GARDEN NOTES

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21371, 15 March 1941, Page 14

GARDEN NOTES

SEASONABLE WORK

(By “Nikau”) VEGETABLES AND FRUIT Plant winter cabbage (savoys, drumhead and succession), borecole (kale), cauliflower, leeks and late celery. Sow lettuce, spring cabbage (Copenhagen Market, Flower of Spring, and the old favourite. Enfield Market), turnip (white, and yellow, such as Orange Jelly), winter spinach, parsley, onion, endive, cauliflower, silver beet and perpetual spinach. If spare ground is available, sow lupins now to dig in as green manure in June or July; one ounce to a square yard is a fair quantity. Examine onions in store; this is a good time to “ string ” them (on rope or on wire). Potatoes should also be examined; they will not keep well if they have not been properly dried, and if the bruised and diseased tubers have not been put aside. The main crop of potatoes is ready for lifting; set aside a few particularly good roots for seed—large and small. Expose to light for a few days, but do not leave them long on the ground, otherwise they will be either burnt by the sun or attacked by potato moth. Give tomato plants a final spraying with Bordeaux (loz. to 1 gal.) to check disease. Also search the young fruits for caterpillars. Destroy all diseased fruit by burning, or digging in at least one foot deep. Bud fruit-trees, especially peach and nectarine; each may be budded on the other, and on almond and apricot. FLOWERS Keep seed-heads removed from dahlias, gaillardias, roses, etc. Save seed from the best African and French marigolds, lupins, delphiniums, asters and Orange Flare cosmos. Sow the seed of perennials and biennials, including anemone, ranunculus, delphinium, pansy, viola, carnation, Sweet Wivelsfield, thalistrum, polyanthus and pentstemon. Lily seed will soon be ripe; it should be sown very soon in boxes apd kept in a fairly shady place. Plant daffodil, crocus, lachenalia, freesia, tulip, hyacinth and similar plants in the open ground and also in pots and baskets. Sow lawns if the soil has been properly prepared and surface-stirred several times, otherwise give it the required treatment and sow in April. Sow winter-flowering sweet peas in trenches made in a dry, sheltered plot, perhaps along a sunny fence. Plant Iceland poppies for winter flowers. A sowing can be made at any time this month for spring flowers.