Farm, Garden and Orchard Notes.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 23 April 1915, Page 1

Farm, Garden and Orchard Notes.

APRIL. » KITCHEN GARDEN. 9 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 place. Take up carrots, parsnips and beet, stort ing them in layers in dry sand; they will keep good this way tor a long, while. Where there is any doubt of tomato plai.ts being nippad by frost before the whole of the fruit has ripened, it is a . good plan to take the plants I up bodily and hang them root upwards, under cover. By this I 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, and hear in mind that eariy sowing had better be thin, but later sowing may be pretty thick. For wheat sow one and. a-half bushels per acre. Cattle must beweii attended to and well led and sheltered f they are expected to thrive. Give them plenty of litter in the stock - y t .rd, 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 eve.y month. A good stack of raupo, well dried, is very good to turow 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 archard, it would be as well to dig the holes that you intend planting in, lime them well, and leave open until you are ready Do plant. As jour apples' and other fruits ripen gather and store in a well-aired fruit house, taking care that 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 from any other fruit or they will be apt to rot. Figs will be ripe this month, and if gathered carefully and tied oi> 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 baok, and when frosty weather comes 011 cover them over, they will recover in the spring.

FLOWER GARDEN. As winter in now approaching you may dig over, and clean up the gulden generally, burn all rubbish and dig 111 leaves, plant early bulbs, and dig up and store all bulus that may have been left. Cut back all plants that have finished flowering, chrysanthemums will bo blooming now, water well with liquid manures, see that they are well tipii up to strong stakes to prevent injuiy from the wind.