Living Earth July Newsletter
The Winter Garden
There’s still plenty to do out there – just rug up.
Here’s some things that will keep you occupied but warm this winter – jobs that are achievable and, come spring will make a different to your garden:
• Soil conditioning – if your soil is too wet to stand on and dig, just layer Living Earth Compost over it and around plants. The compost will start interacting with your soil anyway and support microbial life to help suppress diseases, bring earthworms and enhance soil texture.
• Strawberry plants, garlic and shallots are all available at the local Garden Centre and, now that this latest weather has chilled the soil, planting conditions are perfect! Or grow them in containers in our fabulous big value Living Earth Organic Veggie Mix.
• Vegetable seedlings that can still be planted out now include cabbages, broccoli and silver beet, including the very attractive ‘Rainbow Chard’ with the brightly coloured stems. Go for our Organic Veggie Mix again!
• Liquid feed flowering winter annuals to keep them performing; add a teaspoon of dried blood around primula and polyanthus to increase flower production.
• When planting rhododendrons and daphnes into heavier soils dig in Living Earth Compost to lighten the texture, then add a dose of Trichopel in the planting hole to deter the dreaded phytophthora from attacking the new roots.
• Food for the Birds: make a bird pudding – melt dripping, a dash of honey and mix in some seed mix from the supermarket. When set, place it in one of those netting bags that mandarins come in. Hang it high on a bare branch and enjoy the visitors to your garden.
• Divide up clumps of dormant perennials such as hostas and delphiniums to increase your plant numbers.
• Dig out pest plants – onion weeds, various oxalis species and any other over-zealous unwanted bulbs. Try to get the bulbous root system to prevent plants multiplying. (It’s amazing how therapeutic it is, filling a bucket with these blighters and knowing there’s now room in the garden for more desirable things....)
• And sit back in the warmth indoors with gardening books and mags – NZ Gardener has just been named Supreme Magazine of the year – and plan a spring garden to your heart’s content.
Collecting Greenwaste (Auckland region): Greenwaste from your garden can be deposited at any of the transfer stations across Auckland, but a home collection is easy and convenient. For more information on garden waste pick-up phone 09 526 4126 or email enquires@sunshinebags.co.nz.