make garden

make garden (third-person singular simple present makes garden, present participle making garden, simple past and past participle made garden)

1. (idiomatic, dated, US, Canada) To plant or maintain a garden, especially a vegetable garden.

   Synonym: garden

   • 1852, Susanna Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush; or, Life in Canada, London: Richard Bentley, Volume 2, Chapter 8, p. 142,

     As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed of sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to make us a garden, or “to make garden” as the Canadians term preparing a few vegetables for the season.

   • 1877, John Habberton, The Jericho Road; A Story of Western Life, Chicago: Jansen, McClurg, Chapter 3, p. 32,

     “Can you take care of horses?”

     “Yes.”

     “Make garden?”

     “Yes—I always took care of mother’s.”

   • 1918, Willa Cather, My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 18, p. 146,

     […] Ántonia and her mother were making garden, off across the pond in the draw-head.

   • 1955, Julia Montgomery Street, Fiddler’s Fancy, New York: Follett, Chapter 8, p. 67,

     Crossing a ridge, he was happy to see that Miz’ Doanie and her three children were all out making garden.

   • 1972, Henry W. Clune, The Rochester I Know, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 12, p. 163,

     In the other century, and for a considerable number of years in this one, the solid citizenry of the town prided itself on home ownership [...]. One got a little place, planted a couple of fruit trees and a currant bush out back, made garden, seeded a lawn, and put a standing lamp on a center table in the living room.