With the intensive gardening practised on the small plot where the vegetables are planted in close rows from a foot to two feet apart, the ground should be at all times in a fine tilth, free from unworked strips and trodden paths. It is of little value to cut off the weeds with the hoe or cultivator if they are to be trodden back in the ground and so given a new lease of life. The scuffle-hoe is a real boon to the gardener in obviating this difficulty as in using it one walks backwards, pushing the hoe from one instead of drawing it towards one as is done with the common garden hoe; this leaves a beautiful, clean tilth, absolutely free from trampled areas and nothing cut off by the hoe will take on a new lease of life over night. More real work can be accomplished by the use of the scuffle than with any other tool in the garden; it does not supplant altogether the wheel cultivator but does its work when used alternately with it; the cultivator breaking up the soil to a greater depth, and more rapidly than the scuffle, but the latter destroys far more thoroughly all weeds and reaches closer to the plants, slipping underneath the leaves and close to the stems and routing out any and all weeds lurking there. The cultivator leaves the ground in ridges and aerates it, the scuffle levels it again and produces a fine dust-mulch which will preserve the moisture until another rain calls for the use of the cultivator.
Unless the season is a very rainy one, one good cultivation a week, either with scuffle or cultivator, will keep the garden in excellent shape, but every rain MUST be followed by cultivation of some sort, for there is great loss of moisture if this is not done and weeds follow quickly after rain.
The various weeds with which the garden is afflicted come at separate intervals—not all together, and when one has eradicated one set of weeds there is usually a brief interval before the appearance of the next detachment. But one must have them continually in mind and keep a sharp lookout for the first tiny seedlings and destroy them before they have made even one pair of true leaves. Working around individual plants with a trowel or hand weeder has this advantage that it spies out the enemy before it would attract attention if the rows were worked with hoe or cultivator. The severe thinning that such plants as beets, carrots, endive, salsify, onions and the like require clears the rows of weeds and helps materially in general cultivation. This thinning out should always be done prior to cultivating between the rows, then the paths are left clear and untrodden and the garden is a delight to look upon. A basket should be carried along the rows to drop the plants removed so that they may be out of the way when ready to run the cultivator. Nearly all plants which require thinning may be used in setting out fresh rows of vegetables and where there are vacant places in the rows the spaces may be filled up with plants removed from too crowded areas.
The first weeds to appear in the spring are the chickweed and the malice[2] that has remained over from the previous year, being a perennial and a very hardy and persistent one; these two are ploughed under and give little or no trouble if the work has been well done. The new crop does not appear until late in the season—usually in July. Purslaine comes along in June and soon after appears that particular pest of the garden—red root. All these are very easily eradicated when small but the red root is an exceedingly hard weed to pull once it has got a grip on the ground and it must be taken out root and all or it will come up again with not one but several stout stalks, and a more tenacious hold than ever on the soil; it is one of the weeds which are constantly eluding detection until they have gained several inches in height when they defy the hoe and cultivator and call for strenuous hand work!
Many of the garden weeds may be utilized for feeding stock. Belgian hares are fond of the fresh green leaves of malice and pigs enjoy both that and the purslaine and as the former comes at a time when there is little green feed available for the hares it may be pulled and fed rather than turned under. Ragweed is relished by horses and they will frequently go into a patch of it and eat it in preference to good clover growing near by.
[2] Common name "malice" from its bad reputation; properly, mallow (malva rotundifolia).
CHAPTER IV
TRANSPLANTING
Transplanting is one test of a good gardener, another is the care of the plants after they are gotten into the ground—the careful cultivation that forbids a weed to show its head above ground, or a crust to form on the soil after a rain; these two successful operations spell success in the garden—their absence failure.