GARDEN NOTES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 18, 3 May 1911, Page 37

GARDEN NOTES.

C rops which are done with should have all refuse cleared off and burned before the heavy winter rains fall. We advocate burning on the refuse heap in order to destroy all weed seeds and spores. The compost heap should be turned, ami some unslacked lime mixes in when doing so. Composts should always be worked over when in a dry condition, ami the raw material always placed in the l»ottom layer. All vacant pieces of ground should be dug or forked over or trenched where necessary, and either left in a rough condition exposed to the elements, or sown down with oats, barley, or mustard, which later on can be turned down as green manuring. Onions can be sown for transplanting, ami also a small patch of carrots and turnips. A sowing of early peas of some

hardy sort may lx- made. Pride of the Market, although not the earliest, is a good kind tor the season. Broad beans, either Longpods or Windsors, van be planted in rows 21ft apart and 4in between the beans. Keep the hoe going amongst cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, and all other growing crops, earthing up as they advance in growth. Don’t neglect to thin out growing crops of turnips, carrots, etc. Kumeras should be dug and stored away in a dry. cool place: pumpkins, pie meh.ns. squashes, etc., can be carefully gathered and stored if the ground on which they are growing should be needed for other purposes, but experience shows that these keep better if left on the vines as long as possible. Of course, where rats or mice abound they must l»e lifted and stored where these pests cannot reach them—not always an easy undertaking. Elevated shelves erected outside, and so constructed that a cat can get around, we have found the safest means of keep ing these winter vegetables. The planting of potato onions, tree onions, -ballots, and garlic can be put in ham! during the month. These will grow on almost any soil if fairly rich. Potato onions will grow where seed is not successful. Asparagus beds should be top-dressed, all old stems cut down; fork over the

surface soil, and then dies- with stable manure -fin thick; some salt, or kainit. should Im‘ scattered on the manure. Sow sweet peas in pots. Im»\cs. or in open—red lead the seed l»efore sowing to protect against mice. Plant out anemones, ranunculus, early gladioli, and other bulbs in their flowering quarters this month. Cut down harbaceous perennial plants which have done flowering, and. where required. propagate by dividing the roots. Aquilegias are best left undis turbed till spring before subdividing. Plant out layers of carnations and picotees into beds or borders prepared for their reception.