VEGETABLE GARDEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 774, 21 September 1929, Page 36

VEGETABLE GARDEN

HOW TO MANURE No one doubts that fertilisers—we prefer this term to “artificial manures” —may be economically used in market gardens, though most gardeners realise it is inadvisable to rely upon them exclusively. A dry season may upset all calculations. -and a full manuring with farmyard manure, costly as it has now become iu comparison with fertilisers, is most likely to give the better return. Farmyard manure adds humus t.o the soil, and in the case of a very dry, sandy one is to be preferred, and in the case of a dry season will help to retain the moisture in the soil. On the whole, a judicious combination seems to be best, though more experiments are wanted. We have gardened on both a stiff clay and upon a barren sand, and have found that a mineral dressing, that is an application of fertilisers, improves the fertility of the soil immensely. Another point gained by the application of fertilisers is that of quality, though some fast growing vegetables may lose iu flavour. At any rate, we have noticed that when growing silver beet on a small scale with nitrate and sulphate of ammonia, combined with manure, that this is the case. The resulting crop was decidedly insipid, far more so than an adjoining crop on unfertilised ground. Phosphates, in the form of superphosphate may be safely used for all root crops, cabbages, cauliflowers and their relatives, and, in fact, for all crops generally, being the next important constituent of manure to nitrogen. For those growing on a large scale, a couple of hundredweight of superphosphate to an acre of land previously manured with farmyard manure lor a former crop, will bring along a crop of spring cabbages or some similar crop very well and economically, though a dressing in the spring of nitrate or sulphate "of ammonia will be advisable. Spring planted crops are more liable to suffer from drought in their latter stages, and it would be advisable to include some manure to help retain the moisture of the soil. The exceptions are, of course, carrots, parsnips, turnips and other root crops, which should never be grown on freshly manured ground, owing to the tendency of the roots to fork. Ground for root crops should always be well manured for a previous leaf crop.