GARDENING CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 21099, 11 May 1932, Page 2

GARDENING CLUB

VEGETABLES AND THEIR CULTIVATION Tho first meeting of the season of tho Dunedin Gardening Club was hold in the Y.M.O.A. Rooms last night. Mr F. H. Hollingworth presided over a largo attendance of members and friends. The meeting was of special value to amateur gardeners who take a particular interest in their vegetable plots, as both speakers for tho evening (Messrs Hollingworth and A. Stewart) dealt entirely with the cultivation of vegetables and tho most satisfactory typos of manure to use in growing them. Mr Stewart, in opening, touched briolly on elements necessary to plant life and their presence in certain soils. Ho wont on to explain the value of lime in the cultivation of a vegetable garden, and said that limo in tho form of ground limestone (carbonate) or burnt lime should bo applied this month to tho surface of the soil after digging. It should not bo worked in, as it washes down into the subsoil iairiy rapidly. Two tons of carbonate of limo were equivalent to one ton of burnt lime, but where transport charges were not a consideration it was immaterial which form was used. Limo would improve the texture of clay soils, making them easier to work, and, by neutralising soil acids, it had a secondary effect of enabling beneficial nitro-gen-fixing bacteria to function. Moreover, harmful organisms such as tho slime fungus associated with clubrqot would not gain entry to a soil containing good supplies of lime. Carbonate of lime might he applied with benefit at the rate of one ton per acre. If potato land was to ho limed the lime should be applied well before tho winter, or, better still, the season previously, as otherwise tho skin of tho tubers might develop scab, which rendered them unsightly. Legumes, such as peas and beans, responded well to lime, but certain plants, such as water melons and rhododendrons, might be injured. The use of lime alone would increase crop yields for a time, but productivity would soon drop back to even a lower level than before lime was applied. The effect of limo was increased by both organic matter and fertilisers. In a garden, organic matter might be added to the soil by green manuro or tho trenching in of compost material, as, besides acting as an indirect lowgrade fertiliser, such material improved tho physical condition of the land. If the green crop was a legume tho nitrogen content of the land rose, and the effect of the addition of organic matter could be noticed for some years. Assuming that the soil was well supplied with lime and organic matter, yields could be considerably increased by supplying a complete fertiliser containing tho three essential ingredients—phosphorus, potash, and nitrogen. Mr Hollingworth said he fully recognised the value of manure, but he would assert without fear of contradiction that no manure was of any use without proper cultivation. At the present time, just as tho winter was beginning, the garden should be dug roughly, and left rough until the spring," when it could be broken up fine for planting. Touching on gardening tools, Mr Hollingworth said that these should receive better attention than they usually were given, and should always be kept clean and bright, especially the spade. The use of a longhandled shovel for digging should be avoided; ground should never be dug when too wet, nor when it carried a heavy coating of frost; moreover, a gardener when digging should never drive his spade into the ground on the slant, as by so doing ho lost three to four inches of cultivation. Tho speaker then went on to describe tho various methods of trenching, and strongly advised his listeners to trench as deeply and as thoroughly as possible. The more a gardener cultivated his ground the less manure ho would require to use and tho better crops ho would got: and if he remembered that the growing of vegetables did not end with tho mere sowing of the seed and kept tho boo going he should have no difficulty in raising healthy vegetables.