THE AMATEUR GARDENER

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 961, 10 March 1917, Page 5

THE AMATEUR GARDENER

GARDEN CALENDAR. MARCH. Average rainfall, 2.29 in. Under Glass. Pot daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips. Cinerarias should now ho ready to put into their flowering pots. Repot cut-hack pelargoniums. House the earliest chrysanthemums and tender greenhouse plants. Put in cuttings of zonal pelargoniums (geraniums) and other bedding plants. Outside. Sow onions, carrots, turnips, spinach, and lettuce to stand over the winter. Earth up celery and leeks and harvest onions. Apples and pears should he gathered and stored as fit. Plant daffodils and other spring flowering liulhs. Destroy all seeding weeds, and keep the ground surface open and loose with the lioe. Sow sweet peas and hit rely annuals. Plant out Canterbury hells, wallflower, and other biennial plants where space oilers in the flower borders. VEGETABLE GARDEN.

"At this season of the year it very often happens that we get one or two sharp frosts and then a continuation of froslless nights. These early frosts will probably destroy French and runner beans, tomatoes, vegetable marrows, and such like tender vegetables, where, if some protection had been given on nights when frosts threatened, they would have continued in bearing for some time longer. Tomatoes should be gathered now, as soon as they have commenced to colour well, and placed on a shelf in a sunny position. This will not only preserve them from risk of being frosted, but will give the remaining fruit more opportunity to mature and ripen. Beans should be picked when about Ibrce parts grown, and, should . there be more than sufficient for present use, they will keep fresh for a time if they are laid out thinly in a cool place with a damp cloth put over them after they have been lightly sprinkled with salt. We shorten the growing season of asparagus considerably by cutting all the young shoots as a vegetable up to the middle of December, which also deprives the plant of the advantage of making its principal growth during the best growing season—spring—and, after depleting the energy of the plant by requiring it to produce many more than the normal growths required for its development, expect the plant to struggle for its existence during the hot summer weather with, often, very little encouragement in the form of water or manure. During dry weather water should be given regularly, and either a sprinkling of a good fertiliser which can be watered in, or, if given before rain, it will be carried down to the roots. Keep the tops green and growing as long as possible, and do not cut the tops off until they turn yellow. Encourage the growth of autumn crops by judicious watering, and by keeping the surface fine and loose, not to any great depth, with the hoc. Celery and leeks should not want for a plentiful supply of moisture. Any check to growth from a deficiency of moisture will tend to make the produce tough and stringy. When spraying or dusting young cabbages or broccoli for aphis or grub, attend well to the centre or crown of the plant as this is where the insects do the most damage. Fruit Garden. Attending to picking and storing the mid-season apples and pears is the principal work Io be done at the present lime. Souk? amateurs have a habit of doing a lot of the pruning in the autumn after the fruit lias been gathered. This is not at all a good practice in regard to the wellbeing of the tree, as it causes undue' sap excitement, and also robs the! tree of a large number of its feeders, ' and leaves. A point of importance when choosing trees for a small garden is Io select varieties of a dwarf habit and moderate growth, so that they can be kept in hounds without immoderate pruning. Most people like a certain amount of variety, and prefer to have three or four .small trees ratlrer than one

(By "AOTEA.")

large one. There is also the advantage when several varieties are grown of having fruit over a longer period. Too often trees of unsuitable growth are chosen, and to keep them in hand hard pruning is adopted, but, very often, with unsatisfactory results, more new wood being produced than fruit. It is difficult to check the growth of a tree planted in rich soil by simply cutting back the top. Rootpruning is the only remedy, but at its best it is an unsatisfactory one, the better plan being to give the tree ample room for development according to its growth and habit, and to let it have less top restriction by pruning. .

Under Grass. Where grapes are ripe, the vinery should be kept dry and cool, with ample ventilation without draughts. Cold draughts and damp are the forerunners of mildew. Preparation should be made so that if the weather sets in fiiosty, pot-chrysanthe-mums may be brought under cover. Plants of which the buds show colour should be taken in, as the flowers are very easily damaged by rough weather when they reach that stage. Liquid manure should be given after the buds fire well set, and continued until the flower is half open, when it should be discontinued. Soot-water is excellent for the purpose. Cow or horse manure placed in a bag and soaked in a barrel of water makes an excellent manurial solution, and may be used alternately with soot-water and clear water with advantage as long as they are used weak. The tender root-tips and root-hairs are unable to absorb liquid that contains much more than five per cent, of solid matter. As the davs get shorter, watering will require more careful attention. Boot action is now getting much less active, and cannot absorb the same amount of water that was needed but a short time ago. It is Nature's means of hardening up die stems and crowns of plants so that they may withstand the winter's cold, and in the cool greenhouse wlure plants are grown, that arc only just one or two "removes from hardy, plenty of air and Hghi and less water are the requirements of the autumn season. Flower Garden. I certainly do not agree with those who advocate digging up the flower garden to plant vegetables, not only because it is quite, unnecessary, but because it would be extremely foolish. If there was no other ground available it might be different, but with the very large amount of ground that is lying practically idle it is quite uncalled for. I think in the large majority of suburban and amateurs' gardens of Christchurch a very substantial portion of the ground is given up to the growing of vegetables, and in many of them very good management and cultivation are to be found, with a very good selection of vegetables and fruit. I must admit that there arc also a very large number of—gardens I was going to say, but perhaps sections with dwell-ing-houses on them would be belter, that would be much better broken up from back to front and vegetables planted. There is no doubt many gardeners, both amateur and professional, can derive all the pleasure and interest they desire from the cultivation of vegetables, but most gardeners enjoy, as a restful change, the beauty of colour and form in the (lower garden, and can find there an inspiration and encouragement to stand up to the trials and toils which in larger or in lesser degree fall to the lot of us all. The cultivation of vegetables as a source of food supply lias been advocated in this column since the commencement of the war, and I would much more strongly advocate it now, but not to the total exclusion and annihilation of that which has been a joy and a pleasure to us in the past, and, if no extravagance is caused by its upkeep, may be so to us still, and will be without doubt again in the future when this strenuous and trying time is past.