EARLY CROPS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 August 1939, Page 3

EARLY CROPS

MAKE FULL USE OF SPACE. It may seem to be quite unnecessary to form celery trenches now, but their formation would be a help as regards garden work, and a means towards hastening certain other crops. The space beween the trenches —24 or 30 inches —can be utilised for French breakfast radishes, and turnips, because the soil there is deeper, richer and warmer than on the level ground. In the meantime, the cultivator can raise some valuable early seedlings of lettuce, cauliflowers, cabbages, and the earliest winter greens, and a catchcrop of radishes ini the trenches themselves without doing any harm. How often do we see these tpenches unoccupied for many weeks ' before the celery is planted out? These early crops do not materially minimise the valud of the soil for its summer occupants, but to replenish any loss of nourishment, one can easily add a nice top layer of compost when the time comes to finally plant out the celery. When opening celery trenches, do not dig down and throw up sub-soil from a great depth. Nothing worth having will grow in that. Make one ridge of the top spit for the catchcrops and a second ridge of the deeper sub-soil, which, when the time comes, can be used for the purpose of earthing up the celery. When second-early and maincrop potatoes are planted follow the old plan of dropping in some seeds of broad beans between the potato sets. The bean plants do not interfere with the potatoes, and generally yield a fine crop of pods. Only in exceptional cases would one advocate the planting of cauliflowers and broccolis between the rows of potatoes. Kale can be put in with good results after earthing-up of late sorts.

Peas, especially the early dwarfgrowing varieties, afford a welcome shelter for one or two rows of lettuce plants and summer spinach.

The most economical way to grow runner beans is to have the row as near as possible to a water supply, because it is only those plants which never suffer from drought that can yield a huge crop throughout the summer months. Prepare the shallow trench now for the bean seeds, and, in the meantime, have a double row of shallots on each ridge and transplant Brussels sprouts - and autumn broccoli in the bottom of the trench itself. These plants will be sturdy specimens when the time comes to plant them in their permanent quarters after the lifting of the earliest potatoes. Where large gatherings of runner beans are wanted, they should be planted in rows 10 or 12 feet apart with early potatoes or cauliflowers between. When the last two crops are cleared, sow turnips, such as Orange Globe or Greentop Stone. Where outdoor tomatoes arc grown this is a nice, sheltered, yet open position for strong pot-grown specimens to be planted in. Thus, full crops of runner,

beans and tomatoes may reasonably be expected.

The least satisfactory intercropping is that where cabbages, cauliflowers broccoli, and winter greens come between tender, surface-rooting plants, as the first-named absorb most of the nutriment and so rub the latter. To mention one more example of intercropping, it is good practice to plant dwarf French beans on ridges between shallow trenches formed to grow leeks in. Do the work exactly the same as in the case of the celery referred to above. Grand crops of these beans can be grown in this simple way.