Trainman News

Your Money's Worth

By Mary Sheridan

Any clear day now, it's a familiar sight to see blankets and winter coats and suits airing on the lines in backyards. This season for airing, cleaning, and storing woolens is ideal for a thorough clean-up of clothes closets, which if left untouched from season to season become collections of outworn or forgotten clothing and shoes and hats to rival Fibber McGee's closet.

For a thorough over-haul, take everything out of a closet. Everything. Brush down walls, scrub any shelves, and, with room windows open, spray walls and baseboards with a DDT moth killer. Then sort over the clothes contents, being ruthless with old garments that have been hanging for longer than you would care to admit. Pack up clothing that still has wear in it for your favorite charitable organization. Re-arrange closet so that it will be most convenient to use.

Before hot weather arrives, check over summer clothing for what-can-last-another-season, what dresses have to be let down or taken up, what needs buttons, and by that time you have a pretty good idea of what you have to buy for summer. Anyone who has had the experience of having no suitable clothes to wear when the weather turns hot overnight has no desire to repeat the ordeal.

Buying cotton and other lightweight clothing early is something like early shopping at Christmas time. You avoid the rush, find a variety to choose from, and then can enjoy that prepared feeling when the temperature soars.

As a postscript on the Astin case: Secretary of Commerce Weeks' temporary reinstatement of Dr. Allen V. Astin as director of the Bureau of Standards has by no means ended the controversy, for the underlying issues at stake remain. The big issue is the attitude of the Commerce Department toward the established purposes of a government agency like the Bureau of Standards: to protect the public against deception or fraud in the products they buy. Another issue is the specific case of the value or worthlessness of the battery additive, AD-X2, which, after all the controversial comment, should be re-tested by impartial scientists.

Springtime means a great upheaval in most households, in housecleaning, transfer of storm and screen windows, and storage of winter clothes and equipment. A friend who was overwhelmed by the congestion in her attic, where everyone in the family dumped belongings and pawed around in garment bags searching for stored clothes, worked out this attic storage plan:

An old kitchen table sits just inside the attic doorway. This is the family's loading zone, where skates, tennis rackets, and clothes are placed. Every week or so this housewife checks over the table, places items in labeled boxes or bags, and, for the first time in years, maintains order in her attic.

Oh, these tantalizing spring weekends, when there are so many outdoor activities you don't know where to begin. It's safe to put in perennial plants as soon as the ground can be worked - when soil crumbles between the fingers. In the middle west, most nurseries do not recommend transplanting of annual plants until May 15.

Hardy annual seeds like poppies and cornflowers can be sown early, but the sun-loving annuals like zinnias won't grow until the soil and weather are warm. . . . Stake tall or bushy perennials like delphinium or peonies as soon as the plants have a good start; trying to stake them later, when the plants are full-grown or after a storm has beaten them, is like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.

Many home gardeners have a limited space for growing vegetables. In my own block I've noticed over the years a decline in the planting of sweet corn, which demands a lot of space. If sweet corn is a family favorite, however, plant it in a group of short rows, rather than several long ones, with three feet between rows ... Radishes planted with carrots or parsley come up quickly, mark and help to thin the rows . . . Stagger plantings of bush green beans at two-weeks intervals, for a tender supply all summer . . . If you have no room for a regular garden, look for a sunny spot where you can have several tomato plants. Or try to find a tiny patch near the kitchen door for planting herbs like parsley, thyme, dill, summer savory, marjoram, and sage. It will be colorful, fragrant and a pleasure to use for flavoring summer meals.