STOCK YOUR GARDEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 304, 24 December 1941, Page 9

STOCK YOUR GARDEN

Quick-growing Plants For Emergency Needs

Advice to householders to keep a well-stocked garden against emergency is contained in the following article issued by the Women's War Service Auxiliary.

One of the soundest precautions anyone can take against a wartime emergency is a well-stocked garden. That means fresh salads and vegetables now; stored pumpkins, potatoes, kumaras, onions to tide you over winter, and in any emergency a food supply to order.

It isn't too late to begin a garden now. Salad stuffs grow very quickly —be eating lettuce and radishes a few weeks after you've planted them. Mustard and cress only takes a week. Then there are chives, the little green spears with the flavour of onions—they can be cut and cut again.

Parsley is a splendid stand-by. Grow a thick border of it all the year round and use it every day— it's rich in minerals and vitamin C. Salad stuffs, of course, are not for summer consumption alone; they grow right through winter.

If your garden is small, avoid the big crops; concentrate on peas, beans, tomatoes, silver beet, leeks, sweet corn, root crops. French beans, dwarf kidney, haricot and butter beans can be planted right up until March, sometimes later.

Late tomatoes (for bottling and pulping) can still be planted. The side-shoots broken off older plants take root very easily and make healthy plants. Sweet corn is better sown in clumps and patches than in isolated rows. You can still sow it. i The raw juice of swedes is just as nutritious as orange juice, so grow a row or two. Carrots are liable to pests, but try sowing them with a sprinkling of sand in drills to which a week previously you've added garden naphthalene. Choose dry i weather. Fresh Greens I New Zealand spinach does well now; soak the seeds first in hot , water. Peas (the later varieties) can still be grown successfully. Leave I cabbages alone until the white butterfly has done its worst. Make do with silver beet and the tender green sprouts that come from the cut stumps of earlier cabbages. Plant plenty of leeks in January— they're a splendid winter vegetable, . leaf and all. ' If you have the room, potatoes are still being planted. Grow your silver | beet, lettuces and radishes between • the rows. Kumaras like a sunny, light soil and so long 'as they are planted before February will yield a crop. Cut the vines back constantly and tie the creepers together to prevent them taking root. Cuttings can be planted to make fresh plants. Pumpkin and marrow plants can still go in, but need watering. Lima beans can be cooked green like broad beans or used dried like haricot beans in winter. This is the time to grow them; they are heavy croppers, too.

About storing vegetables. Cut your pumpkins off clean, leaving an inch or two of stalk. Be careful not to bruise them. Store them in a dry, airy room or shed safe from rats. Store only undiseased potatoes.

Kumaras, if unblemished, will keep packed in a wooden box between layers of newspapers. They must be thoroughly dry and must not touch against each other. Beans can be collected when the pods turn yellow, dried and stored in air-tight jars.

Save your own seed. Let one or two of your beat plants run up to seed and if there is no sign of disease collect the seed and store in an air-tight jar. It's a good idea to tie a muslin bag over the seed-head when you think it is almost ripe. Don't keep old seed; plant it while it's fresh.