CURRANTS AND GOOSEBERRIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 December 1938, Page 3

CURRANTS AND GOOSEBERRIES

HOW TO PRUNE. THEM. Gooseberries arc either pruned too hard or not pruned at all, and, when hard pruning has been carried out in the winter, the growth of young wood is excessive, choking up the centre of the bushes and preventing the sun from getting in to ripen the fruit and the wood. While still young the unwanted growths can be rubbed out, but. if well developed, they will have to be cut. The extension system whereby fairly long growths should be pinched back'to four leaves and the leading shoot allowed to develop to its full length. In the case of red currants, which bear their fruit on the old wood, the side branches can be pinched back like the gooseberries, and the main shoots allowed to develop to their full extent. With black currants it is better to rub out- the unwanted shoots altogether, and allow the young wood, which bears the fruit, to ripen properly. If either gooseberries or currants have not been pruned regularly it is better to allow them to develop as they may than to try and prune them now. They will bear quantities of fruit, but in time will become a tangled mass of branches, most of which are dead.

Raspberries are also inclined to send up too many young suckers and as they bear the crop next season they should be thinned out, the weakest being removed. Not more than six or seven should be left on each stool.

WEEDY LAWNS

GET RID OF DAISIES. Daisies spoil the appearance of a well-kept lawn and are not easy to eradicate. Their leaves are so low that the mower blades pass over them. As each leaf kills the grass beneath it, a bare spot is left to disfigure the lawn when the daisy is removed. The foliage is easily killed by various chemicals, or by a piece of sulphate of ammonia as large as a hazelnut placed in the centre of the crown. Where, however, the top only is destroyed, little or no satisfaction results, because the roots produce more shoots. Lawn sand, containing sulphate of ammonia, given as a dressing three times at intervals of a fortnight, discourages many of the vzeeds, but this must be followed up by attacking isolated weeds with a weeding fork. Perennial weeds of all descriptions should be persistently dealt with until eradicated.