Farm, Garden and Orchard Notes.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 16 April 1915, Page 1

Farm, Garden and Orchard Notes.

APRIL. r KITCHEN GARDEN. * Sow parsley, radish, salad plants seakale, rhubarb and asparagus. Clean up and mulch asparagus beds. Gather in pumpkins, vegetable marrows and melons as they ripen, and store them in a dry pLce. Take up carrots, parsnips and beet, storing then) in layers in dry sand; they will keep good this way tor a long while. Where there is any doubt of tomato plants being nipped by frost before the whole of the fruit has ripened, it is a good plan to take the plants up bodily and hang them root up- | wards, under cover. By this method many will be found still to ripen. FARM. Do all you have to do in sowing grass seed this month. Sow rape and turnip foryour sheep.and by all means sow rape with your grass, as, besides giving a bite for your sheep, it rather does good to the growth of the grass, and keeps it moist. Sow oats also for green crops, about three bushels to the acre. Plough up . your potato land for grain crops, I and bear in mind that early sow- | ing had better be thin, but later ! sowing njky be pretty thick. • For wheat sow one and a-half | bushels per acre. Cattle must be well attended to and well fed and sheltered if they are expected to thrive. Give them plenty of litter in the stock - yard, and places of shelter, as it serves the double purpose of benefiting the cattle and making manure. Let the making manure be a constant work every month. A good stack of raupo, well dried, is very good to throw into your stockyard if you have not an abundance of straw. Fern, although it may do for litter, will not make good manure, and it takes a very long time to rot. A good top dressing of lime and common soil, half and half,, is always useful to your paddocks. Even a top dressing ot common soil is beneficial. Burning bush should be finshed this month.

ORCHARD Finish off all digging and trenching of ground intended for new arohard, it would be as we;l to dig the holes that you intend planting in, lime them well, and leave open until you are ready to plant. As jour apples and other lruits ripen gather and store in' a well-aired fruit house, taking care :hat they are so stored that each class of fruit is kept separate and that none of the fruit is allowed to touch, the fruit house should be so constructed as to give plenty of ventilation, at the same time keeping the fruit perfectly dry. Pears should be kept quite apart irom any other fruit or they will be apt to rot. Figs will be ripe this month, and if gathered carefully and tied on to strings in the sun, will dry and keep twelve months or more, figs that do not quite ripen may be gathered and found to make most excellent preserve. Cape gooseberries will be ripe, if plants are old cut them back, and when frosty weather comes on cover them over, they will recover in the spring. FLOWER GARDEN. As winter in now approaching you may dig over, and clean up the garden generally, burn all rubbish and dig in leaves, plant early bulbs, and dig up and store all bubis tiiat may have been left. Cut back all plants that have finished flowering, chrysanthemums will be blooming now, water well with liquid manures, see that they are well tied up to strong stakes to prevent injury from the wind.