The Veggie Bed
This season is the coolest we have known for a few years. The intermittent rain doesn’t make a huge impact over the veggie garden and so it is a good idea to focus on how to get plants growing in these less than ideal conditions:
• Usually we’re fighting whitefly and major aphid infestations – right now the best prevention out there is against slugs and snails. Apply your favourite bait around seedlings, especially beans, lettuces and soft foliage veggies.
• A good tip for organic gardeners: sprinkle flour (not self-raising though) around your plants – snails and slugs hate it!
• Planting seedlings into well composted soils will aid good root development, but a bi-monthly feed of Living Earth Liquid Compost over foliage and at root level strengthens young plants, particularly where the sunshine and rain associated with this time of the year are lacking.
• Plant melons, beans basil and leafy mesclun salad greens. And it’s a last chance to get a good range of tomato plants in.
• Water regularly, but don’t wait ‘til it ‘puddles’ around young plants.
The Rest of the Garden
Before the silly season takes over, make an audit of the well established and the newly planted in your garden:
• Established but needy plants such as citrus and other fruits, gardenias and roses will benefit from a light top-dress of controlled release fertiliser
• Water hungry shrubs like hydrangeas, ferns and newly planted trees need a mulch with attitude – Living Earth’s More than Mulch contains compost as well and will condition the soil, as well as protecting the plants’ roots in hot summer.
• Reduce weeding requirements by pulling weeds now before they grow into strong bushes and seed everywhere. Clearing them out gives the desirable plants room to grow and cover the area. Spreading More than Mulch (as described above) helps suppress weeds and makes the area look attractive.
• Signs of citrus verrucosis are around – scabby looking bumpy leaves on your lemons tree – this develops in wetter cooler springs. Spray with copper fungicide.
• Planting seedlings of petunias, impatiens and salvias is good preparation for Christmas flowering, but be ruthless and ‘pinch out’ the tips of the stems. This encourages plenty of side growth for bushy plants and stops ‘leggy growth’. Liquid Compost mixed up and watered around will establish them better at planting time.
The Lawn
• Watering remains crucial for newly sown lawns, as the current drifting showers aren’t dampening the soils.
• If the lawn is looking starved, then use a dilute liquid lawn food, such as Living Earth Lawn Food.
• If your lawn is growing strongly, mow each week, with the blades set at 2.5cm off the ground.