GARDEN LESSON No. 4
The Outdoors Seed-Bed
Having found how to get the outdoors seed-bed ready, we will next learn how to plant the seed.
Of course, you have made your list of the seeds needed, and have received them from the dealer.
If possible, it is best to run the planting of the rows or drills north and south so that the sun will shine upon the rows of plants all day, from the east in the mornings; from the west in the afternoons.
You will need a garden line to make a straight first row.
To Make a Garden Line
1. Cut two sticks about as large around as a broom handle, each eighteen inches long.
2. Point the ends so that they may be easily stuck into the ground.
3. Tie one end of a strong twenty-five foot cord to each stick. Roll the cord on the stick.
To Use the Garden Line
1. Decide where you wish the first row of plants to grow.
2. Push the stick, not having the roll of cord, down into the ground at the end of this imaginary row.
3. With the other stick in hand walk back, unrolling the cord until you reach the other end of the imaginary row of little plants. Try to make this row very straight, as all the other rows will be measured from it.
By the way, this row should be quite near the edge of the bed, so that you will not have to step on the loose “feathery” soil.
4. Drive the other stick down into the earth, drawing the cord tight.
Planting in Drills
1. Prepare the rake to mark the little rows, or drills, for the seed. Have ready three good-sized corks. Stick the middle tooth of the rake half way through one cork.
2. Do the same to the two end teeth.
3. Run one end tooth of the rake along the stretched garden line keeping all the teeth parallel with the line. Continue to use the rake across the entire bed. This is a convenient method of getting straight rows. Make the drills (hollows) about a half inch deep.
Broadcasting
Seed are often not sowed in “drills,” but are “broadcast;” where plants are to be thinned out when they come up, and not to be transplanted, the drills are better.
Broadcasting is throwing the seeds lightly over the surface of the ground, so that each will fall a little way apart from the other, like sprinkling with pepper from a pepper shaker.
Covering the Seeds
After the seeds are sown, draw the earth lightly over them either with your hands or with the back of the rake. It is best to sow seeds just before a rain, except when the seeds are very small; then, just after a rain. If there is no rain, sprinkle lightly, but thoroughly dampen the earth.
Pat the earth down gently with the palms of your hands or with a board.
A board is much the better if seed has been broadcast.
The reason? Oh, yes, the reason is that the soil will be too light and airy unless firmed.
The little seed rootlets need close-packed light earth, with no lumps. Just imagine how tiny they are, and how near to them must be the tiny grains of sand for them to take hold on.
To Mark the Beds
After the seeds are planted, drive down at the ends of the first and last rows little stakes, marked with the names of the kind of seed planted in the section.
“Perhaps you think you will remember what kinds of seed you’ve planted; but one is never certain. Once I thought I had planted carrots and when the plants grew, I had beets. It is not safe to try to remember.
“So much, then, for how to put seed babies into their beds.
“By and by, they are going to wake up, and we must understand how to take care of them. The best way to learn how to take care of them is to find out what they are, and what they need.”
[CHAPTER XVI]
Seed Babies and Their Nurses
“FIRST of all, we must understand that the seed has a coat which holds the living, sleeping baby. You see, the baby itself is so tiny and delicate that it would not be safe for it to be out without its seed coat. The wind and the sun would soon dry it up and kill it; then, too, it would die of hunger, for it is too little to find its own food. So its mother wraps the baby up in its strong seed coat, and puts its food in beside it, in the same coat. And there the seed baby lies sound asleep until—until everything is just right for it to wake up. The time it likes best to awaken is in Spring, when the weather is getting warm.