How to Plant in a Straight Row

[Rick]

For those of you gardening this year for the first time, there are a couple of ways to ensure your plants grow in nice straight rows. For shorter rows, you can use the handle of your rake. Just lay your rake in the garden where you want to plant and step gently on the handle. Remove the rake and plant your seeds in the indention the rake handle made.

For longer rows, you can use a string. Just drive a stick in the ground at the end of the row and pull the string to the far end. Plant your seeds along the string then move to the next row.

[GVan]

Some years ago I heard another way that a farmer told me about. Find a focal point off tin the distance and plow straight for that focal point without looking back where you just came from.

A couple of my uncles used this method. Of course, one of the had a garden of one acre and the other's was five acres. And their rows were always straight.

[Rick]

That exactly correct for plowing. My grandfather used the same method and shared that little tidbit with me a time or two. But sometimes a garden isn't large enough for a plow and when hand planting it makes it easier if you can keep the rows straight.

[bulrush]

Ha ha! That's funny. Reminds me of a trip I took to Mexico where I saw their wonderful feats of engineering. There were 2 guys putting in a sidewalk near the hotel I was staying at. After walking past them I looked back, and this sidewalk was so crooked it looked like a snake run over by a car. And every day each guy had a bottle in a paper bag next to them.

To be fair, they did not have power tools and perhaps they ran into large stones they could not move, so they put the sidewalk around the stones.

[dilligaf2u2]

Straight is a matter of perspective. My idea of straight is with a line and level. TDW's idea of straight is if she stays within a few feet of where she wants it planted.

Sense she does the gardening, our yard is TDW straight.

Don

[GVan]

That exactly correct for plowing. My grandfather used the same method and shared that little tidbit with me a time or two. But sometimes a garden isn't large enough for a plow and when hand planting it makes it easier if you can keep the rows straight.

When I was in scouts, way back then, my uncle used this method for a 20 X 25 ft. garden.