A brief refresher course is offered here for adult gardeners whose knowledge of garden routine may be rusty or scanty. Experienced gardeners who have their own preferred proce­dures may bypass this chapter. But experienced or inexperienced, do keep up with current developments in gardening techniques. There is nothing static or immutable about garden­ing rules.

THE PRE-PLANTING PERIOD
Engineer all the preliminary planning palavers and the actual ordering of seeds and plants during the late winter if possible. A restraining influence may be part of your function during this period, since some children, confronted by the wealth of choice in catalogs, may exhibit the same desire for a piece of everything that shows up at a candy counter.

With planning and ordering out of the way, the young gardener still has a number of things to attend to.

First, he should compile a notebook containing a dossier on each item to be grown. Pertinent data, both descriptive and cultural, will be found on seed packets, in catalogs and in general garden books. Help him to get this material complete and accurate so he will have written down in easy reference form every bit of information he will need in planting and caring for each variety. This need not be a burdensome job since the number of items to cover should be few in number.

Determination of size and site of garden comes next. Size, of course, depends both on the age of the child and what he is going to grow. Arbitrary advice on size is useless. The location should be a choice one, with direct sun most of the day, good drainage, and loose, reasonably rich soil. No beginner should start out with strikes against him because of a faulty basic situation.

Tools should be rounded up ahead of time, too. No real digging tools will be needed by the very young child whose ground must be prepared for him. All he will need is a trowel, hand cultivator, possibly a toy hoe, a little sprinkling can and a small pair of clippers. The lightweight tools made for women are suitable for older children. Their equipment should include a spade, hoe, rake, trowel, hand cultivator, weeding knife, clippers and sprinkling can. A yardstick, twine, stakes, and a can of all purpose garden spray should also be provided.

Then a map of the prospective garden should be drawn up to scale. In a vegetable garden this should show spacing of rows, and distance apart of plants in the rows. In a flower gar­den it should indicate the arrangement of various heights and juxtaposition of colors, as well as approximate spacing.