THE PLAIN MAN'S GUIDE TO PLAIN GARDENING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 11

THE PLAIN MAN'S GUIDE TO

PLAIN GARDENING

(or French beans without tears)

s [a ail }-OR the home gardener if for no one else, August-to prune and bud the poet’s line-is a cruel month, With true Spring (saith the astronomers) only a month away, he looks out at his winter crop of weeds and the odd bare patches of soil heavy from Winter frost and rain and decides that, the unfinished Rugby season notwithstanding, something must certainly be done. Unless he is one of your enthusiasts who like gardening, his face grows longer with the lengthening days, and he begins to wonder, as he did (remember?) at this time last year, whether his plot of earth is really fruitful enough to justify the sacrifice of a Spring and Summer of weekends-for like many another his only real concern is to do what he can to balance the family budget. Should he make do with the old faithfuls again, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and a forest of silver beet-enough, he hopes, to justify "one quarter of needs supplied" in his census return? Or is there some method or magic by which he can hope to emulate the garrulous old .greenfingers next door, whose overgrown lettuces and smug smile. displayed just above fence level father the wish that he would go smother himself in his own compost? These were the questions, as warmly argued in The Listener affice as on the suburban perimeter, that sent our scouts out last week, eyes and ears tracking like radar scanners, in search of the answers. ‘For a start, we were not surprised to find that those who doubt whether home gardening is worthwhile at all are a pretty numerous tribe. Briefly their view is that by the time their crops are .ready after an enormous amount of labour the shops are full and prices at bedrock. Could it be that the answer to that objection lies in a little simple planning? Another question the sceptic asks is: What, at the best of times, do we save? Well, in Holland, for example, it’s estimated that 25 per cent of vegetables are grown in home gardens. In New Zealand it’s not known for certain, though the recent census will! no doubt say a word on the subject. Even if 25 per cent is the figure -and that may.be a little low for New Zealand-the grow-your-own advocates argue reasonably enough that it’s a substantial and worthwhile saving. Apart

from this question of: economy, there’s the convenience of the housewife to consider (a matter of no little importance) and the superiority of fresh-from-the-garden vegetables — good-looking, fine in texture and flavour, and full of nutriment. Everyone knows that vege‘tables are much better in every way eaten soon after they’re cut, plucked, pulled or dug. (Sweet corn, for example, in an average temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit, loses half its sugar in 24 hours.) Of course, the garden enthusiast doesn’t rely on these arguments, but his "love of healthy exercise at a congenial occupation" and "opportunity to commune with nature" (weeds, worms, rain, drought, aphids, white butterflies, cats, birds, and the ever-helpful little woman) are likely to scare off the reluctant fringe altogether. If, leaving him aside, we decide that for strictly practical reasons home gardening can be worthwhile, where do we go from there? First get your soil, then classify it, is the way Mrs. Beeton could have started if she had been writing about garcening instead of cooking, and she might have set about the task of classification with a game of "vegetable or mineral"? More scientific yourself, you could broadly describe your soil, or anyone else’s, as either mineral or organic -that is, peaty. The obvious difference in mineral soils is in their texture, from coarse to fine-from sands through various loams to clay. Fighting the good fight against infertility, whatever soils you have should be fit for crops to live in-and they apparently, like humans, need air, liquid and an adequate and well-balanced supply of foods. Sandy soils tend to be poor suppliers of plant food, especially nitrogen and potash, and draining easily they don’t hold much water. So, they’re "early" soils, but dry out in summer. To grow good crops in these sandy soils you must add_ fertilisers-potash, nitrates and phosphate-and in Summer they’ll keep you as busy with the hose as-a barman on Christmas Eve. Green manure crops and compost will increase the organic matter in them. In general they need less lime than, say, clay soils, and, of course, against the helping hand they do need, in other directions you balance the fact that they’re no trouble at all to work. Clay soils tend to be acid and need a lot of lime, They serve a better diet to your crops than sandy soils (though

nitrogen and phosphate may be short on the menu), and while they also hold their drink better, anyone will tell you they’re the very devil to work after rain. In general, they’re "later" or "colder" soils. In handling them it’s important to build up a good physical structure by adding organic matter, and by cultivation at the right time. Besides lime and balanced fertilisers, drainage also may be important. Loamy soils fall between sands and clays, and the nature of any particular loamy soil depends on the proportion of sand to clay. In New Zealand, of course, the home gardener is more likely to find loamy-peats or peaty-loams than pure peats. Compared with the mineral soils, the loamy types are just bursting with organic good health, but even for these soils, lime and fertilisers (particularly phosphate and potash) and control of soil moisture are very important. Actually all peaty soils must be drained for a start, but too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing, and a peaty soil that’s allowed to drain out and become dry is extremely difficult to re-wet. ~Manuring the Soil There’s a school of thought which declares that compost is to the soil what porridge is to a Scot--the only thing necessary to keep it in a state of rude health. ‘Others-porridge plus haggis advocates, you could call them-hold that compost and fertilisers should supplement each othér in the home garcen-the compost adding organic matter and some plant nutrients, while the fertilisers supply whatever else is needed to make a balanced diet. The experts will tell you it’s not easy to generalise, but here’s a recipe for a sort of all-purpose fertiliser haggis-a base dressing for the New Zealand home garden-we were given the other day: ; Take 10 lb. of blood and bone, 712 Ib. of superphosphate, and 21% Ib. each’ of sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of potash. Mix well and apply one to four ounces to the square yard, "depending on the crop." This mixture provides nitrogen, phosphate and potash in the ratio of 1: 2: 1, and has given good results in many parts of the country, though for best

results local experience may suggest modifications. 5 Even those who don’t believe that porricge alone makes a healthy Scot will admit that it does him a world of good, and the firmest believers in a supplementary diet for the garden all agree that well-made compost improves the physical structure of the soil-tlets in the air and helps it to hold water, Depending on what you put into the -compost heap and the manner of composting, it can also add substantial quantities of plant foods. However, compost heaps as made in many home gardens do attract flies, and unless a great deal of care is taken to overcome this nuisance, it is probably better to dig refuse in. An important point to remember here is that while uncomposted material is being broken down in the soil plants are liable to be short of nitrogen. So it’s better to dig the refuse in with some nitrogen-producing fertiliser (such as sulphate of ammonia), in that way avoiding nitrogen starvation in plants (could it be responsible for that washed-out look?) and at the same time helping the "bugs"-more politely, bac-teria-in their revolutionary ferment underground. However, if you do have- a compost heap, and like Seth Hangnail in Take It From Here, keep your granny in it, tell her to spend her time. throwing grass and weed seeds out. For though the heap is moré than hot enough for her, in most cases it won’t be hot enough to kill the seeds. ‘Like a Test match football crowd, the biggest part of a _ garden has to spend an awful lot of time in the open (the glasshouse is for the privileged minority), and a mouthful could be said about inconsiderate gardeners who lay out plots for their own convenience rather than to protect them from the wind. Fences of one kind or anothertrellis, brushwood, and so on-and hedges are the two main types of windbreak. The choice of a hedge depends largely on where you happen ‘to live, for it’s generally best to grow a hedge that does well in your own district. *Tree-lucerne is one of the quickest = (continued on next page)

Practical Gardening (continued from previous page) growing, but unfortunately is not permanent. Another question sometimes asked about garden layout is: How should I divide the garden up accord‘ing to the amount of water different crops need? This, as a matter of fact, is not practical, as most vegetables need roughly the same amount of water. Weed Control The hardest thing in the world, said Mr. Saroyan, is to make a beginning, and in thé cruel month of August the reluctant gardener couldn’t agree more. But with soil diagnosis and treatment and layout now ticked off on fingers soon to be stiff and calloused, there must come eventually an end to delay. What else must be done before seeds or seedlings go into the ground? What have we already in it that must come out? Weeds? Grass? For the brand new gardener on a section just recently subdivided from grassland, the problem of grass coming through every year can generally be solved by thorough cultivation over a hot,,dry summer, but an inheritance of weeds is not always so easily solved. A little oxalis, for instance, goes a long way, and if you have it in your garden you must painstakingly remove all of it. If your garden is smothered with oxalis you can try to get rid of it from a small atea by sieving, or you can combat it by. swapping your vegetable garden for your back lawn-oxalis will not compete with grass that is mown regularly. No other solution is known at present. Onion plant, a nuisance in some districts, can be controlled by repeated applications of 2,4-D, a hormone weedkiller. The first application should be made when the Spring leaves are four to six inches high, and a second at the same time next year. With couch, or Old Man Twitch, as many Mainlanders call it, a weedkiller known as T.C.A., applied to the upturned sod is said to be quite effective so longs as it’s used according to directions. (It’s best, in fact, to get expert advice before using any weed-killer-and especially the hormone preparations.) However, the old _ back-breaker-constant cultivation and fork-ing-is probably the best couch-con-queror in small gardens, On the weed problem generally the sage old saying "One year’s seeding "means seven years’ weeding," has an obvious moral: "Get them while they’re young." (Or, if you think two platitudes better than one: "Nip them in the bud.") By attacking ‘weeds early, and by growing green manure crops, cultivation can be reduced to what’s necessary to prepare the ground for seed or plants.

The amount of cultivation necessary depends on the soil, but on. any soil you'll lighten your labours by seeing that it’s fed plenty of organic matter. In dry weather soils that have been fed in this way will not present a face of iron-hard clods to break the back and the spirit. And, by the way, never cultivate heavy soils too soon after rain. There’s probably no better time to think about your

crops to come-what to plant and where and how much-than the moment of rest after labour as, foot on spade, you survey the upturned soil. Did it have a crop before. and. if so, what? In a home garden it’s best to try and shift your crops about in succeeding seasons, following leafy crops with root crops and finding a place if possible for green manure ~crops. That, briefly, is crop totation, which, if it does nothing else, will reduce the risk of. soil-borne diseases. You'll notice that 'we’re back now just about where we came in with our reluctant gardener’s agonising reappraisal. Should he concentrate on a few staple crops or should he have a little of everything in the garden? And what, anyway, are the easiest and safest crops to grow? Since vegetables cost most in winter, winter crops are the most important: cabbage, cauliflower, silver beet, carrots, parsnips. Careful planning in the height of the season will help you to make the best use of your garden. In that way gluts can be avoided and a fairly wide variety of vegetables grown. Where space is limited, however, leafy vegetables should come first, and carrots should be the main root crop, because in a normal year potatoes and onions are plentifully available. The safest, the easiest crops to grow are, in an ascending order of difficulty, silver beet, turnips, radishes, leeks, cabbage, beetroot, onions, carrots, dwarf beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes. Now if you know what you want, how are you to plan sowing and planting so that it will be ready when you want it? Many people say that even though they stagger plantings, crops, and especially peas and beans, still seem to come up at the same time. Like family planning gone wrong, this is a sad situation. It seems likely enough that if peas and beans are planted too early -in a period when there is practically no growth-then a later planting has every chance of maturing at the same time. We put this one to the experts, who promptly hid their embarrassment

behind something called "heat-units." The story goes something like this: Experiment shows that peas need from 1300 to 1700 "heatunits" from sowing to maturity, depending on_ the variety. In August, say, the heat-units may be zero a day, while in December they may be nearer 20. When the total heat-units for the variety have been reached, it has been found in the average case that the crop is fully

mature. This is not -much help to the home gardener, except as a tip that he must try to find out all he can about varying rates of growth at different times of the year in his own garden. The moral: Keep a record of what you do and when you do it, and plan your crops according to the eccentricities of your garden, geographical location and climate. Flourishing Crops Resting again in your garden — this time on your hoe-and looking around with joy at your flourishing crops, you may feel at this point that there is some truth in Marvell's Thoughts in a Garden-that your soul could quite easily escape your body to jump sportively from cabbage to cabbage. Yet even as you watch you ‘feel deeply sus- | picious of your vegetables. Will they grow up fat, hearty and phlegmatic, or temperamental and marked for an early grave? Temperamental vegetables, like temperamental people, are a product of either bad heredity or bad environment. Different strains of vegetables differ in their adaptation to conditions, so you should try to get strains that are known to do well in your district. And as you choose for your district, so should you choose for the season. Poor hearting in lettuce, for instance, may be due to a poor strain of seed, but it could as easily result from planting a Winter variety in Summer. A similar complaint in cauliflowers is less easy to avoid, as there are many poor strains of seed about, and with this. particularly temperamental vegetable you should try to get a variety. of seed that’s known to be successful in your district. Hollowness or pithiness in celery can be an inherited character and shouldn’t be a problem if you use good seed-though poor growing conditions can cause, hollowness of the outer stem. Again, parsley is sometimes hard to grow because the seed becomes sterile fairly quickly. Carrots are among vegetables that are fussy about where they live, and in some areas-Wellington and Sumner, for example-it’s difficult to grow the standard market varieties. If they’re a problem for you, you: should try the larger, coarser varietiesHolmes Improved, Taranaki Strong Top, Top Weight, Egmont Gold, and Sweetcrop.

The potato minded gardener (this year, everyone) sometimes wants to know how much he should earth up potatoes, If soil moisture is adequate (Westland), or more than adequate (Milford Sound and Auckland), earthing up helps drainage and helps to keep the tubers free from spores of the late blight fungus and away from the potato tuber moth-which isn’t, by the way, even a distant relation of the sugar plum, fairy. In dry areas (this year, none) slightly deeper planting and less earthing up will give the crops a better chance of standing up to lack of moisture. And however much or little you earth up, you must see to it that

the root systems of the plants are not injured, R In the north, warm, humid conditions encourage fungus diseases such as late blight of potatoes and tomatoes, and regular spraying is needed to combat them. In general, wet weather favours fungus diseases attacking the leaves, as in leaf spot of celery, while dry, hot weather favours such insect pests as cabbage aphis’ and white butterfly. The need to spray thus depends largely on season and situation. In general, it’s wise to spray to prevent fungus diseases, and to control insect pests as soon as they’re noticed. For white butterfly spray with D.D.T., Lindane or Malathion at recommended strength-see the label around the packet. Flowers and Shrubs The reluctant gardener, interested only in the vegetable bill, often leaves the flowers to the frau with an injunction to keep to her own patch of the epithet garden. Here, to end, are a few notes for her. To have a supply of cut flowers throughout the year, grow plants that have a long flowering season, not just one short, brilliant display. Many herbaceous perennials and flowering shrubs are suitable, and a few bulbous plants. Shrubs would include Camellia, Daphne, Fuchsia, Hydrangeas, Marguerite Daisy and garden varieties of Manuka. Berried shrubs ‘like Cotoneaster are also useful. Perennials which can be grown in the same place for two or three years include Carnation, Delphinium, Hellebore, Michaelmas Daisy and Scabious, Dahlias are handy, also Narcissus, planted in one corner or near a hedge. Climbing roses will provide more flowers than bush roses, and can be trained on a trellis attached to a wall or fence. Of the seedling or bedding plants, Iceland Poppy, Marigold and Zinnia all provide a succession of flowers. When, at the start of this Plain Guide, we tried to find out the most common causes of Gardener’s Headache, we did hear of some with which, we" feel, our readers might like to help. How can I prevent pigeons squashing Geraniums in my window-boxes? How can I avoid losing the little round cacti that look so cute on the mantelpiece? How can I cure myself of a morbid fear of worms? We don’t know, so- over to you, |