THE HOME GARDEN

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4490, 15 October 1941, Page 3

THE HOME GARDEN

WORK FOR OCTOBER. VEGETABLE GARDEN. Plant the main potato crop and earth up earlier crops. Sow lettuce and radishes at fortnightly intervals to ensure a succession of salad greens. The main carrot crop should now be sown. Sow peas for succession at intervals of three weeks. Sow spinach, onions, parsnips, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower. Plant onions in finely worked, rich, but light soil. FLOWER GARDEN. Sow antirrhinums, asters, calendulas, calliopsis, clarkia, cornflower, geums, godetia, larkspur, pansies, polythanthus, stocks, zinnias, sweet peas. Plant out antirrhinums, asters, nemesia, stocks, delphiniums, hollyhocks, lupins, lobelia, verbena, violas, pansies, petunias and phlox. Sow a patch in mignonette. Select a rich, fairly light soil. Continue to plant gladioli. Prick in a little superphosphate among your bearded irises. A few clumps of golden rod (solidago) make an effective background to the herbaceous .border. Prepare the soil for planting out dahlias in early November. Dahlias do best in a soil that is rich in humus and in a sunny position. Japanese irises must never lack for water now. The size of the blooms will depend to a large extent on the water supply. Weeds are growing and seeding rapidly, therefore keep the hoe busy at every opportunity. A clump of cannas makes a bold show in a sunny position. These plants need rich soil and plenty of moisture during the period of growth. ORNAMENTAL TREES. SIMPLE PRUNING RULES. Where standard, half - standard or bush ornamental trees were planted last season, watch must be kept on the leader, or top growth. So long as that leader maintains its lead, all is well, but if a nearby shoot enters into competition, and you get what is known as a forked leader, the shape of the tree will soon be permanently spoiled unless you remove one of the competing branches. If there is a better and a worse, the latter will, of course, be cut off. If there is nothing to choose, it doesn’t matter which you eliminate, but one must go, and quickly. It is also a good plan to take out young branches which cut directly across others, or make toward the centre. From the bare stems of standard and half-standard trees remove all side-shoots. VEGETABLES ARE EXPENSIVE. GROW YOUR OWN, BUT GROW THEM WELL. Parliament, the Press, and the public generally have much to say regarding tjie high prices ruling for vegetables, and their effect on the cost of living. Many reasons have been advanced, but the explanation is as old as the science of economics—the demand exceeds the supply. And one reason for the excessive demand is that the average home-owner does not pay sufficient attention to the growing of vegetables. Most gardeners essay the task of maintaining a kitchen garden at one time or another, but those who persevere till they have acquired the art of growing a variety of vegetables really well represent a small minority of the gardening world. The rewards are well worth the effort, and the gardener who intelligently sets out to grow a portion of his own food can generally succeed in doing so, seasonal difficulties notwithstanding. But there is no short-cut to vegetable success. One can’t just scatter seeds on the soil, draw fertility from a bag of fertiliser, and sit back to await the harvest. There’s much more to it than that. The first requirement is a soil that is sufficiently well drained to avoid becoming waterlogged; the second, that it is dug to a depth of at least eighteen inches; and the third, that it is well charged with organic matter and made reasonably “sweet” (nonacid) by means of lime. As most vegetables must have potash, an occasional sprinkling of wood ashes has a highly beneficial result.

Humus is one of the basic essentials, and lack of it one of the principal causes of failure. The story of the part played by humus in the growing of plants has already been told, and is too long to be repeated this week. A fairly sunny situation is desirable. Given the foregoing requirements, vegetables can be successfully grown in most gardens. The

additional needs of various plants are outlined in numerous garden books, and, indeed, on the backs of many seed packets, but the basic requirements are all important. Humus can best be produced by means of the compost heap, where •vegetable and household wastes are converted into valuable plant food. SCARLET RUNNERS. PROFITABLE BEAN CROP - The scarlet runner needs an open situation and a deeply-dug soil fairly rich in organic manures. Soil should be moderately well-limed in advance of planting. Commence sowing late in September and continue at intervals of three or four weeks. Sow two inches deep, six inches apart, in rows six feet apart. One of the most frequent complaints made about runnel beans, scarlet runners in particular, is that they shed their flowers and in consequence pods fail to develop. This weakness is due to dry root conditions, which can be prevented by frequent watering in dry weather, or mulching with composted material, leafmould or lawn clippings.

One of the common errors made by garden tenderfeet lies in setting out only two or three plants of some variety, instead of enough to really make a splash of colour in the garden or border. Better a mass of petunias, verbenas or similar bedding plants than two or three plants of some more unusual flower.