AGRICULTURAL CLUB

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XLIX, Issue 9594, 29 August 1949, Page 3

AGRICULTURAL CLUB

DISTRICT GIRLS AND BOYS GARDENING NOTES COMPETITION PLANS' (Contributed) Holiday time is a good time in which to think out your plans for the 1949 competitions. The beginning of any project is called spadework and in gardening the first chief job to be done is deep spade work. Dig deeply your plot of ground, measuring carefully a piece If.ft by 10ft. Open a trench one end two spades deep, fill in at the bottom with grass, weeds or auy green rubbish, cover with a little soil and then scatter what artificial manure you have, superphosphate or bonedust, mixing thoroughly with the top soil before planting your vegetables or flowers. Get ready for the warmer weather that is surely coming, and be ready to plant your first sowing of carrstonto/cl to your first sowing of carrots, beetroot, silverbeet and peas.

This year your school teacher will supply you with your seeds free, also sufficient manure to mix with your soil. We have seeds of eight different vegetables. You can ask your teacher for any six you care to grow and no more need be planted although you can grow two rows of peas, beans or lettuce, the second one some month or so later on. Don’t attempt to crowd your rows, leave a space between the rows for working the soil and getting rid of all weeds. If you plant cabbage sow the seed in a box at once, then when the plants are ready for your plot space them 12 inches aaprt and 18 inches from the next row. Later on look for the list of points your judge will allot you, the same will be given in the gardening notes column each Monday. A supervisor to answer any questions and give you advice will be available for each scnool.

Now for your encouragement. If your vegetable or flower garden came first in your school last year, ask your teacher for some dahlia tubers or chrysanthemum plants. These will help to make your flower plot in the gardening competition. How are the sweet peas you planted with the seed supplied from your school? In order to have them flowering for the show on December 8 they should be about 8 inches high now. and ready to be trained up the titree. If they are smaller plants and need to be hurried up ask father to buy. you sixpence worth of nitrate of soda and put a teaspoon of same in a quart of water and water the ground around the plants. Your plots will be judged twice in the last week in November at the same time as your sweet peas.