The professional goes to work in quite a different way. If the ground is dry he pours water along each drill a few hours beforehand. Then when everything is set he takes a little of the seed into the palm of his hand, stoops down and, with knuckles facing downwards and the point of the thumb directed towards the centre of the drill, proceeds to roll out a seed at a time at any distance he desires. He saves seeds and reduces thinning to the absolute minimum.
HOW TO SOW SEEDS IN BOXES
If seedlings are to be raised under glass the seed should be sown in boxes, pans, or flower-pots. The drainage holes should be covered first with a few bits of broken pot and then with a little coarse soil. The boxes or pots should then be filled with the compost or soil advised for the crop in question. The surface of the soil should be watered lightly a couple of hours beforehand, the seed sprinkled thinly on the surface and covered with a thin layer of soil.
The soil should be kept uniformly moist and the boxes kept close to the glass. The seedlings must be hardened off by keeping them under more and more natural conditions before being planted out in the open.
PLANTING, HOEING, WATERING
Cabbages and other members of the same family are sown in the seed-bed and transferred to their permanent quarters when the site apportioned to them becomes vacant and the weather conditions permit. Seedlings raised under glass must also be planted out in the open.
Planting is a very simple operation. The drills in which the seed has been sown, or the soil in the seed-boxes, should be well watered the day before so that the young plants can be lifted without damaging their roots. Holes should be opened with the trowel and, if the soil is dry, each one filled with water a few hours before a plant is inserted in each. After planting, the soil should be made firm round the stems, and the row watered. By the way, to lift seedlings out of boxes it is better to break off one side. This can be nailed on again afterwards, so the box is not ruined.
THE NEED FOR FREQUENT HOEING
Whenever the war-time gardener has a little time to spare he should wield the hoe. Hoeing is a very important cultivation operation and the more often it is conducted the better. Hoeing reduces the surface soil to a fine tilth—that is the whole object. Unless the surface soil is worked frequently, minute channels form from the under-soil to the surface and this allows the moisture in the soil to evaporate. Hoeing closes these minute tubes and so conserves moisture.
Hoeing is light work and it saves having to engage in more strenuous labour. Without hoeing the watering-can or the hose-pipe must be used much more often, and this usually means carrying the water a considerable distance on the allotment, since main water is not usually laid on.
A further advantage of applying the hoe is that it kills off small annual weeds, that is, weeds which seed themselves and so come up year after year. Weeds require food as well as the crops you grow, so eradicating them means a greater store of plant food which can be converted into an edible crop. And as you will gather later, the supplying of plant food, or manuring, is no easy task nowadays.
WHEN TO WATER AND HOW TO DO IT
However assiduously the gardener hoes his vegetable plots, a certain amount of watering is essential in dry weather. It should be remembered, however, that, while the soil may appear to be bone dry on the surface, it may be fairly moist a couple of inches or so below. Turn up a little soil or push in a finger to determine whether additional water is required.
The only thing that need be said regarding the application of water is that sprinkling the ground is worse than useless; give it a good soaking, for this alone benefits the crops. A sprinkling tends to cause the roots of the plants to come upwards so that they can make use of the moisture and, being close to the surface, they may easily be burned when the sun is shining brightly. Water occasionally and water liberally is the best advice that can be given.
THE A. B. C. OF MANURING
Manuring, or the provision of plant food, is an absolute necessity in gardening. Without it good results over a period of years are impossible. Farmyard manure, or an efficient substitute, must be incorporated with the soil. These natural substances not only feed the plants but, as they decay, they increase the store of humus (decayed organic material) and humus is the very essence of fertility. It binds the soil together, but at the same time it leaves it porous so that air is freely admitted and water can percolate through it; it warms the soil and it helps it to retain moisture. Farmyard manure (stable, cow, and pig) also contains millions and billions of bacteria, and these play a highly important part by their action of liberating plant food.
When natural manures are available they should be applied at the rate of one barrowload to every ten square yards. Stable manure is better for heavy land, and cow and pig manures for light.
While it is true that horses are being used more at the present time, owing to petrol rationing, the majority of gardeners will find it extremely difficult to obtain supplies of horse manure. The ordinary gardener is faced with a difficulty in this connection, because it means running the place with very little or no natural manure. Humus must, however, be provided, or sooner or later the soil will show definite signs of weakness and the crops will consequently suffer.
TO USE MANURE FROM POULTRY AND RABBITS
Natural manures may not be obtainable, but all vegetable matter is capable of supplying humus, so the war-time gardener must take stock of what is available in his own district. But before dealing with the numerous substitutes which can be used successfully something may be said about the two manures which are produced by poultry and rabbits.
Poultry manure is first-class. When fowls are kept on the intensive system in a scratching-shed the droppings are available in two forms. There are the neat droppings (or mixed with a little dry earth or sand) from the droppings-board placed beneath the perches; there is also the manure-impregnated litter from the poultry-house floor. The latter is invaluable for digging into the soil in the autumn or winter when the vegetable plots are being treated to their annual digging, a useful dressing being 1 cwt. to one-sixth of an acre. The straw or dried leaves used as litter supply humus; the droppings supply other plant foods, nitrogen, potash and phosphorus. But since poultry manure is rather deficient in the last-mentioned, it is advisable to add a fifth part by weight of mineral superphosphates to the litter manure.
The neat droppings are best used for top-dressing; that is, applying to the crops as they are actually growing, in the same way as chemical fertilisers are employed. A satisfactory dressing is 1/2 oz. per yard of row.
Rabbit manure is not very rich in plant food, but it is very durable and so supplies nourishment for many months on end. It should be dug into the soil in the autumn or winter at the rate of 28 lb. per rod. It will be necessary to collect this manure for a whole year as it is only applied at digging time in the autumn or winter. To store it, cover with vegetable refuse or mix with the compost heap.
TO OBTAIN AND STORE LEAF-MOULD AND COMPOST
Every opportunity should be taken in the late summer and autumn of collecting fallen leaves. These, when properly rotted down, become what is known as leaf-mould, which is first-class for many different purposes. The leaves as they are collected should be heaped up on a site reserved for them and covered with wire-netting to prevent them being blown all over the place. They should be allowed to remain for ten to twelve months. There is just one point in connection with the making of leaf-mould. Oak and beech leaves should not be added to the heap. They should be reserved for making the hot-bed in the sunk pit, if one is made, or failing this they should not be gathered.
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