HOME GARDENS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 35, 7 September 1949, Page 7

HOME GARDENS

(By J. S. Yeates, Massey AgricuL) tural College)

AMONG THE. VEGETABLES Onion seed can be sown at any time now when the ground is dry enough. The soil should be in a fairly good high state of fertility ,for onions, and in addition can with advantage have a dressing of blood and bone and of potash broadcast and raked into the top inch or two. It should be worked down to a fine state and made firm by treading before giving the final smoothing off. The drills should be made about a foot apart and half an inch deep. Sow the seed rather thin, but remember, it is easier to thin out than to fill up gaps. Rake the soil back to cdVer the seed, tramp along the drills to pack the soil firmly, and then just smooth bootmarks with a rake. The best onion seed is undoubtfully certified Pukekohe longkeeper. If onions of this variety are well ripened, then dried in the sun and stored in a cool, dry, well ventilated place, they will keep well on into the following spring. When the seedlings, are well above ground they should be thinned out to about one inch apart; later thin to about three inches. Commercial onion growers handle their onion crop in this general way. Their methods differ mainly in that they spray the young crop with weak sulphuric acid to eradicate weeds. The acid is not easy to handle, and for the home gardener hand weeding is therefore simpler. Onions are also grown by planting out small plants about this time from seed sown earlier in the'year; or from small dried off bulbs (“ets”) grown last, autumn. These methods are far more laborious than sowing seeds and I gave them up long age; in fact, the commercially-grown onions are so good and cheap that I consider most people would be better repaid by growing other crops which need to be used fresh. In Praise of Leeks Leeks are a case in point. They are one of the last garden crops I would abandon. Dug fresh out of the garden they are a first class winter vegetable. They ajre one of the most reliable of crops and can be used from the garden over several months at a time of the year when fresh green vegetables are highest in price. If you gro.w your own leek plants from seed, anytime in the next month is a good time to sow the seed. Find some odd corner about a yard square, where the soil is as deep and rich as possible. Give it some well-rotted compost and any fertiliser that is handy—blood and boner, or super and ammonium sulphate. Sow a packet of leek seed on this and cover with about half an inch of sand. You should then have a good number of young leek plants to be set out when they are about nine inches high. It is not wise to plant out leek plants very early in the spring. The plants set out then must have been sown as seed in late autumn or early winter. As a result of that they are inclined to “bolt” in the first summer. Reserve a piece of deep, rich and moist land for setting out the leeks on. They may fit in nicely after some crop which is taken out about that time —broad beans, or • early spring peas or cabbages.

Another great winter stand-by is the parsnip crop, with which I shall deal in a week or two. In the mean-' time keep a piece of the garden ready for them in the next month, and watch for the newest seed to come into the shops. Parsnip seed is liable to give poor germination and I wait each spring until I can buy seed dated about 18 months, ahead. Growing Own Seed < Lettuces and cabbages set out recently will benefit from a pinch of nitrogenous manure about every fortnight to keep them actively growing. Sodium nitrate sets more quickly than ammonium sulphate and from this point of view is preferable. The presence of any pur-plish-blue colour on leaves of cabbages or cauliflowers is a sure sign of a lack of nitrogenous fertiliser.

If you grow your own cabbage plants, now is a good time to plant a little seed of the variety Succession. It is one of the best main crop cabbages, producing a very tight head that is not much worried by any pests. Sow the seed in the same way as leek seed, but sow rather less, and thin out the young plants so that later on you can shift each one with a block of soil on its roots. One of the worst features of boughtin plants is the way in which they are usually pulled out of the ground, tearing off most of the rots. Cauliflower seed may 'be sown in the same way and at the same time. Do not sow much of these because you should not seed to plant out more than three or four dozen plants at one time.