Vegetable Garden

Northern Advocate, 27 April 1940, Page 13

Vegetable Garden

Plant out cabbage, cauliflower and lettuce. Sow onions, lettuce, broad beans, parsnip, cabbage, cauliflower, winter spinach, early dwarf peas. The last-mentioned require a sunny position, a good soil and good drainage. Set in roots of winter rhubarb. Work in a good supply of decayed animal manure before planting, or use compost with a mixture of super, and blood and bone or bonedust.

Flower Plot

Lily of the Valley may be planted now. Dig in well-rotted manure or garden compost or leaves. Make very firm. Lily of the Valley likes hard ground, and partial shade. Fallen leaves should be collected. Hard, leathery leaves should be burnt. Soft leaves may be stacked with soil to form leaf mould; or they may be used to topdress the Lily of the Valley bed, or put about shrubs. The cineraria is very frost-tender; but it is an excellent plant for partially shaded spots, particularly near the house, where the overhanging eaves help to keep the frost off. Plant now in wellmanured ground. Nemesias ljaay be planted in sunny, well-drained beds that are sheltered from frost.

Work Yon Should Do

Get the ground ready for planting shallots, tree onions, and potato onions, A good clean soil is necessary. Kumaras, if not dug, should be harvested the first dry spell. It is risky to leave them in the ground in cold, wet weather, particularly if the drainage is not too good. Keep the soil well stirred between rows of cabbage and cauliflower. Also draw the soil up about the plants.

Stock plants should be kept growing. A check will often ruin them. Lift from the box with soil attached to the roots. If left too long in the box, the plants do not recover when planted out. Plant stocks in deeply-dug, wellmanured ground. Give a sunny, sheltered, well-drained position. The Alstroemeria or Peruvian Lily is a useful plant that suckers and soon makes a good clump. Plants may be divided now. Erica methanthera has just finished flowering, and may be lightly cut back. Anenomes, ranunculi, tulips and hyacinths may still be planted. Side shoots of chrysanthemums may be pulled off now and planted out in rows for next, year's plants.