FARM AND GARDEN OPERATIONS FOR JULY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 67, 5 July 1873, Page 2

FARM AND GARDEN OPERATIONS FOR JULY.

(From Chapman s Almanac). Farm. —This is generally the severest month in the year, with continuous cold, sloppy weather. Cattle will require more than ordinary attention, as there is very little strength in grass at this season. This is the season for in-door work; never work land during wet weather, you will find it more profitable to keep the horses in the stable and let the land alone. Towards the end of this month put in a few early potatoes, but only in a light dry soil; put them in drills twenty inches apart and ten inches between the sets; cover them three inches deep, and when they are about four inches high, earth them up. Beans and wheat still sow in favorable weather. Do not allow water to lodge on newly sown ground. New ground may be ploughed first time. Keep heavy stock on high land in wet weather; look after them daily. Cows calving require attention; in wet, cold nights keep them in, and feed with hay and green oats. Sheep must be watched, and kept on high ground. Cart manure from sheds and piggeries, make a heap and cover with mould, it will be valuable for spring potato planting. Horses will require dry food, hay or straw, to keep them in condition.

Kitchen Garden. —Embrace every opportunity to trench vacant ground; throw it up as roughly as possible, heavy rains will percolate through it without hardening the surface. General sowing of parsnips, onions, and early peas when the ground is fit —that is when it does not adhere to the soles of the shoes; a few carrots may also be sown on dry, light, warm soil; slugs are troublesome. In season— celery, leeks, cabbage, cauliflower, beet, turnips, carrots, parsnips, radish, lettuce, onions, spinach, kumera. Fruit Gabdbn. — Prune apricots, peaches, pears, plums, cherries and gooseberries. Peach trees, thin as much of the old wood out as possible ; dead shoots, cut to the live-part, the bark will grow over the wound; shorten back previous year’s growth to six or nine inches, and unripened shoots ent clean out; peaches bear on wood matured the previous year. Cherries require very little pruning, except Kentish and Morillo, in the young state, shorten back to form heads. Plums generally bear on two-year-old wood, cut out dead wood and shorten the shoots. The less pruning the pear has the first few years, it yields a better crop ; keep the tree balanced. Vines, cut in’two or three eyes, of the present year’s growth; dig round the* stems of old trees, add manure ft the surface. Flower (Arden.— Clear weeds from bulbs coming thnmgh the ground, and plant for succession; inr the surface. Collect decaying matter to concert into manure. Remove trees encroaching oil; one another. Dig shrubberies and regulate if too thick. Keep walks and lawns neat and clean. Any alterations should now be proceeded with, such as laying edgings, making additions to flower garden, cutting out new beds or borders and doing away with old ones, trenching and removing shrubs or trees when too think ar misplaced; many of the plants in the border or bed will require to be taken up yearly, divided and part re-planted, lot this be done as the dying proceeds.