THE YOUNG GARDENER’S CALENDAR FOR THE WORK TO BE DONE IN ALL THE MONTHS OF THE YEAR.
JANUARY.
In January, if the weather will permit, manure the ground, and dig the manure in. Plant out some strong early cabbage in warm situations: plant early kinds of Windsor beans. Sow peas, early Warwick, in drills two feet and a-half asunder; sow a first early crop of spinach; sow early radishes, and cover them with straw two inches thick, then uncover every mild day, and cover again in the evening. Plant in the flower border the various bulbs, such as snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, jonquils, &c., and also their offsets. Plant also the hardy herbaceous plants, such as asters, golden rods, campanulas, Canterbury bells, &c. Keep gravel walks clean.
FEBRUARY.
Peas, beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, parsnips, beet, &c., may now be sown; and in hotbeds cucumbers, small salading, melons, lettuce, &c. Give air to plants under frames in the natural ground. Dig and prepare the compartments of beds and borders; sow many sorts of hardy annual flower seeds; the tender sorts in hotbeds, such as larkspurs, candy-tuft, yellow lupines, pansies, virgin stock, sweet scabious mignonette, ten-weeks stock, &c. And for edgings of border, plant box, thrift, daisies, parsley, strawberries, &c.
MARCH.
Still continue to prepare an appropriate ground by digging and manuring, sow again peas, beans, &c., if necessary, and especially a bed of turnips. Now is the time also to sow small herbs, as thyme, savory; you may also now plant various slips or cuttings of rosemary, rue, wormwood, and lavender. These should be the outward shoots produced last year, five or six inches long, and should be planted in a shady border, six inches apart. Now also may be sown nasturtiums, which may be sown in patches, dibbed in six inches apart, or in drills, near a rail or running fence. Potatoes may also be now planted in open weather. In planting them, take care to get the best sorts, and pick out some of the finest of a moderately large size, and then divide the tubers into two or three parts, leaving an eye or two to each; plant the pieces in rows about eighteen inches from each other, and about four inches deep. Now also is the time for pruning the various fruit trees, planting fresh sets of raspberries, strawberries, &c. In the flower garden the tender annuals are to be sown in hotbeds, such as cockscomb, balsam, china-aster, tobacco, convolvulus, &c. Ranunculuses, anemones, and the hardy annuals, may be sown in the open ground, and transplanting of all kinds of plants, shrubs, &c., may now be performed.