repeat last year’s successes —

ALL OF the television stations are airing the same old stuff:
A Look Back At 1989 or A Look Back At The ’80s — The
Decade Of The Yuppie. The radio is either Counting Down
The Hits or offering the same old-news review.

Don’t you just love these affec-
tionate looks back at the decade
that gave us Mount St. Helen’s,
the Mexico City earthquake, the
Armenian earthquake, the San
Francisco earthquake, the Locker-
bie air disaster, the news about the
Greenhouse Effect, AIDS, the
Nightstalker, and Nintendo?

Much more rewarding to look
around the garden and take stock
of the successes (and failures) of
the past year as well as the past
decade.

Those flowering cherry trees we
planted in °87 are sure doing well.
1 wonder if the time of planting or
the timing of the fertilizer applica-
tions had anything to do with it?

The grass just doesn’t seem to
look as good as it should. | wonder
if we put enough dolomite lime on
it last spring? Gee, did we put any
lime on?

I must remember to plant more
statice this year; they were fan-
tastic. Once they got started, they
just didn’t seem to quit. Now when
did we start the seed? How long
_ did they take to germinate? When
* did we plant them out?

Isn’s it’ funny how memory

seems to fail just when you need it
most. I used to think J could run
my business on my wits alone.
Who needs to write it down when
your memory is as sharp as
a..ah...sharp as a...You know,
one of those pointy things we use
to hang pictures on the...ah...You
know, it holds up the roof,

1 am now never without my
Daytimer and a pen and if I don't
use them, I continually forget what
| am supposed to be doing. For the
same reason, [ try to keep a jour-
nal on my garden. [f it worked last
year I want to repeat my successes,
and if it didn't, } need not repeat
the failures.

Now many of you may not be
prepared to keep your garden’s
diary: too much work and all that.
Two simple facts should change
your mind. The ‘work’ required to
jot down a few notes will be far
less than that required to correct
unneccessary errors, And how
hard can it be to write down the
date and a few brief notes?

We are. not looking for literary
excellence here; you are the only
person likely to read it. If ‘03/
21/89 — Green Arrow peas" is

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enough to tell you when you
planied your peas, why write any-
thing else.

Let us say you planted two rows,
and used an inoculant on one and
not on the other, your note should

read:

**03/14/89 — 2 rows Green Ar-
row peas — inoculant east row."*

If you remember to take note o!
which row was the better producer
come harvest time, you will know
whether or not to use an inoculant.

Use your journal as a garden
check list. You should begin each
month with a page of reminders
that will prompt you to perform
needed tasks at the appropriate
time.

Regis, RIC

North Vancouver

1425 Marine Drive
984-8469

Kitsilano
Kerrisdale :
Burnaby-Coquithim

Vancouver Warehouse Store
102 S.E. Marine Drive
327-9996

13 - Friday, December 29, 1989 - North Shore News

AS an exaniple, on the first page
of February you could enter the
following form to remind you of
the possible need for lime and the
quantity required: (based on an
average lawn size of 4,000 square

over the

garden gaie

Geoff Tobiasson

feet)
*‘pH test for lawn
«Fight front... ____ pH
left front... ...  _- pH
.--fight rear... pH
«left rear... pH
(divide total by four, take result
away from 6.0, multipiy result by
four for number of bags needed)’’

For the sake of the terminally
curious, the above form will ask
you to fill in pH test results from

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four different locations in your
lawn.

Next it asks you to get the
average of all four and take this
away from the pH level that is
considered to be safe for good
lawn care (6.0).

As four bags of dolomite would
be required to raise the pH by one
point over a. 4,000 square-foot
lawn, you are told to apply four
times whatever this difference may
be. (e.g.: 6.0 pH minus 5.25 = .75
x 4 bags = bags needed.)

You will find it easier to prepare
these reminder pages once you
have several years of information
under your belt. In the meantime
try pasting in the first Over the
Garden Gate article of each
month. It is here where I do my
best to provide reminders of the
gardening tasks for the upcoming
month.

I promise, if you take the time
to make a few notes, you will be
rewarded in spades. Or perhaps
less spades if spading is the work
that would be required to fix un-
necessarily repeated errors.

Won't you all have the happiest
of new years and once again, sow
it grows.

applies to frames only.

99°

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1432 Marine Drive

922-3513

_ Richmond Centre
Lansdowne Malt :.
Richmond Warehouse Store @

ony