IN THE GARDEN.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17617, 21 November 1922, Page 4

IN THE GARDEN.

WORK FOR THE WEEK. (STECIAILT WKTITBN *OB ««XHB »BWS.") (Bt J. T. Sinclair.) ANSWEBS TO OOBBESPONDENT& Lavender.—The time of harvestinig depends on the character of the season. Sojis years the flowers aie ready to gather about the middle of December, ether yeare they are not ready until after Now Year. The flower stalks should be out before all the little blossoms are full out. Drying should take place in the shade, and away from damp. VEGETABLES.

Onions —Spring-aown onions are now fit to be thinned. From'three to six inches oan be left between the bulbs according to what sized bulbs are desired. Autumn-sown bulbs will be all the better if given a dressing of nitrate of soda. This must be put on lightly, or more harm than good will accrue. Ono pound to every 14 square yards is a safe dressing. A good way to apply the soda is to mix it with twice its bulk of dry soil, and dust it along the rows; a, more even distribution is made if this is done. It is best put dn before a shower of rain, if that is possible. Failing rain, it can bo well watered in, taking care, however, to run, the Dutch l:o? through the rows as soon as the soil is in a St condition. An interval of at least three weeks should ekpse before applying another manure of a- nitrogenous nature. Brussels Sprouts.—As the plants will be ready to go out in a few weeks, the ground should be made ready now. Fresh stable manure should not be dug in at the time of planting, un'esa the ground is heavy and adhesive. The plants succeed in almost any kind of soil, but we would warn growers against over-feeding, which causes great growth in the foliage, nnd, together with loose soil, makes looseness in the sprouts. The aim should be to get the sprouts small but firm.

Peas. —From now until New Year, sowings of main crop or late sorts should be made. If the soil is very dry, the drills should be filled with." water several times before the seed is sown. The crops on the earlier sowing will be improved if the plants are well watered with superphosphates at the rate of joz to every gallon of water.,

FLOWERS. Roses. —A splendid manure for roses, which can be applied' at tho present time, is l}oz of superphosphates to a gallon of water; if this is; given twice a week for tho next few weeks the second crop of will be much tetter. A fine stimulant is nitrate of potash, half an ounce to a gallon of water. This should not be given oftener than' once a fortnight, but should not be applied to any hush on which the buds are showing colour. Wiohuriana variety are growing freely, and to keep them in the best of health must get plenty of moisture at the roots. The manures recommended above are also suitable for this type. Air young growths growing away from the base should bo tied in in case thoy get injured- by the wind.

WEEDS. The present is a very paradise for weeds; they grow in rich lukurianco, and ('will not be checked by any'halfmeasures. If some of the choicest plants would take such tenacious h~ld of the soil, how easy their cultivator's task would be! A weed may not aHvays be useless,' but all plants in' the wrong place are accounted weeds in the garden. A turnip, carrot, or parsnip in a flower border is virtually a weed, and wild plants often possess beauties which, but for the groat numbers of them growing wild would be, duly prized. Vast quantities of weed seeds lie buried in the earth waiting for the gardener's spade to bring them up to light and air. That they impoverish the soil is well known, but it ii much less generally admitted that they shut out the light and warmth of the sun from the plants they overshadow. They take the place of other and better or more, suitable plants and cripple the Then a garden overrun with weeds- cannot afford pleasure to its owner. Hundreds of places, tolerably well- kept otherwise, have all beauty taken from them by a crop of weeds on the walks. A larcro stone is not half so incongruous on the surface of a walk as a weed. The one suggests an accidental origin, the other proves neglect. ... There are two ways of dealing with weeds-—preventive and curative. The first is by far the most effective. It is comparatively easy to prevent weeds, and almost impossible to eradicate them after they have taken full possession. Weeds are brought into gardens by. winds, carried thither by birds, and carted in with soils and manures. The two first processes of stocking gardens with weeds can hardly be stopped. A great many of the worst types such as grasses, dandenons, and thistlss are carried by the winds, and thus sown broadcast over gardens and fields. The drogpings of birds, too, are full of weeds, and the majority of these vegetate and grow. This cannot be prevented, but the cultivator can take tho weeds on the very threshold of growth, and destroy them before they have had time to injure or exhaust the ground. Again, no weeds, either in garden or field or roadside, ought t*> be allowed to go to seed. They should be as amenable to inspection as bad odours, and no one should be permitted to grow them in quantities to his neighbour's injury as well as his own. Were this done the persistent crops of weeds that impoverish many a garden and field would .soon disappear. Weeds are also brought into gardens in fresh soil composts. Too much care cannot be exercised in the collection of these compounds. It is not always the best looking soils that are the most desirable, and those collected in waste places are often full of the roots and seeds of the most noxious weeds, which take years of culture and care to subdue or eradicate. Burnt earth forms the basis of most of the best composts, one of its greatest merits being that the fire has cleared it of all weeds. Again, manure is often full of the germs or seeds of weeds, so that amateur gardeners should be careful where they purchase it, and the quality of what they buy. The best manure is that from the stable or cowhouse, and i if it could be obtained pure reduced to I the required etren<rth, with a mixture I of sweet soil, the whole being left for some months to decompose, there would be fewer weeds in most gardens. None in a seeding state should find its way to the manure heap, where rougher and coarser materials, such as the refuse of gardens, dead or useless products, are decomposed. One of the simplest modes of preparing them for use is to add sufficient manure and straw to produce a rather vigorous decomposition, the heat thus generated sufficing to destroy many eeeds of weeds. There are other methods of destroying tbem by means of fir© and boilinsr water, but all this is troublesome to the amateur, who oftens prefers to use only artificial manures. Liquid dressings, too, are generally free of weeds.