GARDEN NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18159, 25 October 1930, Page 22 (Supplement)

GARDEN NOTES.

SEASONABLE WORK. (By “Nikau.”) Vegetables and Fruit —Sow all hardy’ vegetables, also tender ones, in sheltered positions. Stake peas as soon as they are four or five inches high. Mould up early potatoes, also peas, cabbages and cauliflowers. Plant cabbage, onion, lettuce, silver beet, beetroot, artichoke, potato and tomato. Thin early crops. Use red oil (1 to 40) for scale, on citrus fruit. Mulch strawberries with straw. Mulch strawsion vines. Use the arsenate of lead spray for apples which have dropped their petals. Stake newlyplanted trees. Finish grafting fruit trees. Use lime-sulphur (1 to 100) for peach trees suffering from leaf curl.

Flowers. —Save seeds of best anemones and ranunculi. Put in short cuttings of new grovyth of shrubs and herbaceous plants. Put in hardy bedding-plants. Sow seed of tender plants in boxes. Plant clematis and other climbers. Remove seed-heads from violas and pansies. Make occasional raids on slugs and snails at night. Plant new beds of violets. Plant chrysanthemums, also begin with dahlias. Sow packets of firstclass dahlia and carnation seed in boxes and protect from rain and frost.

NOTES. The Wheelbarrow. —Every garden, however, unpretentious it may be,- is incomplete without a wheelbarrow. If the latter is made of wood, it should receive fair attention in wet weather. This really means that the barrow should either be stored under cover or else turned upside down. All soil should be kept out of the crevices, so that the water may drain away. Another point to observe in connection with a barrow is that the wheel should be’ broad, otherwise it will cut too deeply into lawns, paths or borders.

Lima. —Hardly anything is more likely to improve the soil than the wise application of lime. It should never be done, however, unless the soil is in fair condition. The use of lime on unmanured soil is sure to result in making that soil poorer, but the good gardener never allows his soil to beco'me poor. The following are, briefly, the most important advantages which result from the judicious use of lime: (1) It sweetens the soil by combining with the acids produced by the decomposition of vegetable matter; this is especially true of land which has been manured regularly ' for several years, and is thus liable to be sour. (2) It changes unavailable plant food into available; potash is one substance thus rendered more available. Naturally, if the soil be poor, lime soon exhausts it. (3) Lime has an excellent mechanical effect upon all soils, especially 11103? of a heavy nature. It breaks up clay into a llocculent -mass. ( f 4) Lime itself is a plant-food, valuable amp, even necessary to almost all plants. (5) It is essential to the work of nitrification, by which nitrogen is placed in an available form in the soil. (6) It possesses important insecticidal and fungicidal proporties; thus it reduces the harm done by grubs, slugs and snails, and it also checks such fungal diseases as club root in cabbages. The following experiment illustrates the effect of lime in flocculating or mellovving clay. Work up a ball of stiff clay with common, untreated river water and a similar ball with limewater; the former will become hard on drying, but the ball worked with lime-water will readily fall to pieces. To make the lime-water, simply shake up a lump of lime in a bottle of water.

The Hoe.—When rightly used, this is one of the best garden tools, but if used as a substitute for the spade in winterj then it is not a good tool. In a proper system of cultivation, the order of operations is something like this: In autumn, after the crops are taken out, a quick-growing plant such as oats or lupins should be-sown, to be dug in at the end of winter when a growth of nearly eighteen Inches has been made. A few weeks later the soil may be dug again, but not deeply this time; if the land is very_ light, this digging should be set aside in favour of hoeing. From then onwards through summer and autumn the hoe should be run frequently between the rows- of young vegetables. The advantages of this hoeing are four-fold: the ground is kept well aerated, thus giving the nitrifying bacteria a good opportunity to work; moisture is conserved, as the capillary tubes conveying water from the subsoil to the surface are broken and covered by a mulch of fine soil; weeds areskept down, thus avoiding the necessity of hack-breaking handweeding; lastly, the temperature of the soil is raised by the! warm air being able to pass into it freely.

Jerusalem Artichokes.—There is perhaps no more ' profitable garden plant than the artichoke, for this gives a heavier yield of tubers than even potatoes do. Many people have an impression that artichokes are weeds, and ineradicable ones at that. At present the tubers are sending up telltale shoots, so that a gardener with a little energy and a good spade car, soon clear a bed. As a concession to unbelieving readers, however, _ it is here suggested that the artichokes should he planted at the bottom of the section or in what might be regarded as a waste corner. The older varieties are very nubbly, resulting in much waste when they are prepared for table, but there are improved varieties which are almost as regular in shape as potatoes. For planting, sets may be made by cutting up the mediumsized tubers or by using them whole, but to cut the knobs of mis-shapen tubers is a sure way of perpetuating the bad characteristics of the parents. If artichokes are to give really good results, they should be planted like potatoes, but the rows should he farther apart, owing to the great size the plants attain. Three feet between rows and a foot apart in the rows are fair distances for them. An excellent feature of artichokes is that they are free from almost ail diseases except rust, and. even this seems to -do little harm, as it usually appears only when the plants have become almost fullgrown. To those people who declare they do not like the taste of artichokes we would say: have you tried them either served up with -a butter sauce or grated and used to flavour soup?

seed —but only when very good strains are bought. This may seem expensive, as a small packet may cost half-a-crown, but such a sum would not g.o far in buying plants. The seed of carnations germinates very readily, and the young plants are easily managed, the only dilllculty being to keep slugs and snails away. For this reason the seed is to be sown in boxes, and the latter are to be lifted now-and then in case slugs or snails are harbouring,, under them. As usual, shallow boxes, well drained, should be used, and the soil should be a mixture of sand, good soil and leaf-mould or rotted compost. Last, year the writer saw some excellent beds of carnations raised from seed bought from the wellknown firms of Sutton and Sons and Vilmorin (of France). When once a few good plants have been obtained, cuttings or ‘pipings’ should be put in to maintain a stock of strong young ones. Short growths gently torn off are the best, but long ones may be shortened and cut across just below a joint. In the latter case the end should be slit; some people put in a grain of sand or even wheat to keep the sides apart, as this operation induces roots to form more quickly. If the cuttings are put in a shady but well-drained place and moistened from time to time, they should root in a few weeks. As soon as they have made an inch or so of new growth they are sufficiently rooted for planting out. Lining the bottom and the sides of the little trench with sand is a great help to the rooting of the cuttings.

The A. and P. Show. —Readers are reminded that entries close to-day, but there is a chance that the time will be extended a little. There are the usual classes for pot plants, roses, sweet peas, flower collections, and all vegetables in season at the time.