ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 792, 12 October 1929, Page 32

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

Tsuma and Others: (1"> Plant your pumpkins as early as possible after frosts are finished. Set the seeds on beds of rotted cow or stable manure and apply plenty of waterings through the summer weather. Heads of the male dower may be picked and the pollen brushed against the female flowers, thus ensuring a better crop. (2) Next season set your broad beans much earlier. The cold weather does not affect them much. They should then come into bearing before the bumble bee starts. The only thing to do now is to spray with arsenate of lead. (3 and 4) A catalogue has been posted to you where you may be able to get the goods required. Mrs. F., Tauranga: Peas should never be watered with nitrate of soda, as the plants make their own nitrogen and thus an extra supply would choke them and cause the foliage to turn yellow. I suggest you dig in rotted stable manure or blood and bone and sow a crop on top of these. Myrtos: The name of the shrub submitted is Forsythia Viridissima. . J.R.S.. Parnell: Water your plants with sulphate of ammonia, loz a gallon of water. Subscriber. Rotorua: The only way to propagate is by saving seed from the blooms now in flower. Sow about the middle of November for flowering next spring. A fair proportion will come true. Au excellent manure may be made of kelp, the easily rotted variety of seaweed. Dry about 561 b. of it thoroughly in the open air, but do jiot let it be washed with rain or have w-ater come in contact with it, or its phosphatic and potash contents will be largely minimised. The rotted dried weed may then be mixed with about 281 b. of dried and rotted manure and about 101 b. of blood and bone. The whole must then he thoroughly broken up and well mixed. It is especially god for asparagus and all vegetables.