GARDENING NOTES

Grey River Argus, 20 November 1940, Page 2

GARDENING NOTES

THE GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY

Continue to tie down and stop the young growth on vines and thin the bunches as soon as the berries are the size of green peas. Thin fairly severely to allow the berries room to develop, taking out most of the inside ones, and all that are deformed or damaged in any way. Tie up tomatoes regularly to their supports, and keep all side shoots pinched out. When you do water give a good soaking, but maintain a dry and buoyant atmosphere, leaving top air on all night, except when cold winds are blowing. Continue to harden off the bedding plants, to pot up the tuberous begonias into their flowering pots and to give the pelargoniums and geraniums a little weak liquid manure once a week. A little liquid manure will also assist ferns, palms and other foliage plants to make their new growth. Pinch and pot on the rooted cuttings of perpetual flowering carnations, and make a sowing of Primuls obconica and Kewensis. Seeds of anemones can be sown as soon as ripe.

THE FLOWER GARDEN The spring flowering plants are now practically over, and the beds land borders can be cleared to make room for the summer and autumn flowering kinds. Polyanthus primroses, if not too old, can be lifted, divided up, and lined out in a cool, moist place in the vegetable or reserve garden, wallflowers should be thrown away, and tulips and daffodils can be lined out in sand or ashes, or in the vegetable garden to complete their ripening process. The soil is very dry for planting out, and beds or bordens should receive a good watering before planting takes place, allowing the water to soak in for a day before putting the plants out. Another good watering should settle them in the soil, and afterwards a spraying in the evening while the dry weather lasts will keep them fresh. Plant carnations, gladioli dahlias, and in fact, all kinds of

summer and autumn-flowering plants. Thin hardy annuals, stake perennials and sweet peas, and keep the hoe going in the shrubbery borders and in the rose garden. Continue to disbud the roses,- and keep them sprayed should mildew and green fly appear.

THE VEGETABLE AND FRUIT GARDEN Potato planting should be finished by now, but I have heard that it can be carried out with success up till Christmas. Spray the second earlies and main crop with' Bordeaux mixture to prevent disease, and earth them up as the shaws develop. Thin seedling crops of all kinds as soon as the plants are large enough to handle and again when roots are required for the kitchen, or when the plants show their character. Plant cabbage and cauliflower, and sow broad, runner and French beans, also peas, lettuce,' spi'nach; t and mustard and cress to maintain a' succession. Make small sowings of broccoli, savoys, cabbage, curly greens and autumn cauliflower and leeks to provide plants to put out when the early potatoes are dug. Plants of one’s own growing are ever so much more satisfactory than those you buy. With care they can be transplanted with the minimum of root disturbance, and consequently very little check to their development. Make up a little bed about three feet wide and six or more feet in length. Give a dressing of Sime and blood and; bone manure, which is worked into the surface soil, and firm it a bit. Make little drills half an inch deep across the bed at a foot apart, sow the seeds thinly, dust with superphosphate, cover with fine soil, and make firm with the head of the rake. During the present weather it would be desirable to give the bed a good watering the day before sowing, a sprinkling again after sowing, and then cover with twiggy branches to keep the moisture in and the birds away. The scrub is removed as soon as germination takes place and black cotton substituted.

Spray apples for codlin moth and powdery mildew with lime sulphur and arsenate of lead, thin out the young growths on gooseberry and currant bushes, and keep the soil heed among tree and bush fruits.