Gardening tips
Before you can start your garden, you must pick a good place for it.
Most garden plants need lots of sunshine, so choose a place the sun
shines on most of the day.
Next, dig up the ground, turn it over, and rake it smooth. Your mother
or father may have to help you do this.
When the ground is ready, mark off rows for the seeds or plants you’re
going to put in. Pound sturdy, pointed sticks into the ground. Then
stretch twine between them as the children have done in the picture on
the opposite page.
To make holes for seeds, push a pointed stick into the ground. If you’re
going to put in baby plants that are already growing, such as onions or
tomatoes, you’ll need a trowel. Use it like a big spoon, to scoop out
holes.
To loosen soil, or dig up weeds, you can use a hand cultivator. Kneel
down and pull it over the ground like a little rake.
Water the earth around each baby plant or seed until it is damp but not
muddy.
Spring Planting
This is how your garden might look when you start your spring planting.
Each row of plants or seeds is marked off with string. The empty seed
packages show what has been planted in each row. Most of the plants have
been put where they will get plenty of sunshine. Many—but not
all—growing plants need lots of sunshine. Some, like pansies, do well,
or even better, in the shade. So these children have planted their
pansies in the shade of the tree.
Summer
Weeding
By early summer, garden plants are usually well up—but so are the
weeds! Here, the girl is pulling up weeds by hand, while the boy is
using a hoe. He is looking at an insect that was eating one of his
potato plants. He’ll have to find a way to protect these plants from
insects. The children will also have to water their garden if there is
not much rain. If you have to water your garden, do it after the sun
goes down. Then the sun won’t dry up the water before it soaks in.
Autumn Harvesting
When it’s time to harvest, the garden rewards you for all your hard
work. Your flowers can be harvested as soon as they bloom. Picking
garden flowers will help more to bloom. It’s not so easy to tell when to
pull up vegetables that grow in the ground. But the pictures on pages
148-149 will show you what some of these plants look like when they are
ready for harvesting. And if you’ve planted any pumpkins, they’ll be big
and orange just in time for Halloween.
