March 1944

The Gardener Looks Beyond the Battlefields

THE man in the next block, who developed the best Victory garden in the neighborhood last year, said to me the other day as we walked toward the bus stop, "I used to think that I needed a vacation each year in some place that would afford a complete change-- some place like the Maine woods, or the Great Smokies, or Sequoia. It seems strange, but last year I found much the same sort of satisfaction in my own back yard."

LATE TIPS ON Wartime Living

A real threat of food shortages looms ahead. Behind the threat are these facts:

HOW TO Grow Lettuce the Year Around

FOR all its fragile appearance, lettuce is probably the toughest vegetable you can grow. Last spring a freeze that killed all cabbage in my garden left lettuce unharmed. With a few wisps of straw around the matured heads to shelter them from the winter winds and sun, I have kept head lettuce in good condition in my garden near Chicago until Christmas.

More Food for '44

A Mother Answers A MORALS S-O-S

MAYBE you've a daughter, under 21. At her age, if these were ordinary times, she'd be at home, or at school, under the protection of responsible persons.

See how to grow ford

You'd Better Grow SOYBEANS

GROW and eat garden soybeans because, of their wonderful flavor and because you'll enjoy them. You'll find them delicious, unlike any other vegetable, yet reminding you of the tenderest new peas or the most luscious baby limas. And you'll notice a richness that reminds you of meat.

Should You Grow POTATOES?

AS A field crop that requires large plots, special equipment, and the all-important know-how, the potato is in normal times left pretty much to the farmer. But these aren't normal times. Last spring, potatoes were off the market for weeks on end, and even precious seed stocks were sold as food.

Back-Yard Barnyard

WE HAVE rabbits, chickens, goats, and fruit trees-- as well as a vegetable garden-- all on an ordinary town lot in Palo Alto, California.

Picked from Kansas City Gardens

"COME see us early," say the Kansas City gardeners. For they, like most of us, like their spring gardens best. These snuggle in hundreds of wooded hollows, sun themselves on the crests of the rolling hills, or sprawl in bewitching abandon where once were level fields.

HERE ARE IDEAS!

"Salvage Cottage" Puts Its Inches to Work

"DON'T buy it new if salvage will do" was the war slogan when this little cottage went up in Santa Barbara, California. The big living-room window was concocted from four separate windows retrieved from an old garage. The brief picket fence that marks off the garden without hiding it came from reclaimed lumber.

Put It Together Again

MANY a carefree householder is being turned away from his fireside armchair these winter evenings to the basement or garage workshop, to give first aid to a seemingly endless list of household equipment-- chairs, tables, cupboard doors-- that have finally come down with the rickets, no matter how rugged they were in their prime.

Things to Come

Non-Melting Candy. One day you'll be eating chocolate bars that don't melt into a sticky, mouth-smearing goo, come a hot summer day. Already developed for the army, the bars remain solid at temperatures up to 120 degrees.

Washing Ways

All Under One Roof

WHEN Mr. and Mrs. Home-planner sit down to lay out that postwar home they're going to build with their accumulated War Savings Bonds, chances are they'll begin by saying, "We want a nice wide lot where we can spread out and have plenty of elbow room ..."

How to Make the Most of Milk and Cheese

PASS around that milk bottle and cheese supply, friend cooks! You'll have milk and cheese as often as ever, once you learn the trick of serving them extendably. Here are six grand-to-eats that make the most of the husky, body-building proteins in milk and cheese. Everyone in the family gets a serving and everyone needs it, big and little. They'll go for these creamy dessert delectables, these cheese main dishes which taste like the "whole cheese," yet leave plenty for tomorrow's sandwiches.

Soy, THE NEW FOOD

WE'RE cooking with soys! It's the first time in years we homemakers have had a chance to pioneer a product, one that's new as well as packed with cooking adventures and top nutrition.

How to Hold Your Baby

SUPPOSE you had a great big head that wobbled around on a funny little neck and somebody had forgotten to put the starch into your backbone-- you'd be in a pretty fix, now wouldn't you? All right as long as you could lie down, but shivering with apprehension if anyone picked you up.

Chicken Dinners

Article

$70 for Your Bean and Gingerbread Best-Evers

Boy-- smell it? That's savory beans bubbling, and spicy gingerbread baking in our Tasting-Test Kitchen, once you good cooks slip us the how-to-do-it! Aim to turn up top winner? That will net you a fat $10 check next March. If you miss this time, but make the Honor Roll, you'll be $3 the richer.

"Color All Summer"

My Pictures Sparkle in Percale Posies

I'VE found the slickest way to sparkle up a quiet room with pattern and color-- at the same time giving a grand build-up to small pictures!

Household Helps That Save Paper

The Man Next Door

A few of the small boys in the neighborhood have, the b. w. writes, joined a dancing class. The girls in the class must wield some influence, for the boys are consenting at last to wear occasionally some clothes not designed for hunting and lumbering.

Build a Bookcase Bed

NEED a bed and a bookcase? Here's a two-in-one job, easy as anything to carpenter, smart and modern, far less expensive than two furniture pieces, and a space-saver par excellence. Parts you buy-- or may- be you have them-- are a box-spring mattress with permanent legs, and a cushion-type mattress for on top.

Young Mothers' Exchange

Collect worn-out sheets from relatives and friends. Use the biggest and best parts for crib sheets, the smaller parts for bassinet sheets, and tear the remaining portions into small pieces to place inside Baby's diapers, for soil catchers. An old sheet, because it has been used so much, is very soft.--

Make a Garden Cart

"Your Property Tax-Model or Muddle?"

The Scoffers Were Wrong!

THEY didn't mean to be unkind-- those people who said it was impossible to do much with our ordinary brown-shingled bungalow. They were just being realistic, they insisted, while sentiment blinded us to a leaky roof, dark woodwork, and hopelessly homely exterior,

Patch That Concrete Yourself

YOU can make small repairs in concrete walks, floors, foundations, steps, or driveways yourself, quickly and inexpensively, with few tools other than a small trowel. Don't neglect repairs; unpatched outside cracks and fissures grow until major replacements become necessary.

Easy Way to Start New Plants, Shrubs

GREEN FINGERS are no longer necessary for growing your own plants from cuttings. Even the famous gardener's luck is now relegated to the scrap pile by an almost automatic propagating tub.

We Furnished on Next to Nothing

WHEN you go house-hunting in a busy defense area, you take what you can get-- and call it a treasure. So when my husband and I discovered a run-down, story-and-a-half cottage with paint-hungry shingles --but with a lovely view of Narragansett Bay-- we took it and cheered.

Housekeeping Short Cuts

A clean envelope with a corner cut out makes a fine funnel for filling salt shakers and such.-- Mrs. Frank Wickenburg Seattle, Wash.

THE DIARY of a Plain Dirt Gardener

March 6 Donald is off to the wars. He went first to Ft. Thomas, an induction center, to get his uniform and find out what KP means. For a few days there were letters. Then the news he was to move. Now for four days, we have heard nothing from him.

March Outdoor Gardening Guide

MARCH starts action in earnest on the food front. The first of the month offers some good days in which to trim the apples, pears, plums, and grapes. The formation of good structure should be the sole motive of the man with the pruning shears.

It's NEWS to Me!

Rubber repair kit. It's simple to patch a hot-water bottle, galoshes, or even an auto or bike flat. Each 1⅜" patch comes in its own tiny metal pan, holding treated cardboard. Clean and roughen the injured area, and place it with a patch in the clamp included.