Starting your cabbage crop.

 Starting your cabbage crop.

As soon as the young plants are large enough , in with the hoe. The idea is to keep the soil loose.

The old rule with growers is to hoe cabbage three times during their life, and it is well to mind it, if you want to grow a great crop. However if the your soil is not in good hart then the crop will bake and you would be well to hoe more often. However, I fine, hoeing when the ground is wet, I get a better result.

If you get no rain for a weeks and then a downpour, this could make the cabbage bust its head. If you see this happening; go along the row and push the cabbage from one side. This will make the plant regrow and stop busting its skin. 

You may well end up with getting bigger cabbage that normal. This practice is know as ‘ starting ‘. 

The more hard-heading the variety is, the better the result with ‘ starting ‘ you will have.

Keep your garden feeding you

 Here are some practical follow up crops to keep your garden feeding you: 

grow corn, spinach, lettuce after your cabbage.

 try to grow your roots after your peas and other leguminous to use up the quantity of nitrogen which these plants have stored in the soil. 

After you have harvested the onions, a crop of heading lettuce will grow well in the rich soil.

When you dig up your early potatoes use the grown for leeks to harvest in deep winter.

And if you do not want to sow late crops in the vacant ground in the garden, it is a good idea to sow cover crops such as clover or rye with the idea of turning under next spring. 

Doing this will add considerable fertility to the ground very little cost, and also such soils will hold moisture better next season.

A LAWN FULL OF WEEDS

 A LAWN FULL OF WEEDS

There are thousands of people who have lawns well established that can do  with a bit of care. Some of them show yellow patches, where grass is often absent, and some can be badly overwhelmed with weeds. 

In some cases things are hopeless, and the best thing would be to dig up the lot and start over. Sometimes  this remedy can be  narrow down to the worst bits in the lawn. If the soil is in good condition, some good results can be found by scarifying the lawn with a good metal rake.

Lawns that are on the large size could be done over with a spading harrow( a hand tool with a long handle which is pushed along and rotating blades will cut up the soil ) After you have done this give a top-dressing of a nitrogenous fertilisers.

If you have a lawn that is full of weeds, the best thing to do is to crowd them out by sowing grass seeds on the lawn. The theory here is grass will get rid of weeds.

Another way of keeping your lawn weed free is mow it often and apply lime which will make the soil acid, which encourages the growth of grass.

There are two weeds, however, which will persist and they are dandelion and plantain. The only thing that you can do in this case is too hand weed. A good lawn is worth the work and there is no other way.

Successful in controlling insect pests:

 To be successful in controlling insect pests, preventive or remedial measures must be applied early.

 If spraying is left until insects infest the plants in large numbers, you will have  trouble  to get  rid of them. It is much easier to kill a few insects than a whole host. If they are once allowed to obtain the upper hand, the crop will be so much damaged  that it frequently will not pay to attempt to save it.

The important point that must be grasped in connection with the control of insect pests is that they may, from the point of view of the gardener, be divided into two groups—“biting” insects and “sucking” insects.

The biting insects eat the leaves, roots, or stems of the plants attacked, and their presence is usually obvious even to a casual observer.

The sucking insects obtain their food, not by eating the leaves, but by inserting their “beaks” into the plant tissue and sucking its juices. Since it is not feasible to poison the sap of plants to kill the insects, the best method is to spray them with what are known as “contact” insecticides. 

These must be applied in such a way that they actually come in contact with the insects. Soap solutions, kerosene emulsion, and nicotine are the principal contact sprays.

Sometimes, instead of using sprays it is more convenient to use dry insecticides in the form of powder. This is particularly the case when a spray-pump is unavailable or the water supply not close at hand.

No matter in what form these insecticides are applied, the operation must be done thoroughly or little benefit will result. 

The contact sprays should be applied with force in such a way that every insect is covered. To apply the stomach poisons a fine, mist-like spray should be used which will coat the leaves with a thin film of poison. 

If too much is applied there is a tendency for the mixture to run into globules, which concentrates the poison at the tip of the leaves. This may result in injury to the plants and is not effective in coating the whole of the leaves.

The feeding habits of some insects make it almost impossible to control them by spraying; so traps, poison bait, hand picking, repellents, or screening the plants to prevent access of insects are resorted to. 

I will be looking at ways of doing this in furture blogs.

Sucking and Biting Bugs

 To be successful in controlling insect pests, preventive or remedial measures must be applied early.

 If spraying is deferred until insects infest the plants in large numbers, great difficulty is experienced in getting rid of them. It is emphatically much easier to kill a few insects than a whole host. If they are once allowed to obtain the upper hand, the crop will be so much injured that it frequently will not pay to attempt to save it.

The important point that must be grasped in connection with the control of insect pests is that they may, from the point of view of the gardener, be divided into two groups—“biting” insects and “sucking” insects.

The biting insects eat the leaves, roots, or stems of the plants attacked, and their presence is usually obvious even to a casual observer.

The sucking insects obtain their food, not by eating the leaves, but by inserting their “beaks” into the plant tissue and sucking its juices. Since it is not feasible to poison the sap of plants to kill the insects, the best method is to spray them with what are known as “contact” insecticides. 

These must be applied in such a way that they actually come in contact with the insects. Soap solutions, kerosene emulsion, and nicotine are the principal contact sprays.

Sometimes, instead of using sprays it is more convenient to use dry insecticides in the form of powder. This is particularly the case when a spray-pump is unavailable or the water supply not close at hand.

No matter in what form these insecticides are applied, the operation must be done thoroughly or little benefit will result. 

The contact sprays should be applied with force in such a way that every insect is covered. To apply the stomach poisons a fine, mist-like spray should be used which will coat the leaves with a thin film of poison. 

If too much is applied there is a tendency for the mixture to run into globules, which concentrates the poison at the tip of the leaves. This may result in injury to the plants and is not effective in coating the whole of the leaves.

The feeding habits of some insects make it almost impossible to control them by spraying; so traps, poison bait, hand picking, repellents, or screening the plants to prevent access of insects are resorted to. 

I will be looking at ways of doing this in furture blogs.

Tall Veg Surport

 Pole beans climb by means of twining, and poles or a long bamboo cain will work, from six to eight feet high and about two inches in diameter  usually. These poles are inserted in the ground by first making a hole with a crowbar. 

Tomatoes may be left to grow naturally, in which case they sprawl over the ground and much fruit is spoiled by coming in contact with the earth, or they may be staked.

 If grown to a single stem each plant will need a stout stake or cain, to which it may be attached by tying with pieces of cloth or tape about an inch wide.  Another way of supporting tomatoes is to allow all the shoots to grow at will, but to prevent them from falling on the ground by placing around each plant three or four stakes connected with barrel hoops or with string.

Vegetable Support

 Some of our vegetable crops need supports of some kind to obtain best results from them. Peas, and beans of some varieties, and tomatoes are of this nature.

The dwarf peas, which need no supports, are the best for the small garden, but if the taller kinds, which are more productive, are grown it is necessary to supply them with something on which to climb. 

Twiggy brush-wood is the very good, as the pea tendrils attach themselves readily to this. The bases of the branches should be sharpened with a knife and then stuck firmly into the ground on either side of the row when the peas are a few inches high.  You can also use chicken netting stretched along the row and supported on strong stakes is also suitable.

To water or not to water

 To water or not to water is always the question, on the allotment.   There is this much to be said about the application of water to the garden. If thorough, cultivation has been properly done, there will be much less need of watering, and when it is decided that watering is necessary, let it be thorough, so that the soil is soaked to a depth of a foot or so. Then as soon as the soil has dried out somewhat, stir up the surface so that the moisture is not lost by evaporation.

The best way to apply water is by means of a sprinkler, throwing a fine spray, which can be left operating for two or three hours. This insures a proper wetting of the soil without washing away any of the loose soil on the surface. 

The next best thing is to use a hose, if you do not have mains water, then, the watering-can  comes into its own.

On my plot, I have a ten foot deep well and water with a watering-can.

I water everything, because to my mind, plants are made up of water and cannot thrive without it. People laugh at me for watering my rhubarb, however, my rhubarb grows the whole season and I eat it daily. 

In order to obtain good crops it is necessary to allow the plants sufficient room to grow. They must have space in the earth for their roots to ramify in search of food, and room above to spread their leaves to the air and sunshine. A number of seeds, including beet, carrot, corn, lettuce, onion, parsnip, radish, spinach, and Swiss chard, are sown in such a way (in order to insure a good stand) that when they germinate the young plants stand too close together. These have to be thinned out.^[3] This operation should be carried out as soon as the seedlings are large enough to handle. Choose a cloudy day when the soil is fairly moist, and pull out the weak, spindly plants, leaving the strong, healthy ones.