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Planning Your Garden

There are other modes of associating the vegetable garden with the flower ground. When the whole plot is wide in relation to its length, it may be convenient to reserve a strip of ground along one or both sides for kitchen garden purposes, and in that event the treatment may be based upon the design here illustrated, the object, as before, being to retain a certain decorative quality without detriment to practical requirements. The method of doing this is made sufficiently clear by the diagram.

If space and other conditions suit, there is no objection to cutting off the kitchen from the flower garden entirely by a separating hedge; because in the case under consideration there would be little gained by blending the two, since the additional vista so obtained, being in a transverse direction, is comparatively short. In selecting the site for the kitchen garden the question of aspect must not be overlooked, particularly as it affects that part of the flower garden adjacent. In the case just considered the hedge shadow must be reckoned with, and for that reason the north side of a garden having an east or west aspect would be the best position for the kitchen garden, other things being favorable. With a north or south aspect the point would not arise.

In gardens of irregular shape it is sometimes possible to cut off a triangular or awkwardly shaped piece for the vegetable plot, thereby giving better form to the rest. Examples of this mode of treatment will be found in the plans which follow.

In the actual making of the ground the gardener must follow the directions already given for trenching and manuring.

If the garden is of any considerable size a tool shed, which might be used also as a potting-shed, is a great convenience. It may be a very simple structure; but it is well not to disfigure it with corrugated iron or other unsightly material. A thatched roof of straw or reeds would convert it into an almost picturesque feature, and there is no reason why it should not support a graceful flowering climber.