HOME GARDENS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 83, 9 January 1950, Page 8

HOME GARDENS

(By J. S. Yeates, Massey Agricultural College)

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS There is no more useful guide to gardening methods than the gardener’s own recorcj/s. 'This Is 'a most suitable time of the year to start a garden diary. The sort of garden diary I would suggest using is not sold as dairy, but is simply a good, big exercise book such as would cost three or lour .shillings today. I aim to make this book last three or four years, and would advise using only one page in every three this year, so that next January you will be using the page alongside the page you use this year, and so orf. This method gives you an easy reference to what you did the previous year, and should indicate what success you had.' It is not at all necessary to make the dairy a very complicated one. My general method is to have a page or two headed “January 1950.” On that page there might be an entry: Jan. I—Planted three rows Smiths Early Horn carrots; super worked in before sowing.

After each entry leave a line of two unused, for later notes on these carrots; when they were sprayed with kerosene; when you started digging them, and so on. The important points to enter in your record are: The date; the variety of crop sown or planted; the part of the garden; the manurial treatment, weather conditions following; any subsequent treatments such as spraying, thinning or staking, the date at which the crop was ready for use and the date at which it was past the useful stage.

Seasonal Work

In the flower garden there is not very much except weeding and hoeing to do just now. Keep all dead flowers picked off roses, carnations and the like, so that new blooms will be more likely to develop. Sweet peas in particular need removal of flowers if the size of bloom is to be maintained. Those which are cut will of course be used inside th'e house. Chrysanthemums should be disbudded and watched for pests as described some weeks ago. Gladioli from the earlier plantings are well forward and will benefit from staking. Lilies, and delphiniums are also well forward and will usually need careful staking. The Regal lilies this year are rather earlier than usual and are at their best now. The auratum lily is commencing to flower with me. In the South Island a week or so ago I saw very abundant displays of the Christmas-lily (L. candidum) near Kaikoura. Attractive though they were, I think regal lilies would be preferred once they were tried. I will gladly send seed of this lily in June, to anyone who sends a strong stamped and addressed, envelope. In the vegetable garden it is a busy time. Many of the most; important crops for winter use should go in as soon as possible. I spent Boxing Day setting out plants of Brussels sprouts and main crop cauliflowers from earlier sowings. Savoy cabbages and leek plants will ’ soon go in. A liberal sowing of carrots of “Early Horn” type planted now will be ready foi>winter use. Silver beet seed can still be planted. Maincrop peas should be sown again. If your parsnip seed has come up poorly (as my third sowing did) put some more in at once. Tomatoes and potatoes should be watched for signs of blight. Give them “Cuprox” (loz to 3 gallons) at the slightest sign of trouble. Keep the side branches nipped out of tomatoes unless you are growing the bush variety.

In the orchard keep up the alternate sprayings of lime-sulphur and lead arsenate on apples and pears. The “pear-slug” is busy on leaves of pears and plums and the best way to check it is by lead arsenate applied to the leaves. Fruit should have been thinned long ago; if it has not been done already, now is better than ever. This thinning makes' all the difference in size of fruit ripened. I have had to take much more than half the pears off mv trees this year.