Under your own superintendence, then, the beds are mapped out, the width of each being exactly the same (say six feet), and their length equal to the breadth of the plot of ground to be under cultivation. Between each bed there is formed a hollow division or path about a foot wide, and the beds are not to encroach upon the borders round, which are sacred to gooseberry bushes, rose-trees, flowers, and currants, black and red.
Choose a fine, sunny day to sow your seeds. First rake your beds most levelly and carefully, not leaving a ball of earth even an inch in diameter. When well raked they should be as level as a dining-room table, not all in little heaps, as if the Cochins had been scraping them.
Make the drills—by aid of a garden line and foot rule—with the back of the rake, and not more than an inch and a half deep, each drill to be nine inches apart; put peas in two rows, only six inches apart, and a foot and a half between each double row. This foot and a half may seem a waste of ground, but it need not be so, as in the centres you can put a drill of summer spinach.
Having sown your seeds, rake the ground gingerly and tenderly, filling up the little drills, and making each bed a thing of beauty. About two weeks or less after this, it really will be a thing of beauty, for I know of few prettier sights in a garden on a lovely spring day than rows of green seedlings that have just burst through the earth. You can watch them grow day by day, and listen to the birds singing at the same time. If the weather is propitious they will soon want thinning, and for a week or two your work will be cut out for you. Do not say you can ill spare the time. It will be time saved and health gained. Rise in the morning and work an hour before breakfast, and do a little more in the evening. In thinning the plants, leave in the best and biggest, and let there be six to nine inches between each. Pluck all the weeds out at the same time, and put weedings and thinnings all in a small basket; I say small basket, because there is no room for a big one between the beds, and no mark must be left of foot or anything else on the bed itself.
I can assure readers that work like this may be done by the most dainty fingers, and that it will restore the bloom to lips and cheeks, however pale these were before. You may wear what you like and look as charming as you please when gardening; thus, so long as you do the work honestly, you may wear the most dainty hats and gloves, and have a mahogany handle to your hoe if so minded, though, between you and me, six-button kid gloves are not the best suited for weeding onions in.
The great advantage in growing one’s own vegetables is that one can always have them fresh. Lettuces cool, green, and tender; potatoes laughing from the mould, and peas with the drops of morning dew still lingering inside their pods.
That is all I mean to say about gardening; if you wish to learn more, buy a book, and study it, only I can promise you health if you adopt gardening as an exercise and a hobby.
But you must partake of the fruits of your labour; and this leads me to say a few words about the benefits to the health of a partly vegetable diet. Remember, I am not a vegetarian, but I can tell you as a fact that you could live far longer on vegetables alone than you could upon meat alone.
Potatoes come first. No dinner—or to my thinking, no luncheon either—is complete without them.
Some interesting papers in the early part of this volume gave hints as to the cooking of potatoes. Let me add another. To the delicate no vegetable is more difficult of complete digestion if not boiled to a nicety, but they ought to be mashed as well, and I do not think I ever saw them properly mashed at an English table. They ought to be as smooth and white as custard, though not so thin, otherwise little lumps remain, which, even if no bigger than a pea, are most indigestible, and never fail to create unpleasantness afterwards.