STRAWBERRY BEDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1941, Page 8

STRAWBERRY BEDS

HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM. Remove the weeds from the strawberry bed. Make the soil firm around the plants, then give a light dressing of nitrogenous manure, such as sulphate of ammonia or nitrate of soda. Prick the manure into the soil with a fork, but do not let it come into contact with the plants. Established beds should be cleaned in a similar manner and well-decayed farm manure or artificial fertiliser forked lightly into the soil. A good fertiliser can be made up of one part sulphate of ammonia and three parts each of superphosphate and sulphate of potash. Apply the fertiliser at intervals during the growing season at the rate of approximately two ounces per square yard. If, however, plenty of foliage is produced, as it often is during a wet season, the sulphate of ammonia can be omitted from the fertiliser. A PLANK USEFUL,IN GARDEN. One of the most useful accessories one can have in the garden is a fairly stout plank about 10 feet in length. When making drills it can be placed on the soil and with the point of a hoe run along the edge, perfectly straight drills can be made. Put along the edge of the lawn when trimming the verges with an edging iron a perfectly straight edge can be obtained. Rested on bricks to the level of the turf it takes one wheel of the mower so that the gress can be cut to the very edge without having to trim with the shears. The plank will be still more useful if it is divided with a red hot iron into feet and each foot marked into three, six and nine inch sections.