Whether your plot is a bed by itself or part of a wide border, it will not be easy and pleasant to manage unless you make a path through the centre—a dry, hard, narrow path, on which you can stand or kneel when you are at work amongst your plants. Across the breadth would be the most convenient position. To do this you should get a penny piece of tape, because it is easier to see and keep straight than string. Measure the length of your garden with it, having tied one end of the tape to a stick and put the stick firmly into one corner of the ground. Tie a knot in the tape when you reach the other corner. Then carry the knot back to the stick, and the doubled tape will mark the centre of the whole length. Put a stick into the ground there. Then you get two other sticks, and put them nine inches on either side of the centre one, so as to get your eighteen-inch path exactly measured at the top of your garden. The other side of the garden may be measured in the same way, and the centre sticks removed at either end. Then you bring your tape right along both sides of your path, tying it to your sticks at each end, so that you have two straight lines to guide you. If you are going to make your path yourself, you must now take your spade and dig out all the earth to the depth of ten inches. This will be hard work, and take you several days, but if you want your path to be dry and firm it must be done. The earth you throw out should be divided as evenly as possible between your two beds, and be neatly spread on them when you have finished. The deep trench you make by digging must be filled with broken stones or pieces of brick well stamped down, and afterwards covered with gravel or fine stones. Now you will have two borders, each seven feet long and five feet three inches wide. If you choose you can make one side a flower garden and the other side a kitchen garden, and in your kitchen garden you can grow some flowers as well as vegetables. In any case, you will be glad of your path, and if your plot is smaller than the one we recommend, you should make it on one side instead of in the middle. As far as possible, you should do all your gardening from it, so that the soil around the plants does not get trodden down too hard. Most plants like to have a firm hold with their roots, but not to have a caked surface that keeps out the air and rain.