GARDEN NOTES.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 11, 28 May 1920, Page 14

GARDEN NOTES.

RIIUBARB. With all the good fru'h with which we are blessed, the old-fashioned plebeian rhubarb cannot be passed over, espei cially durin.g the winter and spring, j Every garden, especially any that have ; to supply a family, should grow a row | of it. Probably it is not possible t.t | produce with as little trouble the ir.assive stalks seen in colder districts, but with a little trouble good usable sticks can be produced through-out tho winter and spring, when other fruits are scarce. Rich ground and plentv of water during the summer are required. As to how rich to make the so;l it seems the only limit is the pocket of the owner, for it simply revels in good fat manure. Ihe bert method of dealing with rhubarb is to dig out a trench about eighteen inches cleep, and fill it with stable manure. Ihe manure can be in a fairly fresh condition so long as it not hot. Failing stable manure, use old veget-able refuse, Well tread the manure into the trench, and then add the soil. Put all the soil back, it will mean heaping it up, but this will nc. matter as it will soon go down. Plant the crowns so that they are, when first put in, about two inches below the surfaoe of the soil. When it has settled down the crown will be on the ground ievel. Two to three feet should be allowed between the plants, and three to four feet between the rows. The weekly washing' water, diluted with cleax water to twice its bulk, is admirable for the rhubarb, and can be poured on every week after washing. Even during tho winter it is often beneficial to give a soaking of water. Old beds should be heavily mulched with stable manure, and have two ounces of superphosphate to the square yard applied at once. Rhubarb should not be pulled the first season after planting, and or.ee a bed is growing well there is 110 need to rnove it for many years provided plenty of manure is applied yearly. FINENESS OF SOIL. A gardner should always remernber that the productiveness of his soil depends largely upon the fmeness of the soh particles. A small plot well tilled

can be made to produce as much as a p'oi twice as large but badly tilled. A liitlt. hard cube of soil will have six sides; if this cube is broken the result is twelvc sides — two cubes. O11 each of these sides a small water films can hang, and it is these small water films that dissolve out the particles that form plant food, and it is to these films that the small root hairs travel to take np these small particles of water which contain their fx>d. The result of well workmg i a soil, or t-illa-ge as it. is called, is to increase these small cubes of soil by making them as small as possible but by so doing iricreasing their number. The number of food dcpots is thus increased, and the plant is encouraged in consequence to send out more little root hairs to ahsorb this food, and we have an increased roc.t system, and naturally an increased plant. Jethro Tull, in 1753, when advocating more extended cultivation, ref.erred to this fxnely-pulverised soil as "root pasture," ani this sums up the case — by increasing the pasturage we can keep more stock. Almost all garden soils contain an almost inexhaustible supply of plant food if only it eould he made available, and .the only way it can be made ready for the roots is th rough the dissolving action of these little films of water. Furthexmore not only does tillage increase the water-hold-ing capacity of a soil, but it also increasea the air-holding capacity, cncourage the growth of bacteria, especially such forms as are engaged in the work of nutrification or the changing of the nitrogen of the atmosphere into nitrates, in which form it is available as plant food.