FARM AND GARDEN OPERATIONS FOR MAY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 50, 7 May 1873, Page 3

FARM AND GARDEN OPERATIONS FOR MAY.

COREESFONDING TO NOVEMBER IN EUROPE. Farm.—The wet season will have now set to, and out-door, work must be. regulated accordingly. See to the/iir/wc#, ditches, and drains, and never allow water to lodge on ground under crops; young stock and ruilch cows must be kept up in condition: yards and sheds put in repair; have plenty of litter, fern, and any other material that can be converted into manure, spread to the sheds; keep cattle dry and comfortable, for the cold winds and rain very soon take flesh off ; there should also be plenty of food, such as Swedish turnips, mangolds, carrots, sugar grass, and maize, with a little hay in. very wet weather. Prepare cleared bu'sh land for wheat; sow and chip it to with a hoe, two bushels to the acre. Sow oats for spring feed; make drains where required i; bridge and repair roads. ,) Kitchen Garden.—Late crops of peas over, manure and dig the ground ; if required for nothing else, sow with oats to keep weeds under. Sow last crop of turnips, also carrots, onions for spring; stif the soil ainbngst spinach, lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, and earth up. Clear off decayed crops; dig up kumeras and late potatoes ’; gather in pie melons, pumpkins, vegetable marrow, tomatoes, and melons, preserve in a dry airy place, free from damp; celery, earth up ; Indian corn and millet gather in as it ripens ; hoe and thin the crops ; cut down stems of asparagus, and fork up the surface; rhubarb, if the beds have been down three years trench it out of the ground for three months, and re-plant in spring. Fruit Garden.—Gather in late crops of pears and apples as they arrive at maturity. Prepare ground for new plantations by trenching two feet deep, drain if necessary ; have the ground well pulverised,’lay’-in bbnedust to mix with the soil at planting time. Fork round established fruit trees,, and add manure where the soil is poor. Strawberry plantations forked between thefrows and all runners destroyed, manuring defer till spring; raspberries may be forked also. Flower Garden. — Dahlia roots matured may be, carefully lifted; secure labels to the roots with thin wire, lay them out to dry previous to storing away for the winter. Plant ‘tulips and anemones, hyacinths, a few in pots; plunge the pots two inches under the soil till the leaves begin to show above ground, then ;remove pots to greenhouse or window to flower. It is tdo parly to plant for flowering in the open air, as rain destroys flowers in early spring. A few ranunculus roots may be planted; jonquils, narcissus, Spanish iris, sparaxis, and ixias.