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Show In Gardening IGlFl) Rr2D uBQlIGO ; i By PATRICK DENTON Copley News Service I would encourage all serious backyard gardeners to note mistakes made In last season's garden. It's a sure way to .keep the garden improving. It's also a bit of fun to play detective in the garden. Investigating causes of failures so they will not be " repeated for example. THIS year we had quite nice bush beans, but it seemed to me that the plants just did not look all that great. They were clean from insects, well fertilized fer-tilized and cultivated, kept weed-free. But they just seemed a bit droopy to me. Well, the other night I flicked up a little book to read n bed. It is called "Old Wives' Lore for Gardeners." ONE section Is on what plants tend to do well together, and which should not be planted plant-ed close to each other. It is noted that gladioli are very bad for peas and beans. Now I always put my glads In the vegetable garden, because we use them for cut flowers. And wouldn't you know it-my beans were right next to the glads in the garden. Now I can tell you that when It comes time to plant the garden gar-den next spring, this is one backyard gardener who is going go-ing to pay better attention to this business of companion planting, or if you want to be more technical, the bio-dynamic bio-dynamic method of planting. BACKYARD gardeners must also learn to adapt to changing conditions in their gardens year by year. For example, my wife has always loved geraniums in her little corner patch by the kitchen door. However, we planted some vines on a trellis in front of that patch of garden. These vines have suddenly taken off and have produced shade over her beloved geraniums, which are just stretching their little necks up for more light. This coming year she will have to move her geraniums out of that shade and perhaps replace them with the shade-loving house plants which burnt up last year under the non-shade of an overly-pruned tree. LEST you think that all of our backyard garden was a disaster last year, let me note some successes which might give you some more positive ideas for your own garden. Always looking for space-saving space-saving ideas which will allow us to fit more plantings into our back yard, my wile planted plant-ed several vining plants up against our wire fences along the property line. ONE small stretch of garden along our fence line was hard to water. We planted hubbard squash, vegetable spaghetti and morning glory there, with litUe marigolds in front Thm X grew up the fence and ripeS 'rf tor fruit resting on post heap on the other side Si ' the fence With the chilore ' splashing from their pool w edging that patch, it also kS ' well watered. i We did the same thing wilt ' ' -cucumbers on another Oct ', of wire fencing. Trained up " feira,theytooklittleroomaj produced well. Keeping . fniit off the ground ii alio , .especiaJlyin j JL'TH "!.y extra 'ruit . tried something new to us tk! ; fruit-apricot, cherry ' -whatever-was whirled in Z I blender, cooking up quickiu I ' with a bit of honey aSdqS thinly onto roaster trayVl with freezer paper, and dried a lowest oven heat until slightly tacky. The paper j t peeled off, the stuff rolled in I wax paper and stored in refrigerator or freezer tor i "candy" for the kids If, 1 called fruit leather 1 i |