THE GARDEN. (From the Auckland "Star.") March 22.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 43, 29 March 1884, Page 3

THE GARDEN. (From the Auckland "Star.") March 22.

Kitchen Garden. Onions which are properly dried should be tied up on strings, and hung up to the rafters of a loft. They keep in this manner much longer and better than >* hen spread out on the floor. Onions, like fruit, are liable to be spoiled if one bad one happens to be in the heap. If they are hung up, bad ones can be easily detected and taken away They also like a free current of air passing through them. Continue digging, trenching,and manuring vacant pieces of ground, plant a few cabbages and cauliflowers, sow for succession. Sow a fresh batch of carrots, turnips, onions, and spinach for winter use. Tomatoes dust occasionally with lime, ashes or dried earth to keep down caterpillars, thin out foliage so as to expose the fruit to the sun. It will ripen better and quicker. Keep weeds down throughout this department. Give plenty of water to such vegetables as may require it, mixing a little liquid manure with it. Clip evergreen hedges so as to give them an opportunity to grow a little before the winter sets in.

Flower Garden. Continue die striking of cuttings of all bedding plants if possible. They all ought to be in the propagating bed before the end of this month. Water slightly every evening, taking the shade off and putting it on again in the morning. A good number of the herbaceous plants will now begin to look seedy. Remove all dead and decaying stems. Dahlias.— Continue the tieing up and thinnmgout; water freely. Give plenty of water and try by every means to increase the growth of autumn and winter flowering plants. Use liquid manure freely to these. Bovardias should receive special attention, as they are among the be^t flowers that are now coming into bloom The budded roses should be examined, and the ligatures loosened or removed. Bulbs lift, dry, and store past as they ripen.

Hints. Window Gardening for Young Ladies. — Don't plant yourself at the window in curl papers. By careful choice of situation and attention to aspect, young ladies may, by means of window gardening, successfully cultivate every variety of the sheepseyes (ovis oculm ardemj, and convert coxcombs from the single to the double variety with great success. Tomato Jam. — Make a puree of plain baked tomatoes without adding anything else. Add one pound of good moist sugar to every pound of puree and the juice of a large lemon. Reduce in a stew-pan to the required thickness. With a puree of green tomatoes it is not necessary to add any lemon juice, but more sugar must be used. Tomato jam makes excellent pies and puddings. Tomatoes, when preserved, are liable to ferment if they have not been sufficiently boiled. The bottles containing them should be looked to now and again. If any bubbles appear on the surface,the bottles must be uncorked and the froth skimmed off." They should then be half immersed in a pot of water, and boiled for half-an-hour before re-corking. Vines. — Bees and flies are frequently very destructive to ripe grapes while hanging on the canes. To keep these insects out of the vinery, nail some light canvas or tippany over the ventilators. Where this cannot be done, small muslin bags should be made in which to encase the bunches. Do not let the surface soil in vineries become so dry that the dust Mill rise. Sprinkle a little water over it occasionally. A little moisture in the atmosphere does little harm so long as there is a free circulation of air. Preserved Tomatoes. — If you grow tomatoes, and are lucky enough to have a larger crop than you can use at the moment, they may be preserved in strong brine. When wanted for use, they must be soaked in fresh water for several hours. If, on the other hand, you have a number of tomatoes that will not ripen, you may put them in a place where the sun can get fully on them, and in a short time they will become as red as if ripened on the vine. In Britain we used to hang the late, unripe tomatoes up to the glass in a pine-pit till they were ripe. When to Gather Fruit. — It is difficult to state the proper time to gather ,h° different varieties of fruit, for it is differcr conditions which must guide the grower these matters, and these conditions .n vary with the seasons, even in the sam locality. It is only experience and obser vation which will properly teach anyone to be successful. The general conditions to be observed are these : A few of the earlies will begin to mature and drop off. This is a sign that some of the fruit is ready for picking. The fruit, if ripe, will then readily part from the tree. Perhaps there is no surer method of determining maturity than the free parting of the fruit-stem from the branch. If the fruit is not matured, the stem will break ; better to leave it for some time longer. In picking fruit, care ought always to be taken that it receives no bruises. If v anted for keeping, when it receives the sli'=c«)test bruise rapid decomposition sets in. Every bruise bursts some of the divisional cells containing the juice, and this juice speedily passes from the stage of spirituous fermentation to that of putrefaction. Keeping Pears.— Pears are delicate fruit to handle. If picked too early they shrink, become tough, and almost tasteless as far as flavour is concerned. If permitted to remain on the tree till ripe, the sun will evaporate part of its aroma, thus lessening its flavour as well as its juiciness. It therefore wants careful picking and handling from the time it leaves the tree till it is u»ed. Pears which are slightly bruised will not keep long ; decomposition is rapid. After picking, it should never be kept long in the light, as the evaporation will be too rapid. To ripen pears properly they should be in a cool dark place— neither too damp nor too dry, and where the air is quite pure. Pears readily absorb impurities from the air, etc. Perfectly pure air, darkness and coolness, so that they may slowly ripen without evaporation, is what is wanted. I have know some growers take the pears and place them on a blanket on the floor a slight distance apart, then cover them with another blanket The air, in passing through the blanket, is filtered of a portion of its impurities. Seed-Saving. — Whenever seeds are ripe they should be picked, and where there are a few varieties, it is better to exercise a little care so that they do not get mixed or their names lost. A very good plan is to get email paper boxes, and put the seed pods in these for a few days, till they become dry ; then rub the seeds out, pick away all remains of the pods and stems, and clear away any dust by blowing it off. Then put ihe seeds up in small packages, writing the name of each variety on every package. Seeds M'ithout a name are almost valueless, as, when the time for sowing comes round, it is a puzzle to tell what they are. Writing the names will save much trouble and * uessing. After putting them in their packages, store them away in some cool, dry place till they are wanted for use. Vitality of Sued.— lf seeds have been well-grown, well-ripened, and are kept from be influence of air and fair* '*■* 4t * 'wing

is a pretty correct account of bhoir keeping powors : — Peas, beans, French beans, carrots, and parsnips will only keep sound and good one year. Leeks, radishes, tomatoes, cress, and scarletrunning beans will keep two yeai's. Seakale, lettuce, and endive will keep threo years 4 spa vagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflowers, mustard, spinach, and turnips will keep four years. Chervil, parsley, beet, and celery will keep six years. Vegetable marrows ana pumpkins have grown after being kept eight years. Cucumbers and melons have been said to have retained their vitality for forty years, but notwithstanding all this, in nearly all cases new seeds if well grown and ripened ai'e best. Soot in tub Garden. -Soot is valuable for the ammonia which it contains, and also for its power of re-absorbing ammonia. The creosote it contains is valuable as an insect destroyer, and as a fertiliser of all garder crops. If the soil is dry a little coarse salt may be mixed with soot. Lime and soot should never be mixed together ; lime destroys the ammonia. Soot that has been steeped in water for two or three days is as good a fertiliser as horse-hoof parings for house plants, and increases the vividness of the bloom of flowers in the open air. Soot and salt, in connection with compost — one quart of salt to six quarts of soot — is an excellent fertiliser for asparagus, onions, cabbage, etc. Two bushels of compost makes a heavy dressing for eacii square rod of ground, to be worked into the surface of the hoil.