been but

half done, we must anxiously await results and the chances of having

the work we had put into the thing go, after all, for nothing.

 

The seed may be sown either directly in the soil or in “flats.” Flats

are made as follows: Get from your grocer a number of cracker boxes,

with the tops. Saw the boxes lengthwise into sections, a few two inches

deep and the rest three. One box will make four or five such sections,

for two of which bottoms will be furnished by the bottom and top of the

original box. Another box of the same size, knocked apart, will furnish

six bottoms more to use for the sections cut from the middle of the

box. The bottoms of all, if tight, should have, say, five three-quarter-inch holes bored in them to allow any surplus water to drain

off from the soil. The shallow flats may be used for starting the seed

and the three-inch ones for transplanting. Where sowing but a small

quantity of each variety of seed, the flats will be found much more

convenient than sowing directly in the soil—and in the case of their

use, of course, the soil on top of the manure need be but two or three

inches deep and not especially prepared.

 

Where the seed is to go directly into the frames, the soil described

above is, of course, used. But when in flats, to be again transplanted,

the soil for the first sowing will be better for having no manure in

it, the idea being to get the hardest, stockiest growth possible. Soil

for the flats in which the seeds are to be planted should be, if

possible, one part sod, one part chip dirt or leaf mould, and one part

sand.

 

The usual way of handling the seed flats is to fill each about one-third full of rough material—screenings, small cinders or something

similar—and then fill the box with the prepared earth, which should

first be finely sifted. This, after the seeds are sown, should be

copiously watered—with a fine rose spray, or if one has not such,

through a folded bag to prevent the washing of the soil.

 

Here is another way which I have used recently and, so far, with one

hundred per cent, certainty of results. Last fall, when every bit of

soil about my place was ash dry, and I had occasion to start

immediately some seeds that were late in reaching me, my necessity

mothered the following invention, an adaptation of the principle of

sub-irrigation. To have filled the flats in the ordinary way would not

have done, as it would have been impossible ever to wet the soil

through without making a solid mud cake of it, in which seeds would

have stood about as good a chance of doing anything as though not

watered at all. I filled the flats one-third full of sphagnum moss,

which was soaked, then to within half an inch of the top with soil,

which was likewise soaked, and did not look particularly inviting. The

flats were then filled level-full of the dust-dry soil, planted, and

put in partial shade. Within half a day the surface soil had come to

just the right degree of moisture, soaked up from below, and there was

in a few days more a perfect stand of seedlings. I have used this

method in starting all my seedlings this spring—some forty thousand,

so far—only using soil screenings, mostly small pieces of decayed sod,

in place of the moss and giving a very light watering in the surface to

make it compact and to swell the seed at once. Two such flats are shown

[ED., unable to recreate in typed format], just ready to transplant.

The seedlings illustrated in the upper flat had received just two

waterings since being planted.

 

Where several hundred or more plants of each variety are wanted, sow

the seed broadcast as evenly as possible and fairly thick—one ounce of

cabbage, for instance, to three to five 13 x 19 inch flats. If but a

few dozen, or a hundred, are wanted, sow in rows two or three inches

apart, being careful to label each correctly. Before sowing, the soil

should be pressed firmly into the corners of the flats and leveled off

perfectly smooth with a piece of board or shingle. Press the seed

evenly into the soil with a flat piece of board, cover it lightly, one-eighth to one-quarter inch, with sifted soil, press down barely enough

to make smooth, and water with a very fine spray, or through burlap.

 

For the next two days the flats can go on a pretty hot surface, if one

is available, such as hot water or steam pipes, or top of a boiler, but

if these are not convenient, directly into the frame, where the

temperature should be kept as near as possible to that indicated in the

following table.

 

In from two to twelve days, according to temperature and variety, the

little seedlings will begin to appear. In case the soil has not been

made quite friable enough, they will sometimes “raise the roof” instead

of breaking through. If so, see that the surface is broken up at once,

with the fingers and a careful watering, as otherwise many of the

little plants may become bent and lanky in a very short time.

 

From now on until they are ready to transplant, a period of some three

or four weeks, is the time when they will