Vegetable Gardens

Every home garden should have a vegetable plot sufficiently large to provide enough vegetables in succession for the family's needs. Vegetables are a necessity for health, and the cost of a generous supply is out of all proportion to average earning capacity. Vegetables, such as Lettuce, Cabbage and Sillier Beet, Peas and Beans, root vegetables and Tomatoes should be included in the home garden. Potatoes take a great deal of room, and are, therefore, not a generally useful crop in the small garden, but if the area is large enough they should be grown. They are particularly useful as an initial crop for breaking down virgin soil.

In many cases vegetables are grown in a desultory fashion, but if a little time and thought are given to the laying out of the plot the garden can be made pleasing to the eye. The area is generally a rectangular one. The beds should be absolutely true, and the rows of vegetables straight. It is quite easy to accomplish this if a line is used for marking out the edges of the beds, and the drills, for planting or sowing the crops.

Vegetables require all the sun and air it is possible to give them, so an open position is essential. If the gardener wants to include fruit trees in this section they should be grown espalier or cordon fashion on the surrounding fences. Branching trees should be outside the area.

The rows of vegetables should be made to run north and south, so that the plants get the full benefit of the sunlight from dawn till dusk. The only time it is permissible to run them east and west is when the garden is on a sloping hillside. It is essential then to run the rows across the slope, to avoid soil and crops being washed away in heavy weather.

Good drainage is another essential. The soil must never become water-logged; if there is any likelihood of this happening an agricultural drainage system must be carried out.