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CORPORATION
GARDENS
Manufacturing concerns, and other
enterprises which employ labor on a large scale, may make valuable
contribution to the national food supply by encouraging their employees to
cultivate war gardens. Many concerns furnish large tracts of land, which are
divided into individual garden plots. These plots are allotted to such
employes as are willing to cultivate them. Each plot and everything it
produces are recognized as the individual property of its cultivator. The
company bears the expense of plowing and fertilizing these plots and employs
an expert to have charge.
HOW TO HAVE A GOOD GARDEN
Garden Plan
Have a plan for your garden––drawn to scale on
paper–– before you start, to give proper order in planting and enable you to
buy the right amount of seeds in advance while the selection is good.
Put in one general group small plants like beets,
onions, lettuce, carrots, radishes and parsnips. In another general group
put larger plants like corn, tomatoes and potatoes. Spreading ground vines,
like melons and cucumbers, which need wider spacing, should be put in
another general group. The reason for this grouping is that the various
plants in a group need similar general treatment as well as spacing.
In making a plan provide space in which to enter costs
and yield of the various crops. This will give you a complete record which
will be useful another year. Another helpful use of the plan is that is will
guide you in the rotation of next year's crops. For this purpose save your
plan for next season.
In planning your garden formulate some definite plan as
to what you will do with surplus vegetables. Detailed instructions for home
storage of vegetables for winter use are given in Part II of this booklet.
Detailed instructions for canning, drying, pickling and other forms of
conservation are given in the Home Manual on these subjects issued by this
Commission. |
Sunshine
In the location of a garden it is not always
possible to choose conditions as to sunlight. It is important, therefore,
that in the arrangement of the various varieties of vegetables which are to
be planted, due care should be given to providing the greatest exposure to
the sun for those crops which need it most. Those plants which must ripen
their fruits, such as tomatoes and eggplant, require the greatest amount of
sunshine, while lettuce, spinach, kale and other leaf crops require
relatively less. Foliage crops must have at least 3 hours of sunlight a day
and plants which ripen fruits at least 5 hours a day. This is important.
Vary from Last Year's Plan
It is important to remember that plant diseases
and insects are apt to thrive in a spot in which they have become
established. For this reason those who make gardens this year should take
care not to place the individual crops in the spot in which the same crops
grew last year. Varying the arrangement of the garden in this way will
reduce the danger from disease and insects. The same vegetables in the same
place each year exhaust certain food elements, and reduced yields are sure
to result.
SURPLUS PRODUCTS
At times, even with the best of planning, a
gardener will find that his garden has matured more of some varieties of
vegetables than can be used immediately. None of this excess should be
wasted and there is no occasion for waste. If there is no ready market for
the surplus it should be prepared for winter by either canning or drying. By
modern methods either canning or drying may be done with little expense of
time, trouble or financial outlay. By using the cold-pack method as small a
quantity as a single can or jar may be put up in a short time. With proper
instructions it is possible for the housewife to dry a handful of peas or
beans, sweet corn, a few sweet potatoes or turnips, or small quantities of
many other vegetables with practically no expenditure of her time. Explicit
and simple directions for canning and drying are given in the Manual issued
by the National War Garden Commission. |
