GARDENING NOTES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 160739, 27 August 1920, Page 6

GARDENING NOTES.

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN Sow cabbages, cauliflowers, leeks, beet, turnips, spinach, celery, onions, carrots, tomatoes, cress, radish, parsnips. Plant potatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, rhubarb. The call of the vegetable is still most insistent. Prices remain high. One must have something to eat. Fortunately, the weather conditions are in the worker’s favour. There is now no barrier. Every man and woman bent on raising vegetables at home can get straight on with the work. Only by hard slogging are we ever likely to get food at a lower price. Where the back yard is big enough snd the spirit is willing, there need be no difficulties in the way. Summer gardening is fairly easy; water and w 7 ork are the two great essentials. Both are easily found, PARSLEY SEED might be sown along a border, where the young goods can be let stay and finish their life-run. Sometimes a transplanting will force a parsley plant to run to seed. RADISH in small beds at 14-day intervals so as to keep the home table supplied with a useful salad plant. Get the children interested in this root plant. Its quick growth attracts and holds their interests. LEEK SEED will give you young stock for transplanting later into rows, where the long-stemmed vegetable can thicken itself and get ready for the pot. One packet will provide enough for any small home garden. One good point with leeks is their quick growth. And even when ready for use the plant does not harden or spoil should it he left for a month or two longer in the ground. Most other subjects spoil if not eaten on the right day. The good old leek is not in any way fastidious. There is always a tomorrow where this plant is concerned. CELERY is worth a lot of effort if the land is in the right condition. Only rich country provides the plant with safe accommodation. The trench system suits best, because of the ease with which one can hill-up the stalks for blanching. A sixinch trench will do. See that there is plenty of manure in the bottom, and set the young plants 8 or 10 inches apart. If seed has to be sown get the job through as early as possible. Any stock that is left, after the trenches have been filled can be let grow in a natural way to provide stock for cooking and serving with white sauce. Celery makes a tasty, wholesome dish when handled in this way. ONIONS. Get out as many young onion plants as you can put on your holding. No one ever had too many tons of this useful bulb on their home lot. While prices are high it is safe to continue planting. It will pay any amateur to stock heavily this season. Sow seed and thin out as desired. Even the culls need not be wasted. Every one will grow if transplanted in rows, with a plant on every 8 inches. Good soil is essential. Brown Globe, Brown Spanish, and Early Barbetta are all good suitable sorts. Where _ouly a few seedlings are desired, a bundle should be procured from the plant store. They save two months’ growing, and you secure an earlier crop at a low cost. EARLY PEAS. For the early pea crop the dwarf varieties are the most esteemed, as they do not require staking, while they come into bearing much earlier than the taller growing kinds. Manure is best suited for peas when it lias been applied to a previous crop. Early-sown crops that are coming through the ground require watching to protect them from slugs -—a slight sprinkling of lime scattered over the plants late in the evening or after dark will destroy numbers of slugs that prey upon the plants. To protect the seeds from small birds, damp and dust the seed over with red lead and this will effectively protect them from these enemies. And seeds, in fact, that are attacked by birds can be protected by this simple method. ASPARAGUS. Asparagus is another useful vegetable. This is grown from roots. These are dormant now, ready and waiting for a right placing. A big, open bed, in light, rich land, where the underlay can he held moist without much trouble, is necessary for success. Dry sand, gravel, or poor country should be left alone. With a lot of trouble one could make asparagus grow on a sandhill, but the game would not be worth doing. The labour cost would be too great. Any position where the soil is 18 inches deep and fairly rich will do. It can easily he made better. Proceed by heavily dusting with bone meal the whole area to be devoted to the crop. Fowl manure, cow or stable litter, too, might be thrown round freely. Every little will help. One time it was thought that asparagus required a big manure hole in which to grow. That notion has been very successfully disproved by Americans, who raise all their best sticks in areas where the roots have been set out in foot-deep trenches, and afterwards topped over Hvith' soil and a heavy mulching of manure. The is made wide

By “THRIFTY.”

enough to allow the roots to spread like the spokes of a wheel. A slight rise in the centre of the trench is advisable, because it lifts the crown of the plant just a shade above the root run. Cover the roots with a few inches of earth, and press the lot firm. If you can possibly fill the trench with half manure and half soil you will be doing the asparagus great service. The trenches should be at least a yard apart, and the plants the same distance away one. from the other. It is rather a good plan to leave the things alone for the first year. Take no shoot, however tempting it looks, because a full season’s growth is necessary to enable the plant to do its best for its owner. That is the American recommendation, anyway. If you have no beds well out in the open, don’t worry over asparagus. There is no gain in working between rows of fruit trees, unless only one line is run down where the trees are fully 20 feet apart, or under the shadow of big gums that will get away with every pennyworth of manure and water given to the asparagus. Only under one condition is it possible to win through. Asparagus, if worth growing at all, is worth growing well. THE'FLOWER GARDEN. Plant antirrhinum, pansy, ..viola, delphinium, salpiglossis, gaillardia, lobelia, cornflower, sbirley poppy. Keep the earth round anemone beds stirred; cut off dead blooms. Complete the pruning of roses, and fork over Jhe beds. Sow seed of asters, phlox, bonfire salvia. Keep sweet peas trailed to supports. Take chrysanthemum cuttings. Clean rust off border carnations; hoe the beds. Clean up hedges and paths so that all is neat for spring. PROPAGATING CHRYSANTHEMUMS. Chrysanthemum propagation from cuttings should be attended to. Take the cuttings from the young shoots that have grown from the base of the old stools, carefully make them and insert in pots or in shallow boxes, and place them in a cool frame to strike; shade during sunny days. They may also be propagated from the offshoots, cutting each off with a few roots attached. About the middle of October is the best time to plant out chrysanthemums, consequently the young plants should be in good condition for planting then. SWEET PEAS. Where no previous provision has been made by autumn sowing, either outside or in boxes, sowing in the open ground should he done at once. There is great trouble in protecting the seedlings as they are coming up, from birds and slugs. A slight coating of red lead, previous to sowing, on the seeds, will keep birds from pulling them up; other remedies must be takep against slugs. THE ORCHARD Ail pruning and spraying must be finished, or harm will result. The ground under the trees should be cleaned and forked. Planting may still be done, but not later than the end of the month. Get the spraying machine in order for the coming season.