THE GARDEN

Southland Times, Issue 19279, 25 June 1924, Page 10

THE GARDEN

(By

“Horticola.")

When storing fruit it is well to remember that the fruit must be quite dry before it is packed, as in localities where black-spot is prevalent, fruit stored when damp, causes the disease to spread at an alarming rate. To keep up a succession of vegetables, care should be exercised in timing the crops, instead of sowing large quantities that only last a few weeks before becoming old and useless. Only sufficient should be put in to meet requirements, and sow at intervals to keep up a A month or so before planting potatoes, begin to collect a heap of light deposit—-wood-ashes, leaf-mould ,old hotbed manure, with sufficient soot to make the mixture quite black—say, a gallon to every three or four barrowfuls of (he ingredients. When planting the crop, scatter in the drills enough of this manure to hide the sets, before covering in. The after culture consists merely in earthing up. A properly grown crop of potatoes ought to smother all weeds; it is indeed an excellent cleanser in this way, and all spare ground that cannot be otherwise employed should always be occupied by a strong, large-haulmed variety such as Up-to-Date. A few stray docks and Canadian thistles will fight their way through, and must, of course, be attended to. Prepare the bed for shallots as soon as possible now, and procure the offsets or little bulbs. The bed for shallots undergoes much the same preparation as that for onions. Trench the ground, working into the bottom spit plenty of decayed rubbish. Return the top soil and mix with it some wood or rubbish fire ashes, and a dressing of bonedust (about' 4oz. to the square yard). If you have soot, blacken the surface soil with it. Before planting the off-sets make the soil firm. As soon as the bed is ready mark off drills twelve inches apart, and have the off-sets six inches apart in the rows. Simply press each off-set into the ground till the bulk is about half buried. Keep the bed free from weeds, and hoe between the rows frequently. TOP-DKESSING FOR LAWNS. VARIOUS METHODS. With an increasing interest in tennis, croquet, and bowls, there is a correspondingly greater demand for lawns of healthy grasses, free from leguminous plants, daisies, and other obnoxious weeds, than was formerly the case; so that ground which had been poverty-stricken through the extraction of plant food from the soil during a long term of years, is being enriched and improved by various means. In dealing with very poor ground, sickly grasses, and healthy weeds, says an English writer, the first step should be to clear out the latter by the use of some reliable preparation for this purpose; then set about feeding the grasses. Many things are employed with this object in view, and different results obtained on different soils. Light, sandy formations are the most difficult to deal with once they become pov-erty-stricken, and perhaps the best way of treating them is to lift the turf, heavily manure with well-decomposed farmyard dung, dig it in, re-level, solidify, and return the turf. During the growing season the ground should be mown twice a week, without the box on the machine. Under this treatment it is surprising what can be done in a single season to improve the herbage. If the mowings are allowed to remain on the ground for a few seasons, and an occasional application of lime given, a perfect lawn, so far as the growth of grasses is concerned, will be secured. When it is outside the question to lift the turf and treat it in this way, owing to pressure of work in other quarters, I have found that much can be done to enrich the soil by top-dressing with horse droppings. In order to break them up thoroughly they should be passed through a half-inch sieve and then evenly spread over the ground to a depth of not more than a quarter of an inch. In passing the droppings through the sieve ail strawy matter is removed, and there is nothing to rake off in September, when the ground is brushed and the lime applied. Brewers’ grains mixed with the horse-droppings tend to invigorate the herbage, and on heavy soils a certain amount of sand added to the mixture will be advantageous.

The heavier soils are apt to become mossgrown when allowed to get into a barren condition, but this is easily removed by an application of ground sulphate of iron at the rate of to the square yard. Formerly gardeners were advised to pull the moss up with rakes and then surface dress with rich soil and grass seeds; but this method is crude, and, so far as raking went, often did more harm than good. In using the sulphate of iron we are not only killing the moss, which eventually decomposes and feeds the other herbage, but we are supplying a valuable grass food constituent, and securing a richer dark green colour. On both heavy and light soils frequent mowing without the box on the machine is a sure road to a grass lawn of unusual thickness and robust health. For agricultural land leguminous plants are valuable in grass for feeding purposes, and phosphatic manures are specially suited to fester this class of herbage; but on no account should they be employed on lawns. Again, as iron acts inimically on the phosphates in the soil, it should not be used on agricultural land. For lawns, nitogen, potash, lime, and iron are the plant foods to use to assist the growth of grasses, and these in accordance with the condition and chemical composition of the soils. No lime is required on calcareous mediums, nor iron where this exceeds 4 per cent. Few soils, however, are so rich in potash that an occasional dressing of potassic sulphate to lawns is not marked by a decided improvement in the vigour and appearance of the finer grasses. One and a-half ounces to the square yard is the limit of the quantity to employ. Muriate of potash is sometimes used instead of the sulphate, but this contains more chlorine than is good for the plants. These chemical manures, however, may be regarded simply as auxiliaries once the soil contains a fair amount of organic matter, and good supplementary dressings of horse droppings or any other decomposing organic materials rich in nitrogen are given.