By growing

By growing you relise that you know less and less.

A person who wants to be a grower must do three things:

Show in his own allotment what a fertilesed soil can do

Grow for his own table fresh crops from fertile soil.

Maintain the land in good heart. The importance of fertility in the soil and elimination of disease in plants is your daily job. 

The outstanding characteristics of Nature are variety and stability. 

The diversity of the natural life around us is such as to strike even the child's imagery, who notices in the fields and copses near his home, in the ponds and streams and seaside pools round which he plays, or, if being city-born he be robbed of these delightful playgrounds, even in his impoverish back-garden or in the neighbouring park, an perpetual choice of different flowers and plants and trees, hitched with an animal world full of rich diversities and surprises, in fact, a plenitude of the forms of living things composing the first and probably the most powerful opening he will ever undergo into the nature of the natural world of which he is himself a part. 

You are more than yourself.........go dig and learn

HOW TO RUN THE ROWS

HOW TO RUN THE ROWS

Let us consider first a medium-sized garden with a southern exposure and protection from the north winds. 

This, of course, will be the earliest garden, for it gets all the sun light there is. 

 If the rows run east to west, the rays of the sun will shine only on the southern side of the row. 

If, however, they run north and south, the sun's rays will shine on the eastern side of the row in the morning and the western side in the afternoon.

 The latter method seems to me to give a more even growth. 

Let us now suppose the rows are planted east and west, the sun will shine earlist in the morning and slowly fade away as the day goes on.

 To prove that the ideal exposure for a garden is toward the south: also that the sun's rays striKe every portion of rows that run north and south, while only the south side of rows running east and west get the benefit of the sun all day.

Southern sun of summer will continuously draw the rows one way, southward only.  

This is another point in favor of north-and-south planting: for rows thus planted are drawn eastward by the morning sun, and this lean is corrected by the afternoon sun.

If the garden faces north (and by this I mean is unprotected from the north winds), would it would be a good idea to try and protect  with a small hedge, vines or a grape arbor? In this case of a  grape arbor, it  would give the greatest amount of protection if made in the old-fashioned lattice style with willow sticks. 

A high board fence can be made a thing of beauty by covering it with vines, particularly climbing roses.

If your garden faces southeast and is entirely cut off from the western sun, it is a good idea to run the rows northwest and southeast so to get the greatest period of sunlight, for in this setting every available ray is most valuable.

No matter how your garden may face, no matter what angles, curves or dimensions it may possess, you will see at once and very clearly the best thing to be done when you have it before you on paper with the area hit by the sun's rays shinning on it.

What to do now

The way to have more and better vegterbals  for less work is to plan the garden in February instead of waiting until May. If you do not do this, the  garden is likely to be swamped by the spring rush.

 Without a plan you are sure to plant too much of one thing and not enough of another. The only possible objection to planning the garden in winter is that it may "seem like work." The obvious reply is, "Don't make work of it. Enjoy it." If you have never tasted the joys of planning, begin now.

The best plan I find is to only grow what you will eat and not too much of it