VEGETABLES FOR WINTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 138, 13 June 1931, Page 19 (Supplement)

VEGETABLES FOR WINTER

ATTENTION TO THE CROPS. To grow vegetables successfully in winter too much attention cannot be given to the treatment of the soil. During the next few months colder weather must naturally be expected and it will be only by taking every advantage of fine weather to work the soil, and endeavouring to maintain a well-loosened mrface that the crops will derive the lull benefit of any warmth obtainable. In spite of the colder weather, however, weeds grow so rapidly as to soon take possession unless kept under by hand weeding, hoeing, or light digging. For most winter crops the measure of success attained depends largely upon the character of the soil. In soil of a free, open nature that provides for ready drainage there is not the same difficulty as with stiffer land. It is with the latter class of land especially that the advantage of raised beds for many crops are more beneficial, for apart from providing a more ready drainage the ground is more easily weeded and worked. Potatoes and Broad Beans. All ground from which crops have been cleared, or any new ground required for flopping, should be deeply broken up and if necessary manured. For such crops as early potatoes, especially, the soil should be placed in the best possible condition for planting out the sets. The ground for setting out new plots of rhubarb, too, should be deeplyi broken up, or, better still, trenched and heavily manured. When renewing the j>lots a complete change of soil is an advantage, while the same, in fact, applies to most crops. A sowing of broad beans, if not aljeady made, should no longer be delayed. This vegetable is not as widely grown as their merits demand, for when successfully grown and gathered and used before they are allowed to become too old, they are one of the most wholesome and delicious of vegetables. Two Active Pests. Autumn-sown beans invariably set their pod and produce better crops than spring and summer-sown plants, the chief reason being that they flower and, set their fruit before the bumble bee becomes sufficiently numerous to destroy the blossoms. This pest is chiefly the cause of unfruitfulness. As the flowers are not large enough to allow the bee to enter the flower in the usual way to extract the material it seeks, it eats through the flowers from the outside, so that their fertilising properties are destroyed. Another advantage of autumn-raised plants is that they usually set and develop much of their crop before the black aphis attack the plants. Top-i ping the plants back in spring as soon as they have attained reasonable, height and show abundance of flower will assist to rid the plants of this pest, as well as to encourage pods to form well down on the stems. This crop succeeds well grown in fairly stiff soil.