GARDENING

February 2001 Table of Contents

GARDENING
Jack Hardy

What a wonderful time of year to be gardening on Abaco! Those of us who grow vegetable gardens are up to our knees in produce and there is the promise of so much more to come. Just remember to keep sowing seeds so that you never run out of delicious vegetables.

A little addition of superphosphate will extend your production of sweet peppers way into summer. Tomatoes and eggplants also benefit from superphosphate once they have set flowers.

This is the season of lettuce, spinach and other cool weather leaf veggies. This year I am growing watercress by immersing a regular container into a receptacle which I fill with water, keeping the soil very wet. That's what watercress needs. I go to the store and pay almost $2 for a bunch of watercress and when I was a boy it grew to clog up drainage ditches. Prepare a lovely watercress soup by adding chopped watercress to an otherwise plain chicken soup or broth.

This is the time to plant watermelons so that in the hot days of summer you will have that quintessential refreshment that a juicy watermelon provides. Plant your seeds 5 feet apart in sandy soil that has not had conditioners like cow manure or peat moss added. Watermelons like plenty of fertilizer for quick growth.

If you want flowering annuals for Easter you should sow your seeds as soon as possible. Virtually any annual can be sown but I would hold back on Impatiens as they cannot take summer sun. Sprinkle some snail bait around the area you have seeded because young flowers shoots are like a salad bar to snails and slugs.

There's nothing to do to fruit and citrus trees this month unless you find some insect activity. If your citrus leaves appear black, that's because the leaves are coated with sooty mold. Sooty mold is a symptom rather than a disease in itself. A variety of insects attach themselves to the undersides of leaves, suck and excrete 'honeydew'. This honeydew in turn breeds the sooty mold, which is rather like mildew. You must spray the insects (which is difficult when they are on the underside of leaves) in order to remedy the problem. Trying to scrub the sooty mold off will not work. Malathion usually does the job.

If you are at all queasy about using chemicals in your yard, get yourself in the habit of spraying your trees, shrubs and vegetables with a soap solution on a regular basis. You will not kill any insects but you will deter them from staying around the vicinity. Why eat your soapy leaves when next doo a generous dash of Cayenne pepper and/or garlic juice to the soap solution. I like to use glycerine soap as it less likely to clog up the sprayer.

One other seasonal pest you may find on your tomatoes (or what's left of them by the time you discover it) is the giant tomato hornworm, which eventually ends up as a Sphinx moth. Four to five inches long, giant tomato hornworms are bright green and have an eponymous false 'horn' at the rear end. They neither bite nor sting, so you can just pick them off your plants barehanded. If that doesn't excite you, use a square of cloth to grasp them. They can be quite tenacious.

February 2001 Table of Contents