A Plant Kindergarten.
Fig. 360. A soap box put to use.
In some plants the first leaves are called the "seed-leaves," and, like children's milk teeth, soon disappear. The next set are the true leaves. After the true leaves appear, if the plants seem crowded and uncomfortable, like three boys trying to sleep in a narrow bed, transplant them into other flats prepared similarly to the one into which the seeds were sown. You may think of this as the promotion of the young plants from the cradle to the kindergarten. Here the plants should be placed about an inch from each other, in squares. Wet the plants thoroughly before taking them up and also the soil into which they are to make their second home. After this is done, the soil should be pressed firmly about the roots, as you snuggle the bedclothes about your neck on a cold winter's night. It is entertaining practice to transplant the plants into pots, if you happen to have any florist's pots of small size.
This transplanting of plants in the school-room gives a quiet occupation to boys and girls who for a time may not be engaged in study. The disobedient child or the would-be "smart" one might better be denied the privilege. I say "privilege," because the wise teacher will make window gardening a privilege and not required work. After the transplanting has been completed and the plants thoroughly soaked with water, they must be shaded for about twenty-four hours, after which they had better receive the strong light once more, when they will resume their growth.
Plants Need Water.
If plants could feel and talk, they would tell of periods when they had endured great suffering because of thirst: suffering as great as that sometimes experienced by travelers in crossing a desert. Often it has been so great as almost to ruin a plant's constitution. I am often asked, "How frequently shall I water plants?" It is as difficult to give a fixed rule for watering as to determine how often a boy should be allowed a drink. During cool cloudy weather, plants do not require as much water as when the sun shines bright and hot on them. I can give no better general direction than this:—water plants when the surface of the soil seems dry and powder-like, when a pinch of it rolled between the thumb and finger does not form a little ball. Under conditions in which the drainage is good, plants should receive water until the surplus begins to trickle out of the holes at the bottom. If you follow these directions carefully, your schoolroom garden should afford a good lot of plants for cultivation at home in the open ground or in boxes.
What You May Plant.
As to the kind of seeds to sow, you must be governed by what you most desire to have in your home garden for summer cultivation. If you are able to have a garden in the open ground, I would have you make a selection of both flowers and vegetables. Do not choose a large variety of either, for children are but little men and women and must shape their tasks to fit their shoulders. It would be better to have a garden the size of a horse blanket and have it in good condition all summer than to have a larger one and allow it to become a wilderness of weeds.
In the vegetable line, you can have radishes and lettuce that may be harvested by the Fourth of July. After the first crop has been removed the ground should be spaded and wax beans planted in rows about eighteen inches apart and the beans six inches apart in the rows. These give the juiciest of pods, excellent for pickling. Kings and princes could have none better. This plan gives you two crops from the same ground in one summer. Plant radishes in rows twelve inches apart and about two inches apart in the row. Pull them for the table when the roots are three-quarters of an inch or a little more in diameter. Set lettuce about three inches apart in the row, which is twice or more as thick as the plants should be when full grown. When half grown or more every other plant may be pulled out for table use and the remaining ones will soon fill the vacancies.