The Rural Voice, 1980-11, Page 32Garden clean-up time
Let's start with the vegetable garden.
If you haven't sown a second crop of
beans or lettuce then work up the ground
and get a Toad of manure on it. There are
still a few weeks of good rotting weather
left and you might as well have those
hard lumps of earth pulverized by the
winter weather instead of you next
spring. Then come spring time, when it is
too wet to get into the garden, that pile of
fresh manure will be working its way into
the soil making it more a receptive spot
for your plants.
In the flower beds old plants should be
cleaned up and dead leaves and branches
taken away. During the early spring
decaying material in the flower garden
can promote disease in your perennials.
And those lovely annuals should be
pulled out too. It doesn't matter how
many buds may bloom before the first
snow. A good cleanup of the garden
includes petunias and marigolds and all
of their friends. Those last rose buds can
be saved. If there is any colour showing
bring them into the warm house to finish
blooming inside.
Refrain from fertilizing until the
ground has frozen. Fertilizer applied
mid -fall promotes new growth and the
winter usually will kill off the new leaves
making for a sickly plant in the spring.
WELL WATERED
Evergreens should be well watered to
withstand the drought conditions during
the winter months. A new kind" of
fertilizer, which releases a small but
steady supply of nitrogen to the plant
over an extended period of time, can be
given in the late fall and the shrub will
have fertilizer available when the plant
starts to grow again in the spring.
The same cleaning out should be
applied to raspberries in the fall. Trim out
the old canes, taking care with the new
shoots. They will bear next year's fruit.
Tie the canes or support them to prevent
the weight of the snow breaking them off
at the ground.
If raspberries are to be fertilized it
should be done in August so that new
growth is able to harden before the snow
flies (next year,right?).
Gooseberries and currants are close to
being maintenance free. Aside from a bit
of trimming in the spring and weeding,
harvesting is about the only job and that
is a delight.
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PG. 30 THE RURAL VOICE/NOVEMBER 1980
Back in the flower garden there are
usually a few rose bushes. They should
have soil gently heaped around the base
for protection. Don't remove soil from the
ground around the plants but bring it in
from another spot.
RAKE LAWNS
Lawns should be raked to prevent
decay of the grass. Throughout the fall a
straight fertilizer should be applied. After
September lawn mowers can be lowered
by about half an inch. A shorter cut
lawn performs better. Fall conditions are
ideal for lawn growth. As many of you
may have noticed, the cooler the weather
the faster the grass grows until the snow
falls.
Bulbs should be dug up by now and
carefully dried and stored in a cool dry
location. Glads should have their tops
trimmed off as close to the bulb or corm as
possible. Some gardeners store bulbs in
layers in a shallow box covered in peat or
spaghum moss.
And if you like a colourful showing in
the spring your spring bulbs should be in
the ground by Thanksgiving. Provided
our weather stays above freezing during
the day, you can still sneak a few late
bulbs into the ground. As long as they
have a week or so to establish a bit of a
root system before the ground freezes,
you will have a full blooming garden in
the spring.
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