PREPARING GROUND FOR SWEET PEAS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15037, 4 August 1914, Page 6

PREPARING GROUND FOR SWEET PEAS.

(By. --Botanicus," in the London ''Daily " - Chronicle.") It must be a very poor and neglected piece of "ground, or the garden must bo extremely ill-situated, where sweet peas • of some kind will not grow; but no i crop, floral or vegetable, repays more 1 generously a. reasonable amount of intelligent industry expended on a fairly suitable plot of soil. Few ordinary amateurs, with limited space and leisure, can hope to equal the wonderful results j achieved by experienced growers, but most of us who will do things on the right lines can have lovely blooms in our gardens and rooms-, and many of . us may be in the running at our local shows. ' ✓ ESSENTIALS TO SUCCESS. For the highest excellence, -we must have two things at least; first-class seed i (not necessarily of the newest varieties) and thorough preparation of the ground. These are the essentials; without them, j we stand no chance against those who ; have them, however lavish our outlay of time and trouble and money in subse*queht - cultivation. Other points ' are important; but these .matter . most of all. ■ .-'".' No doubt numbers of, my readers have • bought sweet-pea seeds in spring, have gone out into the .untilled garden, turned up a few yards of soil with a fork, buried their seed, and been fortunate enough to see gradually develop and eventually flower a number ot that iwere quite attractive in the .eyes.of the?family; ,1 jbay.e done this j myself, when it was Jtbe only way to have sweet peas at all;. and T should* be loth to* discourage so,incipient a form'of horticultural enthusiasm among readers when and where,«for.one.reason or another, 'this-'is its finest possible manifestation.. •■-.-* , ..' ;'.'-;;■ IN■) TOWN AND COUNTRY: I ..In acountry garden, with" tolerably ' fresh .soil and "lots'of pure ajr,. marvel--lia'vis', .yields. may.'. come' ftoin; an eco'n-; omy of effort, that would "return nought .but disaster, in most town' gardens; j indeed,7.l- have had dainty sweet-peas i and other annuals and.' biennials and I perennials from self-sown on apI patently hopeless .pieces, of waste I ground. But the urban and suburban ; gardener must 'do/ much, more .if he would realise such visions as will make Him. of his little'"plot*a'nd j nappyte rest in its summer beauty. I j7 The most* ardent of, our sw'e*jt-pea ,! . growers,aroajit to'".b^omo.afflict^;w:ith.' a .'. soft of 2 madness. L : think it7seizes j them more ruthlessly than'do'its kin- j dred manias, to which' the rampant j losarian and. the worshippers "of .violas j and pahsies ; are.subject, seize their vicj tims. I have heard of sweet-pea comj pet-tors sitting iip at night with their ! plants for nearly a week before the i t-how, and travelling all night to the ' hajl to stage their cherished blooms. To mc this spells lunacy—albeit a lun- ' ..icy with which in, a measure I can; sympathise. The average town "or 'sub--uiban gardener would be badly advised [ ■ t'- follow .suit, and. frankly, I do not j * b-.-iie.ve that many of biro are in serious ■'danger of .doing so.. Ho wants to treat i his plants from the cradle to tbe siinvo, so to speak, as. well as ho conveniently can. and the purpose of these notes is to tell him how to get to work. ; TO DO AT ONCE. ■ First, he should at onco trench his ground for tbe sweet-peas, if he has not done so .already. A great many ; growers nowadays trench in autumn and sow their seed in autumn, too; and it may be worth while. Winter •reparation of the -ground- and early • .pring sowing of tbo seed will serve ..he needs of-.the majority [and produce Vlmirablo rows or clumps ol sweetoas, the weather being about as usual; ■y the end of December. . Before .now --. I havo planted out sweet-peas m groups, of a ; : ingle colour (my favourite method), ' alternately, with violas in single colours, • into, a bed-in which Darwin and Parrot ' tnlips were blooming.; and the sweet- i peas have been in flower almost as soon ! as the tulips faded, and have remained ) ia flower until the frost came. I do not recommend this scheme as the best, *.y any neatis; I simply mention it to stow that with spring sowing, proper management, and an average season, the gap between the bulbous spring blooms, and the sweet-peas and other annuals should not be long. Autumn sowing of *<weet-peas will, a. a rule, five us flowea a fortnight or more earlier. Its advocates say that the Sowar will be finer, too, but this is a. moot point. And it is worth ■utile, if one has a well-kept and sheltered ga*-dei of light soil, or plenty ; of glass space. Bnt, I repeat, spring sowing will do quite nicely, and it is with this that mainly I am concerned, * though readers who sowed in autumn ■ will find a useful tip or two hereafter. \ perhaps, for the days when they, come ; jto plant, out their autumn-sown seed-j lings ■ j Beginners, reading that they should j trench for their rows of sweet-peas, oc- j easiooally make a mistake akin to that j

made by some farmers when planting fruit trees in grass: in shallow, heavy soils they do not trench over a wide enough area—sometimes I have known them merely to make a series of 2ft or 3ft deep holes hardly a foot across in an otherwise rock-like subsoil. This means, of course, that they may be pUnting in what practically are so drain-holes, at the bt ttom of which, and rising in hot weather to the roots of the plants, more or less stagnant water may collect. ON TRENCHING. It is desirable to trench the whole of a bed intended for sweet-peas, if it is not very large, or, at any ra.ts, to bastard trench it. Where this is "not done, a trei.cn ;i>; ■ wide and as many yards long as required should be dug out 2ft or more deep, the depth varying with the irtention of the grower—whether 'he proposes to _row sweet-peas for his pleasure or to try for prizes. Undoubtedly very deep trenching pays in the latter case: in the former from 18in to 2ft will be found satisfactory enough. '..< The maker of a sweet-pea trench should reme,mber that, though the difference in quality between the top arid the second spits or spade depths of soil in most gardens is not so great as,ono might gather from some of the gardening books, the air and sun have - not freer play with the upper, than with, the, lower, layers; and well-aerated: and' well-broken soil is a,great- advantage to" plants "in.their early stages. Therefore, when digging his trench theamateur should throw out the top foot of soil on the right-hand.side, and the second foot, or second and third, on the left-hand side; and he should keep them separate; returning them to the hole in the order of thair depth, -the coarse 6ubsoil first arid the fine top soil last. . ' '..'";"" '" .-.''.'

If the weather is sharp it will be advisable to leave the trench open for a few days, so that the'frost may act UDon the coarse soil. If the-trench is worked out accordingly it.will be found probably that the stirring-up of the eround and the; addition.of rubble and manure has raised the level of the filled-, in trench above that of•the surrounding beds. This will be an advantage rather than otherwise, if it remains for, a month or' so.' but in a' short tirrtebroT>-' ably' the;Retfclinjr of soil will leave no perceptible' elevation. .. ON MANURES. J- . Several good special sweet-pea manures, are, on the market.; They can-be. forked in either alone, or as. supple-, mentary to farmyard or stable manure. In my experience many sweet peas, fail.because the' top -layer of 6oil is made too rich with "unripe animal manure; and many others because the roots strike into .a .thick cake, of -strong, manure just as the plants are about*to bloom, when root action ismost active. / L believe the evil is niade»_r eater, by the liberal, use of nitrogenous . -artificials of too forcing a kind. ■ - .

Bone-meal can be used throughout the upper layers instead of basic-slag; other forms of potash may take the J place of kainit (which. I do not car© to utilise myself, unless .I can get it -in. some, time before sowing or planting); and in well-limed clay.loam soils; into which a fair amount of. wood ash- andburnt rubbish has been dug, no further supply of potash at all is necessary. : Apart from the nitrogen in.animal manure, I-give none at all:! spme skilled growers like to supply a. little.nitrate,of soda or sulphate of ammonia. in weak - liquid form early in summer.'. i It is too soon to sow successfully out of door-s direct, or to plant out, of course, but when the time comes for ■either posse-*, the beginner will .do well to. make a shallow drill, with the back, of his rake along the line of his sweetpea trench —4in deep if for planting out. and. rather less than half that depth for sowing seeds. Whereas I row garden peas generally in a succession of triangles or stars along the row, I prefer to-sow sweet-peas in single file, thinnins them to about a foot, .amrt whon they are anything up- to 6in high past the most horrid menaces of slugs and birds. -■ ■ i