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

harrows and other tools to be used

later. In plowing under tall-growing green manures, like rye, a heavy

chain is hung from the evener to the handle, thus pulling the crop down

into the furrow so that it will all be covered under. Where drainage is

poor it will be well to break up the subsoil with a subsoil plow, which

follows in the wake of the regular plow but does not lift the subsoil

to the surface.

 

TOOLS FOR PREPARING THE SEED-BED

 

The spade or spading-fork will be followed by the hoe, or hook, and the

iron rake; and the plow by one or more of the various types of harrow.

The best type of hoe for use after the spade is the wide, deep-bladed

type. In most soils, however, this work may be done more expeditiously

with the hook or prong-hoe (see illustration). With this the soil can

be thoroughly pulverized to a depth of several inches. In using either,

be careful not to pull up manure or trash turned under by the spade, as

all such material if left covered will quickly rot away in the soil and

furnish the best sort of plant food. I should think that our energetic

manufactures would make a prong-hoe with heavy wide blades, like those

of the spading-fork, but I have never seen such an implement, either in

use or advertised.

 

What the prong-hoe is to the spade, the harrow is to the plow. For

general purposes the Acme is an excellent harrow. It is adjustable, and

for ground at all mellow will be the only one necessary; set it, for

the first time over, to cut in deep; and then, set for leveling, it

will leave the soil in such excellent condition that a light hand-raking (or, for large areas, the Meeker smoothing-harrow) will prepare

it for the finest of seeds, such as onions and carrots. The teeth of

the Acme are so designed that they practically constitute a gang of

miniature plows. Of disc harrows there are a great many makes. The

salient feature of the disc type is that they can tear up no manure,

grass or trash, even when these are but partly turned under by the

plow. For this reason it is especially useful on sod or other rough

ground. The most convenient harrow for putting on the finishing

touches, for leveling off and fining the surface of the soil, is the

lever spike-tooth. It is adjustable and can be used as a spike-tooth or

as a smoothing harrow.

 

Any of the harrows mentioned above (except the Meeker) and likewise the

prong-hoe, will have to be followed by the iron rake when preparing the

ground for small-seeded garden vegetables. Get the sort with what is

termed the “bow” head (see illustration) instead of one in which the

head is fastened directly to the end of the handle. It is less likely

to get broken, and easier to use. There is quite a knack in

manipulating even a garden rake, which will come only with practice. Do

not rake as though you were gathering up leaves or grass. The secret in

using the garden rake is not to gather things up. Small stones,

lumps of earth and such things, you of course wish to remove. Keep

these raked off ahead of where you are leveling the soil, which is

accomplished with a backward-and-forward movement of the rake.

 

The tool-house of every garden of any size should contain a seed-drill.

Labor which is otherwise tedious and difficult is by it rendered mere

play—as well as being better done. The operations of marking the row,

opening the furrow, dropping the seed at the proper depth and distance,

covering immediately with fresh earth, and firming the soil, are all

done at one fell swoop and as fast as you can walk. It will even drop

seeds in hills. But that is not all: it may be had as part of a

combination machine, which, after your seeds are planted—with each row

neatly rolled on top, and plainly visible—may be at once transformed

into a wheel hoe that will save you as much time in caring for your

plants as the seed-drill did in planting your seed. Hoeing drudgery

becomes a thing of the past. The illustration herewith shows such a

machine, and some of the varied attachments which may be had for it.

There are so many, and so varied in usefulness, that it would require

an entire chapter to detail their special advantages and methods of

use. The catalogues describing them will give you many valuable

suggestions; and other ways of utilizing them will discover themselves

to you in your work.

 

Valuable as the wheel hoe is, however, and varied in its scope of work,

the time-tried hoe cannot be entirely dispensed with. An accompanying

photograph [ED. Not shown here] shows four distinct types, all of which

will pay for themselves in a garden of moderate size. The one on the

right is the one most generally seen; next to it is a modified form

which personally I prefer for all light work, such as loosening soil

and cutting out weeds. It is lighter and smaller, quicker and easier to

handle. Next to this is the Warren, or heart-shaped hoe, especially

valuable in opening and covering drills for seed, such as beans, peas

or corn. The scuffle-hoe, or scarifier, which completes the four, is

used between narrow rows for shallow work, such as cutting off small

weeds and breaking up the crust. It has been rendered less frequently

needed by the advent of the wheel hoe, but when crops are too large to

admit of the use of the latter, the scuffle-hoe is still an

indispensable time-saver.

 

There remains one task connected with gardening that is a bug-bear.

That is hand-weeding. To get down on one’s hands and knees, in the

blistering hot dusty soil, with the perspiration trickling down into

one’s eyes, and pick small weedlets from among tender plantlets, is not

a pleasant occupation. There are, however, several sorts of small

weeders which lessen the work considerably. One or another of the

common types will seem preferable, according to different conditions of

soil and methods of work. Personally, I prefer the Lang’s for most

uses. The angle blade makes it possible to cut very near to small

plants and between close-growing plants, while the strap over the back

of a finger or thumb leaves the fingers free for weeding without

dropping the instrument.

 

There are two things to be kept in mind about hand-weeding which will

reduce this work to the minimum. First, never let the weeds get a

start; for even if they do not increase in number, if they once smother

the ground or crop, you will wish you had never heard of a garden.

Second, do your hand-weeding while the surface soil is soft, when the

weeds come out easily. A hard-crusted soil will double and treble the

amount of labor required.

 

It would seem that it should be needless, when garden tools are such

savers of labor, to suggest that they should be carefully kept, always

bright and clean and sharp, and in repair. But such advice is needed,

to judge by most of the tools one sees.

 

Always have a piece of cloth or old bag on hand where the garden tools

are kept, and never put them away soiled and wet. Keep the cutting

edges sharp. There is as much pleasure in trying to run a dull

lawnmower as in working with a rusty, battered hoe. Have an extra

handle in stock in case of accident; they are not expensive. In

selecting hand tools, always pick out those with handles in which the

grain does not run out at the point where there will be much strain in

using the tool. In rakes, hoes, etc., get the types with ferrule and

shank one continuous piece, so as not to be annoyed with loose heads.

 

Spend a few cents to send for some implement catalogues. They will well

repay careful perusal, even if you do not order this year. In these

days of intensive advertising, the commercial catalogue often contains

matter of great worth, in the gathering and presentation of which no

expense has been spared.

 

FOR FIGHTING PLANT ENEMIES

 

The devices and implements used for fighting plant enemies are of two

sorts:—(1) those used to afford mechanical protection to the plants;

(2) those used to apply insecticides and fungicides. Of the first the

most useful is the covered frame. It consists usually of a wooden box,

some eighteen inches to two feet square and about eight high, covered

with glass, protecting cloth, mosquito netting or mosquito wire. The

first two coverings have, of course, the additional advantage of

retaining heat and protecting from cold, making it possible by their

use to plant earlier than is otherwise safe. They are used extensively

in getting an extra early and safe start with cucumbers, melons and the

other vine vegetables.

 

Simpler devices for protecting newly-set plants, such as tomatoes or

cabbage, from the cutworm, are stiff, tin, cardboard or tar paper

collars, which are made several inches high and large enough to be put

around the stem and penetrate an inch or so into the soil.

 

For applying poison powders, such as dry Paris green, hellebore and

tobacco dust, the home gardener should supply himself with a powder

gun. If one must be restricted to a single implement, however, it will

be best to get one of the hand-power, compressed-air sprayers—either a

knapsack pump or a compressed-air sprayer—types of which are

illustrated. These are used for applying wet sprays, and should be

supplied with one of the several forms of mist-making nozzles, the non-cloggable automatic type being the best. For more extensive work a

barrel pump, mounted on wheels, will be desirable, but one of the above

will do a great deal of work in little time. Extension rods for use in

spraying trees and vines may be obtained for either. For operations on

a very small scale a good hand-syringe may be used, but as a general

thing it will be best to invest a few dollars more and get a small tank

sprayer, as this throws a continuous stream or spray and holds a much

larger amount of the spraying solution. Whatever type is procured, get

a brass machine—it will out-wear three or four of those made of

cheaper metal, which succumbs very quickly to the, corroding action of

the strong poisons and chemicals used in them.

 

Of implements for harvesting, beside the spade, prong-hoe and spading-fork already mentioned, very few are used in the small garden, as most

of them need not only long rows to be economically used, but horse-power also. The onion harvester attachment for the double wheel hoe,

costing $1.00, may be used with advantage in loosening onions, beets,

turnips, etc., from the soil or for cutting spinach. Running the hand-plow close on either side of carrots, parsnips and other deep-growing

vegetables will aid materially in getting them out. For fruit picking,

with tall trees, the wire-fingered fruit-picker, secured to the end of

a long handle, will be of great assistance, but with the modern method

of using low-headed trees it will not be needed.

 

Another class of garden implements are those used in pruning—but where

this is attended to properly from the start, a good sharp jackknife

and a pair of pruning shears (the English makes are the best, as they

are in some things, when we are frank enough to confess the truth) will

easily handle all the work of the kind necessary.

 

Still another sort of garden device is that used for supporting the

plants; such as stakes, trellises, wires, etc. Altogether too little

attention usually is given these, as with proper care in