=Plot A.=--If the onion bed was made last month, no further digging can
be done here, but the onion ground must be prepared now, if the weather
was impossible in January.
=Plot B.=--This is a good month to plant broad beans if they are not
already in, but if the weather is bad leave them till March, there is
no sense in setting beans to rot in sodden soil. The Brussels sprouts
must now go, and as they and the early potatoes have pretty well
exhausted the ground, and have well paid for their manure, trench the
ground well, and give a good dose of manure and lime also; either as
superphosphate, two ounces to the yard, or as lime pure and simple if
it has not been given for a couple of years.
About the end of the month a sowing of dwarf peas may be made, if the
weather be open. They should go thirty inches from the broad beans, and
we know no better sort than the Little Marvel. Place eighteen-inch wire
netting along the row at the time of sowing, and run a row of spinach
fifteen inches on the hither side of the peas. Continue to blanch
chicory.
=Plot C.=--By the middle of the month the crops still in this ground
must be cleared away. The few roots of salsify and parsnip left should
be stored in sand in a dry place, and the celery laid in in the open,
where the cook can easily get to it. Immediately this is done the
ground must be trenched and heavily manured, as it is to bear two
exhausting crops without any further help. In addition we like to fork
kainit into the top spit, an ounce to every square yard, and find that
if done in February, this does not interfere with the early growth of
the potatoes, but helps them and the Brussels sprouts very mightily
later on.
=Frames.=--Make up the hotbed about the middle of the month.
=Seed Bed.=--Sow a little early lettuce, radishes, and if there be good
conditions it may be worth while to sow early peas in the early border,
besides spinach, at the beginning of the month.
=Permanent Crops.=--Cover more seakale, and finish putting pots or
boxes over the rhubarb. Tidy up the asparagus, and give a top-dressing
of five pounds kainit and fifteen pounds of superphosphate to a bed the
size of that in the plan.