YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 62, 30 August 1940, Page 47

YOUR GARDEN AND MINE

By

Ann Earncliffe

Brown

(No. 43)

S this has been a remarkably fine winter, many gardeners have found themselves well ahead of their usual schedule. This is good, up to a point; but it is apt to be a dangerous situation for the impatient or inexperienced grower who goes full steam ahead with large sowings or plantings, trusting that these same mild conditions will continue. I’m all for taking a gamble on the weather myself, but only in a small way. A row of early horn carrots in a warm spot where the soil is darkened from well raked in soot from the spring cleaned chimney is quite in order, also sowings of spinach, mustard and cress, lettuce and radish; and to keep up a succession, more green peas. First early potatoes are more of a gamble, though I can watch over these and cover them from a treacherous frost; but even on the most inviting hot bed I shall not yet risk pumpkin, marrow, or cucumber seed, You who have frostfree gardens can of course go ahead with all kinds of sowings, but I have seen November frosts lay waste a too

hopeful southern garden, so am still going softly, Vegetable Garden Rotation Wherever your garden is situated it is valuable to plan your cropping, and a rotational system is well worth while. Planning this rotation on a small plot requires some thought, but it can be managed, Divide your vegetable area into three sections: A, B and C. Section A: In the 1st year A will have peas and beans; 2nd year parsnips, salsify, carrots, turnips, red beet, onions, shallots and leeks; 3rd year, greens such as cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, savoys, kale, also autumn sown lettuce, endive, etc. Section B: Starts with roots; 2nd year, peas and beans; with green crops in 3rd year. Section C: Starts with greens; follows with roots; 3rd year, peas and beans. Potatoes, save for first earlies, when new potatoes are an expensive item and not usually grown in the very small garden. If in this rotation you desire to grow potatoes, they could in each section replace the legumes, and your peas and beans be grown where most convenient between the crops in all sections.

Permanent Features Apart from this sectional routine, which carries on through the years, you have your permanent features-say an asparagus bed and a rhubarb or globe artichoke patch. The edible flowers of the globe artichoke are profitable for 5 or 6 years. A sunny odd corner can be usefully made into a herb garden. In the small vegetable garden, it is wise to intercrop in each section during the growing season. Use the sides of celery or leek trenches (and edges of asparagus beds too) to grow quick maturing lettuce, radish, and summer spinach. These will have been used before the celery or leeks require the covering in soil on trench side. Early potato ground can grow white turnips, carrots or red beet, butter beans, broccoli or cabbage. Be sure in this intercropping that you plant out members of different families in succession. For example, don’t follow cabbage by brussels sprouts, but both could be set between rows of early peas, which would beneficially shade the young plants and be over before the cabbages come to maturity. For some time I lived opposite to a large Chinese market garden in the Hutt Valley, and those good and diligent neighbours showed me a thing or two about rotational and inter-planting gardening. Not one hour of daylight did they waste and not one foot of soil, and yet never did they impoverish soil or crop.