GARDENING FOR APRIL.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 5 April 1917, Page 3

GARDENING FOR APRIL.

KITCHEN GARDEN.

Continue to plant cabbage, Savoy, and lettuce for succession. Tie up a few endive and lettuce every fortnight to blanch. Mustard, ciess, radishes and pricKly spinach sow according to requirements. Carrots and turnips, sow for winter and spring use. Sow cabbage and cauliflower. Give a liberal supply of manure water to celery previous to moulding up. Mould up cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, etc. Attend to gathering fruit of egg plant and chilie3. ■ Pumpkins and pie-melons, gather and store a>vay in a dry, airy place. Cucumbers, rock and water-melons will be over for the season. Clear away the old vines, and have the ground thoroughly dug or trenched, if nocessiry, and manured, in readiness for cropping. Attend to gathering nil crops as they come to maturity, especially onions and late-planted potatoes. Clear away all rubbish, as it not only looks unsightly, but forms a harbour for insects. Dig and trench all vacant ground. Sow with oats or mustard any land not intended for cropping until spring. Sow parsley this month. FLOWER GARDEN. All annuals past flowering should be cleared off. Sow a few hardy kinds for early flowering. Lift layers of carnations, etc., and plant either in a bod together or where intended to remain. Plant out antirrhinums, pansies, pensieraons, etc. Plant sweet peas, anemones, hyacinths, irises, narcissi, tulips, crocuses, etc, for early flowering. The foliage of all perennial plants should be cut away as it decays, and all plants ought to be marked or labelled to indicate their whereabouts. Spaces will be left through lifting tender plants and decay of others; a few hyacinths, tulips, ixias, etc., can be put in to fill their places, and tfiey, in their turn, can be removed when they have done flowering to^Tnake room for the border plants for another seasou. Let the border have a good dressing of manure, and dig or touch it in at the same tirn<\ See that the whereabouts of all summer bulbs and tubers is properly marked. THE ORCHARD. All digging and trenching of ground intended for a new or an extension of an old orchard should be finished this month. Remove raspberry suckers that are not wanted, and make strawberry plantations if not done last month, Tie up trees and long shoots againfrt approaching winter winds. Remove tendrils and laterals from vines. Continue to collect apples snd other fruit as they become fit to pull. Handle them gently and mark the good and inferior sorts that you may cut back the latter and graft with the former. Late keeping pears and apples should be stored where the exhalations from earlier ripening ; sorts cannot reach them. Air may be admitted when the outside temperature is about equal to that inside the fruit-house. When air warmer than that in the fruit roomis admitted, it causes moisture to; gather on the fruit, which has the effect of makiag it mould and rot. Gooseberries and currants may be propagated by cuttings towards the end of the month. Take care to remove all buds from" the lower part of gooseberry cuttings as high as three inches above the depth they are inserted in the ground. Look well to your figs that they become not over^ripe, and your grapes, and if you want a bunoh of thft latter to keep fresh for a while, cut it with a little of the wood. Cape gooseberries require looking after; gather the fruit before it falls off, and spread out to dry before husking. Look well to all drains and watercourses of every kind. Stone fruits should be planted as soon as the trees can be obtained; any trees intended to be moved should be done now. i """ " FARM. Finish sowing all grasses as early as poseib.le in the month,. This is a good month, \o sow Algerian oats; two bushels seed to. the acre sown now will give good results, and will allow being fed off once oy twice before shutting fqr oi'Qp,; Then oats may b,e sown, from, now up till SepterAbef. Lift all potatoes, and/if not sold {immediately put into good pits. Now that the blight is here it is advisable to. keep in the. bags for a short time, and re-pick before pitting. Clean out drains and watercourses.