GARDENING NOTES

Grey River Argus, 12 March 1940, Page 9

GARDENING NOTES

VEGETABLE AND FRUIT GARDEN. Potatoes are still growing, but if the ground is required for winter; greens or other crops they can lie lifted and stored as soon as the skins I are firm. They promise to be an ex-1 cellent crop, both in quantity and quality, and disease should not do much damage now. Plant out leaks, broccoli, cabbage, curly kale, and Savoys and sow seed of spinach to stand through the winter, and also dwarf peas and broad beans. It is getting a bit late now to sow carrots, turnips, and beetroot. Continue to gather runner beans, and any which are not required for immediate use can be salted down for the winter. By pickng them when young they are more tender and have a better flavour, and they are encouraged to continue cropping. Sow onions for spring use, and a large variety such as Ailsa Craig for transplanting to obtain large bulbs. Pull onions which are ripening, spread them out for a day to dry, and then tie up into ropes by the foliage, and hang up in a cool, airy place. Those which are not showing signs of ripenng and have thick necks can be assisted by doubling over and twisting the foliage or cutting half the roots with a scuffle hoe. Make a sowing of cabbage (Flower of Spring) and lettuce (All the Year Round). Continue to collect and store apples and pears as they ripen, and spray plums, cherries, and pears for leech with arsenate of lead. For powdery mildew spray apples with Bordeaux mixture (4.4.40) or lime sulphur (1 in 125). Cut out the old fruiting canes of raspberries and loganberries and layer the tips of the young shoots of boysonberries and other plants of the bramble family if young plants are required. Prepare ground for new plantations of fruit trees and bushes. THE FLOWER GARDEN. Dahlias are doing very well this season, and to keep them flowering until frost cuts them down, all old flowers should be picked off regularly and unless the beds and borders were well manured before planting, they should get liquid manure once a fortnight. Continue to clear out annuals as soon as they are past their best to cut over herbaceous perennials and to cut the flower spikes off gladioli, but do not remove any of the foliage. Hardy annuals can be sown on well-drained border, and preferably on light soil, to provide plants which will stand through the wnter and flower in spring or early summer. Continue to plant spring flowering bulbs and tubers of all kinds such as daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, freesias, lachenalias, grape hyacinths, Chionodoxa lucillae. Scilla siberica, snowdrops, crocus, anemones and ranunculus. This is the best season for sowing down new lawns. The soil is easily broken down and made fine to provide suitable seed bed, and there is still sufficient heat in it to secure rapid germination. If sown early, the plants have time to form a good root system and they are not likely to be thrown out of the soil by frost. Beds, borders, or holes should be prepared for planting trees . and shrubs in the autumn. Trenching is recommended wherever possible, but on steep hillsides or on lawns holes will have to do. These should be about three feet in width and eighteen inches to two feet deep, the bottom being broken up with a work or pick. GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY. Chrysanthemums will require a lot of attention now if good clean, wellformed flowers are to be obtained. A sharp lookout has to be kept fo.. aphis, which is usually destroyed by dusting with tobacco powder, and caterpillars which have to be hand picked or destroyed by spraying with arsenate of lead. Give a little feeding as the buds set, at first once a fo nip-ht, then once a week and later every second day until they show colour The plants growing in the open ground will also be setting buds now. and these should be thinned out to sprays of three or five. Continue to put in geranium cuttings, P> nks all kinds, and several of the rock plants, such as mossy phlox, alyssum aubretia litthospremum, etc. As soon as the geranium cuttings are finished pentstemons, violas, and pansies can be put in. Carnations which were layered some time ago should now be rooted and the layers can be separated from the parent plants. Wallflower and. Sweet William seedlings should now be growing rapidly m the nursery rows, and the scuffle hoshould be kept going amongst them after heavy ram to open up the su face sail and kill seedling weeds. Topdress palms, ferns and other foliage nlants with a good fibrous loam to which some bone meal and .leafmould has been added. Give vineries in which the grapes are colouring plenty of air whenever weather conditions are favourable, and keep the atm ° s_ phere dry and buoyant. Parts of the leaves of tomatoes can be removed to allow the sun to reach the fruit, and thereby assist ripening.