HOME GARDENS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 50, 12 October 1949, Page 3

HOME GARDENS

(By J. S. Yeates, Massey Agricultural College)

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN Keep up with regular plantings of the common vegetables such as cabbages, cauliflowers, maincrop peas, and lettuces. The plants set out earlier should be kept cultivated and- as soon as the cabbages and cauliflowers make a little height they should be given a light topdressing of nitrate or of ammonium sulphate or blood and bone. Following this earth up along the rows so that the taller growth of the plants will be better supported against wind. Club Root Disease of Cabbages

One point about growing your own plants of the cabbage family is that you run that way practically no risk of introducing the dreaded club-root disease into your soil. The symptoms of this disease are generally stunted growth of the plants, and a root-system which is reduced practically to a stunted dwarf-like mass. The cause of the disease is a simple type of fungus which is able to remain in the soil for some three' or four years after the last diseased crop has been grown there. The plants affected are all the vegetables which belong to the cabbage and tuxmip family. Cabbage, cauliflower, Brussells sprouts, turnips and swedes are all included. There is no cure for club-root disease, and the usual steps taken when it is once in a garden are as follows: Do not grow any plants liable to attack for at least four years, in the part of the garden infected; lime the parts of the garden where the disease has been; and do not allow any weeds of the cress type (related to cabbages) to grow there. Broad beans should be about at the flowering stage now and a little attention to them may be helpful. Hoe the soil along the rows, pull out any larger weeds among the plants, and if the situation is exposed, support the plants by means of string or binder-twine tied to stakes on both sides of the row. The twine should be fairly high .up on the plants else they may be bent over it by the wind, and broken. I made a point of using a dwarfgrowing broad bean to save the trouble of supporting them. Broad beans are a most reliable crop and are ready in spring when they are much appreciated. Runner beans can be planted at any time now except in cooler inland districts. They are a very prolific and easily prepared vegetable and since they will grow for three or more years when once established, some care in preparing the site for them being well repaid. If possible dig out a trench ’'two spits deep and put plenty of compost or manure in the lower' half. The best support for them to climb on is wire netting up to a height of six feet or more. Plant seeds about two inches deep and six inches apart. When they are safely .started, thin out to about one foot apart. The Flower Garden

Keep a close .watch on the daffodils and tulips for two reasons; first to remove old flower heads as soon as they fade; secondly, in the case of tulips, to detect and destroy any plant producing “striped” blooms. As mentioned before, this “stripe” is a virus disease and if care is not taken it will spread to the rest of the tulips and maybe to other plants including lilies which are closely related. Keep a close watch for green fly on roses, tulips, lilies or carnations. At its first appearance spray with nicotine sulphate in soapy water or with dispersible D.D.T. This spray is important to keep down the green fly itself and also to prevent it from spreading virus diseases. Check over any rhododendrons which have finished flowering and remove the old heads to prevent the plants from weakening themselves by setting seed. This removal of old heads can be most important in allowing free flowering next year and later. You will find that the old heads snap off easily above where the young shoots are beginning to develop from the buds. Take care not to break these buds which develop into new shoots to bear next year’s flowers.