HINTS FOR THE AMATEUR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 May 1941, Page 8

HINTS FOR THE AMATEUR

Fruit ? Flowers and Vegetables WORK FOR THE WEEK VEGETABLE GARDEN. There is still time to make a sowing of broad beans where the soil is well drained. Any land not required for immediate crops should be dug over and left rough for the air and frost to sweeten the soil. Look over the onions in store to make sure that none are going soft or rotten. Plant out cabbage and cauliflower for spring use; hoe between and mould tip the earlier-planted crops. Masterton growers generally find Sutton’s Flower of Spring and Harbinger the most reliable varieties. Plant shallots, tree and potato onions, and sow onion seed for later crops. FRUIT GARDEN. Plant out strawberries in well-prepared ground. i Where possible, rake up the fallen leaves of fruit trees and burn them; many disease spores are got rid of in this way. The suckers should be removed from fruit trees at this season; get well down to the point of origin; it is useless to just cut them off. As soon as the leaf has fallen .from the fruit trees, the pruning can commence. Deal with the stone fruits first, as these will be the first to'flower. Fruit trees must have plenty of lime. FLOWER GARDEN. Clean the corms of (gladioli when they have dried off and store in a dry, cool place. Overhaul the herbaceous borders and lift, divide and replant where necessary. Plant out pansies, stocks, Iceland poppies, calendulas, primula malacoides and bellis perennis to make a show' in spring. Where the grass seeds on new lawns 'have made good headway it should be mown over with a sharp scythe. The late-flowering tulips should be liberally planted now.