GARDENING CALENDAR. DECEMBER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 449, 25 November 1870, Page 2

GARDENING CALENDAR. DECEMBER.

Kitchen Garden.—How unlike the same month in the Home Country! We- have abundance of green peas, new potatoes, and st-awberries, and are enjoying the perfume of the rose, the honeysuckle, and the sweet briar. This is a busy month in the garden : vegetables are growing vigorously, root crops require thinning, peas and beans staking, and above all, weeding ; and hoe. mg has to be attended to. Peas, sow; also French beans and runners, turnip, early horn carrot, lettuce, aul radish. Early varieties of the potatoe maystitl be planted A slight top dressing of stable manure mixed with sand will benefit onion and leek beds if the growth be at all backward; ani in the event of dry weather, water with weak guano or manure water. Celery will be improved • y the same treatment. Fruit Garden.—The little cherry-eating birds are busy nibbling the fruit as it begins to color. We should like to know how to protect our trees from the depredations of these pretty little intruders : they are so small that the nets used to protect cherries in Britain are no use here. Trained trees now require tying or nailing. Slight frosts, which occasionally occur this month, are apt to blister the leaves of peach and nectarine trees. A temporary copping of scrub to project about a foot over the top of the wall or fence on which they are trained will protect them. Pinch the tops off the strongest growing shoots of young fruit trees, to eqalise the growth and induce a bushy habit. Remove all suckers as they make their appearance below grafts lately put on, and pinch the tops off their main shoots when they have pushed two or three inches. This will encourage the growth of lateral shoots, and in some measure prevent them from being injured by wind. . * Flower Garden. -rSee that dahlias and Hollyhocks are well secured to stakes, and encourage growth by frequent waterings with liquid manure. Lilies, phloxes, &0., will requ-re stakes, and Verbenas, petuneas and other trailing plants, pegging down’ Stake sweat peas, canary creeper, and convolvulus major! See that annuals are not too thick, and lot all thinning be dona whilst the plants areyoang. Young fuchsias now making rapid growth should be on, enuraged by shifting into larger sized pots, and watering twice a week with weak guano water.