GARDEN NOTES

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21188, 10 August 1940, Page 14 (Supplement)

GARDEN NOTES

SEASONABLE WORK

(By “Nikau”)

VEGETABLES AND FRUIT Turn in as much green material as possible; it will rot much more quickly if cut a good deal with the spade before it is turned into the trench and mixed with the bottom soil. Lime a part of the vegetable garden every year, so that in three or four years every part will have been limed. Plant cabbage, silver beet, cauliflower, lettuce, rhubarb, shallots, onions, herbs (chives, thyme, mint, sage), and a few early potatoes (in shattered gardens). Sow broad beans, peas, turnip and lettuce. Stir the soil every now and then to sweeten it before sowing and planting. Cultivate frequently between the rows of growing crops. Plant bush fruits (gooseberries and currants), also ordinary fruit trees. Prune bush fruits, also peach and nectarine trees before they flower. Apple and pear trees can wait another week or so. Spray fruit-trees, also grape-vines and bush fruits. Clear up and burn the prunings, because these often include diseased woods. FLOWERS Stir the soil around all kinds of bedding-plants. Plant Iceland poppy, stock, calendula, primula, pansy, viola, sweet pea, antirrhinum. Prune hydrangeas; thin out the shoots, leaving perhaps only one out of three; cut the remainder back slightly, leaving two or three pairs of strong buds on each. It is still too early to plant out nemesias in ground exposed to heavy frost. Finish the pruning of roses in the next few days and bum the prunings. Plant hedges; the best plants for a town hedge are Abelia, Lonicera and Escallonia; the best for the country is Lawson’s cypress. Plant ornamental trees and shrubs, also hardy climbers. A list of these will appear later. Plant roses as soon as possible now. The ground is in excellent order for this work. During this month sow lawns which have been properly levelled (or graded), dug and cultivated. If all this preliminary work has not been done, it will be better to plant the ground with early potatoes. These can be dug before the end of December, and the ground can then be prepared for the sowing of the lawn grass in March or April—the best time in the year for such work.

VARIETIES OF FRUIT As the writer has received several enquiries lately concerning fruit trees, a brief list may be helpful to our readers generally. Dessert Apples: Gravenstein and Scarlet Pearmain (early); Cox’s Orange, Kidd’s Orange and Jonathan (early—mid-season); Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and Sturmer (later). A good selection is Gravenstein, Jonathan and Granny £smith. Cooking Apples: Ballarat Seedling end Washington. Granny Smith and Munroe’s are suitable both for dessert and for cooking). The best two are Ballarat and Granny Smith. Peaches (in order of ripening): Wiggins, Paragon, and Golden Queen. Blackboy is a good variety with red flesh, and ripens at about the same time at Golden Queen. Japanese Plums: Burbank and ©ultan. If a very early one is iwanted, try Sharp’s Early or Alpha. Nectarines are too prone to ripe rot. Pears do not do well if planted gingly. Lemions: Lisbon, Eureka, Meyer {preferably Lisbon). Oranges: A New Zealand grapefruit or Poorman Orange; the best strain of grapefruit is Morrison’s Seedless. When we make up our planting list, we should not forget passion fruit. The vines are succeptible to heavy frost, and should be planted against a sunny fence or trellis. The Chinese gooseberry is too vigorous for a small section, but very suitable for a large one. A grape-vine (such as Albany Surprise) is worth planting on a sunny fence even in a small garden. HOW TO SPRAY Whatever spray we are using it Is generally necessary to apply it with great force in order to drive it into cracks and crevices, where both Insects and fungoid pests’may hide. Another imDortant matter is to do the work thoroughly by going all round the tree and making sure that every bit above the ground has been reached. It is also necessary to see that the solution is applied in the form of a fine spray; when every bit of bark and foliage has been covered with a thin film, it is time to stop. Naturally, a dry day should be chosen for the work, and if there is no wind, so much the better for the evenness of the spraying, and the

safer for the eyes, the skin, and the clothes of the operator. There is generally a fair amount of latitude permissible in the strength of the solution or mixture, but it is wise to use the proportions recommended by the makers. Another matter to note is the proper cleaning of the spray pump after use; some mixtures are harmful to the rubber, others to the metal, while some spoil the next solution employed. For example, lime or nicotine, if left in the pump or vessels .will spoil red oil solution by preventing it from emulsifying. It is, therefore, an excellent plan to flush out the pump and the vessels with clean water immediately after any spraying is finished. As Bordeaux mixture spoils both itself and the container when put into tin or iron vessels, a wooden tub or barrel is the proper thing to use for this spray. Again, the work should be done at the proper time. The present is a suitable time for spraying with Bordeaux mixture all deciduous fruit trees. If neither fruit nor leaf buds have opened, the Bordeaux may be used at winter strength—lib of powder to six or eght gallons of water. An alternative is to spray with lime-sulphur (one in 10 or 15). A few days after one of these sprays the red oil spray should be used; this will kill scales and aphides, whereas the other common sprays check or keep off all the fungal diseases. Red oil can be made to emulsify perfectly in this way: Mix a pint of red oil with an equal quantity of very hot water, to which a few ounces of soap have been added. When this strong emulsion has been thoroughly mixed, it is added to the rest of the water—lo or 12 pints. If the water is known to be definitely “hard,” about one ounce of washing soda should be added to the hot water. Most sprays should be stirred frequently; this precaution applies especially to arsenate of lead and Bordeaux, because the heavy matter settles to the bottom. As a result, the top portion is ineffective, and the bottom part may be injuriously strong. It is interesting to note that some experiments that are being carried out by the Department of Agriculture seem to prove that solutions may be advantageously made much weaker than they are commonly made, provided that the trees or bushes are thoroughly covered and the spraying is done at the right time.