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INDOOR JOBS FOR WINTER

Keen Gardeners Look Ahead

The keen gardener is always looking for jobs to do in the garden. He doesn’t believe that gardening is a process which stops in May and starts again in September—the fond belief of many When the dull showery 1 weather is on us, however, the fireside had a much more attractive appearance than | the outdoors, so the most popular jobs are those which are indoors or in the garden shed. [lt’s a good idea to keep a [ few of these jobs up your sleeve for a rainy day. Making up seed boxes or repairing old ones will save time in the spring, as will also the painting of wooden labels. Many persons use plastic and metal labels these days, and they’re very useful with a grease pencil, but in large sizes, wooden labels are much cheaper. If you , keep a little list of the items you intend to sow or plant then the labels can be written in the sitill-wet paint with a thick, soft-textured lead pencil, and they last well. If you’re not using the garden frame, this could be brought indoors in sections for painting, and the lights to. The lights could have those broken panes of glass repaired at last, as well. Make sure the timber is dry before you paint or putty, however.

Tools could be cleaned up and resharpened. Spades, hoes, and their like work much better if they have a keen cutting edge and a wellpolished surface, particularly if your soil is a sticky one. which adheres to rough tool surfaces. Sharpening is best carried out -with a file, sharpening the back of the spade and the upper surface of hoes. This will give cutting surfaces in line with their work. A few nails or long pegs attached to the walls of your garden shed will help to provide that “place for everything, and everything in its place,” which is so often advocated but so seldom achieved. A few minutes spent now in organising this can save you many times the expenditure in the busy months.

Now is the opportunity to give your lawn mower an overhauling, too. A good clean and grease and a check on the bottom plate to see that the cutting blades are meeting it. squarely is the least that will be required. The cylinder may need regrinding by a specialist if the cutting edges are badly worn. The earlier you get in the more sure you, will be of the return of your machine when you want it. Although it is early days yet you can still devote a bit of thought to your vegetable seed list for next season, while the time is now ripe for completing those planting plans of the borders you intend to plant np this winter. Make sure you allow adequate space for the plants you are using to reach maturity. There is no more common error than planting too thickly, by either professionals or home-gardeners. Get your planting lists into your supplier as soon as you can —there’s a most exasperating feeling about not getting what you want, merely because you didn’t order it early enough.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19610526.2.64.2

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume C, Issue 29523, 26 May 1961, Page 8

Word Count
531

INDOOR JOBS FOR WINTER Press, Volume C, Issue 29523, 26 May 1961, Page 8

INDOOR JOBS FOR WINTER Press, Volume C, Issue 29523, 26 May 1961, Page 8