Odorless Composting

Have you hesitated to improve your soil with garbage or manure because of the odor, insects, and bothersome turning and watering that may accompany attempts to compost it?

If that has been the case you may find helpful a method of composting manure or any good compost makings that solves all of these problems and is nearly effortless as well.

This technique, evolved by A. M. Bond, of Thetford, Vermont, makes use of black polyethylene plastic sheets, which not only hold in desired heat and moisture but also valuable nutrient gases. Bond uses the method on manure composting. The steps in the process are simple.

You need not dig up the strip of ground under the heap, but doing so assures better drainage if it is needed.

Then gather the manure, garbage, grass clippings, leaves and other debris; heap the mixture oblong-wise; and wet it down with the hose. You'll also get better and faster compost if, when mixing, you'll neutralize with fine limestone.

Spread the plastic sheet over the mixture and cover the edges of the plastic on all sides with several inches of soil to seal in heat, gas and moisture. You may wish to put up a temporary fence around the compost pile to keep children or dogs from injuring the plastic with their feet.

In three months or less you should find the mixture completely corn-posted and odorless and ready to use in the garden.

Winter Feeding For the Garden Birds

Winter weather is very detrimental to our wild birds, especially if the natural food sources are scarce or made unavailable due to deep snow and ice. Strong healthy birds can usually withstand a single severe storm, but it is during long-continued adverse conditions that their resistance is lowered to the danger point. We should be prepared for these emergency periods and provide food and shelter.

Feeding stations for song birds can usually be established right in one's own back yard, in fact a shelf attached to a window sill will often enable one to see several kinds of birds at close range. The variety of foods acceptable to wild birds is quite large. Cracked corn, small grains, nuts, sunflower seed, suet, raisins, and the lowly weedseeds. They need water also, and so a pan set out near the feeder is truly a help too.

The Little Torenia

I have passed and repassed the little Torenia when I got a new flower catalog and only this spring did I find it blooming in a store and asked what it was.

Being told and that it was an annual and could be raised -every summer I sent for it immediately and planted it and, now it is in bloom and so, so pretty. I want all my friends to get it. It reminds me of a little hood with an ornamented cover. The flower is small but so lovely.

Another flower I have tried this summer is the Achimines. It is beautiful but I have but one color, the red kind. It is simply never out of bloom and has often seven blooms at once.

Be sure to plant every new flower next year and enjoy your surprises as I have.

Is It Better For Gardeners To Own Power Equipment?

Spraying attachments are available with many garden tractors. In addition to making work easier they enable the gardener to do a much more thorough job on ornamentals and vegetables, especially on fruit trees. Power dusters are also available, in case dusting is preferable to spraying. A tractor also comes in handy for pulling a planter, fertilizer spreader and trailer, as well as for raking hay and doing many belt jobs.

More and more people are finding it desirable and profitable to own power equipment. With a good tractor and implements, plus a little skill in operation, almost any garden chore can be done well and in a fraction of the time required, using hand tools. Garden tractors and attachments have been greatly improved and simplified in recent years to the end that they are more economical and easier to handle than one might expect.

Should I Put Fertilizer In My Garden Before Or After Spading?

Fertilizer - Have dressing spread all over the garden when it is delivered, which should be just before plowing or spading. Do not lug it around with a fork.

Yellow Wonder Poppies

Forty-four Yellow Wonder Iceland poppies on four plants were counted one May morning. The aging poppies were a brilliant yellow, the younger ones a fresh lemon color. They were never still. A slender peduncle, often two feet tall, supported each lovely flower. The slightest movement of the air set them swinging. The ajuga, armeria and heartsease were all quiet and serene, while the poppies above continually fussed.

Honeybees alighted, walked around and around collecting pollen from their numerous anthers; the pollen was abundant, at that moment the swinging was more violent. A red and black flower-bug was another visitor but its slight weight made no difference in the swaying. When a bumblebee came for its share of pollen, the pretty flower dropped over, almost touching the ground. Those burly bees are heavyweights.