In The Garden

Northern Advocate, 27 September 1943, Page 6

In The Garden

VEGETABLES Make sewings of cabbage, peas, beet, carrots, parsnips, spinach, leeks, celery, parsley, turnips, lettuce, French beans. Pumpkins, marrows, etc., may be sown in hills where they are to grow. Any amount of rotted manure underneath is necessary. Plant main crop potatoes. Plant rhubarb roots. Plant tomatoes in sunny, sheltered positions. Give good drainage, well enriched soil, and don't omit the potash ration, suiphate of potash or wood-ashes. Plant out onions. See that the soil is well manured, well drained, clean and firm. Lav down new lawns. Chokos put aside should be sprouting any time now. Plant out as soon as the shoots are an inch or two long. Sow sweet corn. Plant offshoots from kumaras as soon as ready on hills, 3ft. apart. Sow pickling onions. Give a firm bed and do not thin. Tic up and manure out-door vines. Mulch strawberries with litter before the trusses have advanced too far.. Sew peas for succession. Sow sweet corn, melons, pumpkins, marrows, cucumbers, dwarf and runner beans, silver beet, parsnips, carrots, turnips, spinach, Brussels sprouts and other winter greens. Make an early sowing of celery. Plant potatoes for main crop. Plant a little deeper, up to six inches, than the earlier ones. Earth up potatoes that are through, and spray with Bordeaux mixture. Plant tomatoes in sheltered sunny positions. Keep the asparagus bed weeded, but don’t interfere with the roots. Cut the shoots close. Backward onions may be moved along with a little weak liquid manure, or nitrate of soda. SDray peaches and nectarines with lime sulphur, 1 in 120, as soon as the petals have fallen. Stone fruits that bore well last year should be given a dressing with super. Dress 6oz. to Boz. per square yard as far as the branches extend. Sprouted chokos should be planted in well-enriched soil. This mild vegetable is a gross feeder and a great doer. KUMARAS Kumara Plants may be put in as soon as available. They rnay follow the early potato crop, which is generally harvested before the tops have died down. If the soil is on the light side, it should be consolidated from six to eight inches below the surface. This may be done by tramping. This firming of the soil helps to prevent the formation of spindly tubers. A suitable manure mixture to use is blood and bone 3 parts, super 3,,parts and sulphate of notash i part. Stir the mixture into the ground just before planting. The rows mav be about 30ins. apart, and the plants from 15ins. to 18ins. apart, preferably on low ridges. Plant if possible during showery weather. LETTUCE For present sowing, lettuce is very important. It wants a good soil. A hungry soil is useless. A good soil is one that has carried a well-manured crop. If possible. the manure should be short and finely divided, not lumpy. And it should be intimately mixed with the soil. If farmyard manure is not available, old compost should be used. In any case, work the manure into the soil near the surface, as this vegetable prefers to feed near the surface. A little wood ashes worked in near the surface during growth will help to give healthier plants. The great thing is to keep the plants growing without a check. A little nitrate of soda may help backward plants, but this should be used in strict moderation. At this season it is better to sow the seed where the plants are to grow, as transplanting is not certain during warm, dry weather. Dry spells is the main trouble with lettuce. If ‘it is available and in plenty, try a mulch of rotted animal manure. Sow in drills about 16ins. apart, and, as the plants appear, thin out to Dins, or 12ins. apart. For nice crisp heads, keep the plants on the move. FLOWERS Aphis will be appearing on the new growths of roses, carnations and chrysanthemums. Spray with Black Leaf 40. Warm soapy water is also good, also a good wash with a hose. The Guinea Gold and Sunshine marigolds are now well known and popular. Sow seed now; also seed of the useful French dwarf varieties, and others of the tagetes family. Plant chrysanthemums, climbing plants, and trees and shrubs sold in pots. Stock flowers are very plentiful with a good percentage of double flowers. This is largely due to the comparatively dry winter. Slocks cannot stand wet conditions at their roots.

Hydrangeas arc growing now. The pink and red shades should have a heavy dressing of lime or wood ashes about the roots; and the blue shades will be better with a dressing of sulphate of iron or alum —aboul half a cup to a medium-sized plant.

Verbena, carnations and antirrhinums are always at their gest in new ground. While they like a moderately good soil, they should not be over-manured with animal manure.

Scarlet salvias, zinnias, asters and dahlias need green manure, compost or animal manure dug in at a spade depth for best results. This will give the roots something to feed on when the plants are flowering and also help to conserve moisture.

Many flowering shrubs are a mass of bloom just now. With many, a light cutting back as the flowers fade is necessary to keep a shapely bush, and to prevent seed pods from forming. Seed ripeningwears the plant out, and often prevents profuse flowering the following year. On rhododendrons and others that make their new growth directly beneath the flowers, the faded blooms should be picked off.

The heavy rains experienced lately have benefited liliums, roses, trees and shrubs that are making growth at this season It is a good plan to mulch about the roots cf these plants before dry weather sets in.

Remember when manuring or mulching that the feeding roots of most plants extend beyond the leaf spread of the plant. Plants root quickly at this season. II is a good plan to plant a few inches oi new growths of many shrubs and perennial plants. A hot bed, glass and shading are necessary for some, but many will root in the onen ground. The dwarf fibrous begonias, so useful for edging, soon make root from short pieces of new growth. Continue to plant summer and autumn flowering seedlings of delphinium, carnation, gerbera, perennial and annual phlox, chrysanthemums, etc.

Continue to sow seed of annuals for flowering after Christmas.