Further, pillage of crops, which was always urged as an objection to raising fruits or truck on open grounds, has proved to be a baseless fear.  Where any of the gardeners are allowed to camp or put up shacks on the patches, theft does not occur and various superintendents repeat that “the few and trivial cases of stealing from vacant lot plots or school gardens were almost all at the places that were fenced.”

Perhaps our locks and bolts tend to suggest breaking in.

The Garden Primer issued by the New York City Food Supply Committee gives simple but incomplete directions for planting and tending a vegetable garden.  For those who need that sort of thing, these are just the sort of thing they need.  They will be useful if you do not follow them.  The Primer tells you how to get some kind of parsnips, chard, spinach, common onions, radishes, cabbage, lettuce, beets, tomatoes, beans, turnips, peas, peppers, egg plants, cucumbers, corn, and potatoes.

Don’t grow these things, unless it be for your own immediate use.  Every one grows them and ripens them all at the same time.  In many places these are given away or thrown away this year.  Grow anything that every one wants and has not got, like okra, small fruits, etc.; you can get a much better return in cash or in trade than by spending your time “like other folks” who do not think.

So I refer to these directions for their instruction, and for your warning However, they give the following admirable injunctions.

“Help Your Country and Yourself by Raising Your Own Vegetables.”

As we will likely have to send to Europe in coming years as much or even more food than we did last year, there is only one way to avoid a shortage among our own people, that is by raising a great deal more than usual.  To do this we must plant every bit of available land. (Of course, we can’t; the owners won’t let us.  Ed.)

If you have a back yard, you can do your part and help the world and yourself by raising some of the food you eat.  The more you raise the less you will have to buy, and the more there will be left for some of your fellow countrymen who have not an inch of ground on which to raise anything.

If there is a vacant lot in your neighborhood, see if you cannot get the use of it for yourself and your neighbors, and raise your own vegetables.  An hour a day spent in this way will not only increase wealth and help your family, but will help you personally by adding to your strength and well-being and making you appreciate the Eden joy of gardening.  An hour in the open air is worth more than a dozen expensive prescriptions by an expensive doctor.

The only tools necessary for a small garden are a spade or spading fork, a hoe, a rake, and a line or piece of cord.

First of all, clear the ground of all rubbish, sticks, stones, bottles, etc. (especially whisky bottles).

Choose the sunniest spot in the yard for your garden.