IN THE GARDEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 August 1940, Page 9

IN THE GARDEN

FOR THE FLAT

USE OF WINDOW BOXES. The most common objection to the installation of window boxes is that the drips of water from the boxes will disfigure and damage the house front. The reply to this criticism is that dripping window boxes are owned by the inexperienced. The elimination of drips is a simple matter. The flower lover can decorate the window sill with potted plants iHaced inside the window, box, or stand Fthe plants in saucers and surround the front and sides of the sill to create the illusion of a window box. This arrangement permits of the removal of the plants to an indoor sink for watering. There is only one reliable method of watering plants in pots; by the immersion of the pots in water until the water covers the surface of the soil. When the air bubbles have ceased to rise, the plant is watered, but not before. The plant can then be removed and allowed to drain before being returned to the sill. '' If the flat dweller is bent on growing the plants actually in the window box —the plants grown thus do seem 1 more closely to resemble a miniature garden—it is easy enough to construct a drip-proof box. The two sides and front of this type of box are exactly the same as in any other: the difference lies in the angle of the bottom of the box and its distance from the sill. The floor board of the box is inclined slightly, either to the front, or the back, of the box. and drainage holes are made at the bottom of the slope. A flat tin tray is slipped under the box in which the surplus ‘ water settles. Cutting winds, the bane of windowij box gardeners, can be defeated by foot wide strips of windowlite tacked around the edge of the box. These, while giving much-needed protection, in no way hinder the light from reaching the box or the passer-b.y from enjoying the beauty of a colourful display. -

THE ASPARAGUS BED

SOME USEFUL HINTS. Some people may think asparagus a luxury vegetable, but in reality it is not, for where there is room in the vegetable garden a well-established bed when well cared for will produce a lot of a most valuable vegetable at a time when young fresh plants are scarce.

Presuming that the instructions which were given on the preparation of a bed in the autumn were followed, that is, if the soil was a light loam that it be trenched two feet and a-half deep and liberally manured, or if a stiff clay that it be taken out to a depth of three feet, , drainage put in, and the bed made up with well-manured light loam. The site should be forked over, all lumps broken up, and if available • a good quantity of old mortar rubble : worked in. Sea sand is also useful for opening up a stiff soil.

Mark out the beds at three feet’ in width for two rows and five feet for three rows, with good, stout hardwood posts, and with the spade take out drills six inches wide and four inches deep at the sides, with a rise of two inches in the centre to form a crown. On the crown of the drill place the plants as soon as they arrive from the nurseryman at 18 inches apart, spreading the roots out evenly all round, and fill in the drill with the fine soil taken out. making it firm, and leaving the surface smooth and level. Beds can also be established by sowing a few seeds at pegs 18 inches apart, and if more than one germinates the seedlings can be thinned out to one at each peg. This method is not recommended, for at least a year is saved by planting out well-grown plants. •

Old-established beds should be weeded and the surface soil stirred up and a dressing of blood and bone manure at the rate of lioz to the square yard, or a mixture of 2oz superphosphate, 1 of sulphate of potash, and 1 of nitrate of soda applied at the same rate.

OLD LAWNS

HINTS FOR THE AMATEUR Fruit, Flowers and Vegetables WORK FOR THE WEEK VEGETABLE GARDEN. Sow parsnips in deeply-dug ground; if the canker is prevalent, add two ounces of salt for each square,yard of ground. Sow carrots, turnips and beet in small sowings for use in advance of the main crops. As.soon as lettuce plants are available, get in a good planting. Keep the early potatoes well moulded up in case of late frosts. Leeks need a long season of growth and seed should be put in as soon as soil conditions permit. Hoe up the early cabbage bed and apply a pinch 'of nitrate of soda. Make successional sowings of peas to follow on the early varieties. FRUIT GARDEN. Apply the'spray for peach jleaf curl as soon as the buds are seen to oe moving. Get all materials ready for grafting fruit trees; the best time is when the ;sap is rising. Most fruit trees will benefit from applications of manure at this season. Keep |the strawberry bed well hoed, but avoid going too 'close to the crowns. Tie up the raspberry canes and remove surplus canes which are not required. ’ ' ' FLOWER GARDEN. Inspect the beds of hardwood cuttings and tread up firmly any which have been loosened by frost. Insert chrysanthemum cuttingsras they become available. Apply a topdressing of manure to the rose beds. Complete the planting of deciduous, trees and shrubs as soon as possible. Fleshy-rooted perennials are best planted now the soil is becoming warmer.

ROTATION OF CROPS

HOW TO RENOVATE THEM. Unless watched and manured and cultivated old lawns soon become overrun with weeds and moss, and the finer grasses which we desire die out. Owing no doubt largely to the wet and cool autumn, moss is particularly bad this spring, and this is an indication of either or both of two conditions —poverty of the soil and lack of drainage. All lawns should be drained either with agricultural pipes or stones, for unless water gets away quickly they become sodden, and apart from the encouragement of moss and weeds, they are not so useful during the summer when saturated after every shower. Agricultural pipes should not be laid too deep, two feet and a-half at the maximum, and if the soil is a heavy clay it is better to fill the trench on top of the pipes to within six inches of the surface with rough clinkers, brickbats, or rotten rock. If drains are already laid, see that they are functioning properly. The second condition, poverty of the soil, can be put right with proper manuring and topdressing. First of all, the moss should be raked off with a steel rake and the surface soil scarified or light pricked up with a rigging fork. This aerates the soil and enables the topdressing to join with the soil below. All perennial weeds, such as daisies, cape weeds, and plaintains should be dug out if in fairly large patches, and after making good the depressions or holes where the weeds have been, some seed should be sown, the finer grasses, such as crested dogstail, browntop, and Chewing’s fescue being selected. If the grass is reasonably good, one ounce to the square yard will do, but it is better to put in plenty, and up to two ounces can be sown. Needless to state, the sowing should be done on a- calm day and while the surface soil is dry. The seed can be lightly raked in, but it is much better to cover it with about half an inch of fine sifted soil, which should be spread over the grass and all.

To each barrow load of soil should be added a five-inch potful of blood and bone manure, or a three-inch potful of superphosphate and a two-inch potful of sulphate of potash. Lime is also valuable in destroying moss by removing the acidity, and a dressing at the rate of four ounces to the square yard can be given before top-dressing. As soon as the grass seed germinates run over the lawn with a light, roller and give a dressing of lawn sand. To keep down broadleaved weeds which will destroy the lawn a dressing at the rate of four ounces to the square yard can be given at intervals of three weeks throughout the growing season. Some lawns are disfigured with worm casts, and though worms are really beneficial as far as growth is concerned, they are objectionable on lawns used for tennis or other games. They can be destroyed by watering with a solution of copper sulphate (one pound to twenty gallons of water) applied at the rate of half a gallon to the square yard. This will bring the worms to the surface, where they will die, and as they are poisonous to birds they should be swept up and burnt. Grass grubs are also destructive and when they are troublesome, water with colloidal arsenate of lead, one pound in thirty gallons of water, and apply at the same rate as the copper sulphate solution. Badlyinfected lawns where grass has been destroyed should be treated as advised for moss. Where the soil is very sandy or gravelly and liable to dry out, a little yarrow and suckling clover can be added to the grass seed mixture with advantage.

FOR THE VEGETABLE GARDEN. Before starting to plant or sow the vegetable garden it is most important to have a plan to work from, so that a rotation of crops can be followed and a succession maintained. No matter how small the plot rnay be. it can be planned so that the same kind of crop is not grown in the same piece of- ground year after year. The only exception is the onions, and even they are the better for a change, provided the necessary work and manure are put into the ground. Where space is available, it is advisable to divide the vegetable garden into four plots. One is devoted to what we -call permanent crops, such as rhubarb, asparagus, seakale, herbs and the seed bed for raising seedlings

BOUVARDIAS

of cabbages, cauliflower and other crops which are to be transplanted. Of the other three, one should be planted in potatoes, with a few rows of peas amongst them; another devoted to green or leaf crops (brassicas) such as cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, also lettuce, with a few rows of broad beans or peas among them; and the third to root crops, such as carrots, parsnips, beetroot, turnips and onions and spinach. Where there is only one plot, the positions of the rows can be altered, and from one side to the other. The advantages of a rotation ol crops are as follows:—(1) Different crops take up different quantities of the same soluble plant food from the soil, so to take full advantage of general manuring different crops have to be grown. (2) Crops root into different lays of the soil; for example, some are surface-rooters and only draw on the upper layers of the soil for thenfood, whereas others are deep-rooters and they send their roots down and collect from the lower layers. (3) Each crop has its own distinct kind o± disease, and by shifting the site from year to year the likelihood of the spores of the disease discovering thenhost at least in the early and most susceptible stage of their existence is reduced. As one portion of the vegetable garden should be trenched every year and all the rubbish buried in it, this is the plot which should be planted in potatoes. The plot for the brassicas should receive all the farm-yard manure which is available, and the following year this will not affect the root crops, which should not be grown on freshly-manured ground. As it is not desirable to grow any but the early, and perhaps the second early, potatoes which are dug green in a small town garden, then the position they occupy is available for the planting of winter greens in the beginning of of the year. The early peas an beans will also be over. In the brassica plot, in addition to the cabbages and. cauliflower with the rows of beans and. peas, there should be room for the leeks and the celery trench for both these crops require lots ol farm-yaid or stable manure. In the following year, when root crops occupy this p ol the runner beans should be in the 9 old celery trench, for they would appreciate both the deep cultivaation and the heavy manuring. By distributing the rows of peas or broad beans among the other crops they provide shelter, they grow up above the others, and do not shade them unduly, and they themselves get plenty of sunlight on both sides ol the rows I have not mentioned Jerusalem artichokes, though'they are very valuable for growing on the exposed margins of windy gardens, to provide shelter, and as a root crop are valuable in the winter.

EASY TO GROW. Bouvardias are such free flowering plants, and are so easy to grow, tool they are ideal plants for the home garden In the northern districts they are a welcome addition to the lowering plants of the borders, but in localit cs where frosts are severe they make ad mirable winter flowering plants foi tl egreenhouse. . , . Young plants can be obtained oy inserting shoots as cuttings, or the roots may be cut up into pieces about hal an inch long, and planted in sandy soil Vigorous plants are obtained by bo h methods, but the flowers aie Wtdely different in colour. This may accoun for some of the dissatisfaction apparent among those who have purchased plants from catalogue dcscritionsßoot cuttings taken from a plant w'th wh'tc or light coloured flowers will pioduc plants bearing red or deep pink blooms. The variety Bridesmaid, which produces white flowers from shoot cuttings, bears red flowers when grown from pieces of root, and the pale pin -. Princess of Wales has deep pink flowers when it is propagated from mot cuttings. The stems of light pm£oi white varieties have a core of i edd, sh tissue and a white or light pink skin As roots are without the outer tissue found on the stem, they give rise to plants bearing red or deep pink iio\ crs. , . _ Cuttings of roots or shoots may do taken now and inserted under glass in a warm greenhouse. When rooted, the young plants are potted on as required or in warm localities, planted out in nurserv rows. When the plants are established in the small pots, the tips should be pinched out. to three buds and the subsequent lateral shoots treated similarly to encourage a bushy habit. If required for greenhuse decoration they should be removed by the end of March to the house, where they will flower for many w :oks.