Its Opportunities

It cannot be said that America has yet reached the gardening age. There

is no doubt, however, that the appreciation of flowers, and the liking

for things horticultural in general, is growing rapidly. The stimulus

that compels hundreds to turn with delight to the joy in the creative

work of growing things arises from a sound foundation. Comparatively few

people, however, realize that this pleasure can be had by them around

the entire circle of the months. They look forward to planting time in

the spring and accept as inevitable the cessation of their gardening

adventures with the first frost.



It is to such people that the message of home glass must come as good

tidings indeed. For them the gentle art of gardening under glass has

seemed a distant and mysterious thing. Little indeed have they realized

how easily it might be brought within reach; that instead of being an

expensive luxury it would be by no means impossible to make it a paying

investment, yielding not only pleasure but profit as well.



As a matter of fact, when one's mind is once made up not to sacrifice

the pleasures of gardening for six months every year, a little energy,

ingenuity and a very few dollars will go a long way in providing the

necessary equipment.



Nor is the care of the ordinary flowers, and the vegetables suited for

winter use, such a complicated profession that the beginner cannot

achieve quite a considerable measure of success with his or her very

first attempts, provided that regular care is given the work in hand. It

is a much easier task than succeeding with plants in the house,

notwithstanding the fact that general opinion is to the contrary.



It is not necessary to start in on a large scale. A very few square feet

of soil, where all the conditions can be controlled as they are under

glass, will produce an amazing amount. Take for instance lettuce grown

for the home table. How good it is right fresh and crisp from the soil

compared to the wilted or artificially revived bunches one can get at

the grocer's! Outdoors you put it a foot apart in rows a foot and a half

apart; a patch 3 x 10 feet would give you twenty heads. In the home

garden under glass you set out a batch of Grand Rapids lettuce plants,

one of the very best in quality, six inches each way, so that a little

piece of bench 3 x 10 feet would give you one hundred heads (which

incidentally at the grocer's would cost you $10. or $12.--enough good

money to buy glass for a quite roomy little lean-to). (See page 164.)



Details of construction, etc., are given in the following pages, but the

most important thing of all is just to make up your mind that you will

have a little greenhouse of your own. If you once decide to have it the

way can be found, for the necessary cash outlay is very small indeed.



Think of the variety of ways you could use such a winter garden! Not

only may lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers, beets and other

vegetables be had out of season, but you can get a better start with

your garden than ever before--put it weeks and weeks ahead of the old

sow-out-in-the-ground way. And then consider the flowers! A dozen

carnation plants, for instance, would occupy about six square feet of

room, say 2 x 3 feet of bench, and would supply you comfortably with

blossoms all winter long--nice fresh ones outlasting twice over the cold

storage blooms from the retail florist's--to say nothing of the added

value of having them actually home grown.