CHAPTER X 



SECOND WEEK IN MARCH 



OW interesting the garden is in spring ! At last we 

 may hope for good weather, when March drops 

 the lion skin to don the soft fleece of a lamb, and 

 all the growing things are prepared to welcome the spring 

 with buds and wreaths of blossom. 



We are as busy as the bees just now, for young plants grow 

 so fast and need so much attention, that the days are not 

 nearly long enough. In the early vinery the grapes need to 

 be thinned, and this delicate operation must be done very 

 early in the morning, or the heat becomes unbearable, and 

 might be dangerous later in the day. But it is such fasci- 

 nating work. With a slender bone knitting needle we lift 

 the grapes, no larger than a pea, and cut away more than half 

 of them with the long scissors specially kept for the purpose 

 leaving, of course, the largest berries and those which will 

 form the best-shaped bunch. No hand must touch them ; 

 and we wear straw hats in the vinery, both for the sake of 

 our heads and also to prevent the hair from coming in 

 contact with the grapes, for very little will injure the bloom 

 on them, which, once destroyed, can never be restored. 



With this month the work of sowing annuals, &c., in the 

 garden begins, as a rule ; although in warm localities and 

 sheltered spots some few seeds may be sown in the autumn 

 or in February. Shirley poppies, loveliest of their tribe, 

 should be in every garden ; but the seed must be scattered 

 very thinly, broadcast, not in a narrow circle. In sowing 

 most annuals it is a good plan to mix the seed before dis- 

 tributing it with a little silver sand, scattering both together 



87 



