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Keep an eye on your pot plants. It’s
surprising at this time of year, with a few sunny days, how they dry out so quickly.
Especially those with bulbs that are now in a state of growth. So water them at least
weekly. Early Jonquils that have already completed
their flowering, need to be fed now so that next year’s flower develops in the bulb,
before they die down. Use a water-soluble fertilizer, as a foliar feed, with some warm
water and kelp extract to ward off the frost. Of yes we can still expect a frost or two.
Last recorded frost day for Adelaide is 14th October!
If you have a fine leaf lawn, now is the time to give it
its first feed of the year. However if yours is a couch lawn its too early to feed with
chemical fertilizers, unless you have cut it back really hard and then you can use a fine
organic mulch liberally mixed with aged chicken manure, much like top-dressing with sand
and stand back! That’s Dennis Richardson’s trick at McLaren Vale, if you’ve
seen their open garden, you’d have to agree the ‘Santa Anna’ couch lawn is
our best.
Don’t forget to keep spraying a water-soluble
fertilizer on your annuals, every fortnight. I know it sounds excessive, but they get very
demanding at this time of year and they will run out of flowering-oomph, unless you do.
It’s time to start thinking tomatoes. Not planting
them, but creating the right spot in full sun and emptying a compost heap onto the spot
where you will grow them. Don’t dig the compost in. Rough dig the soil, add compost
about 5cm thick and just leave it until October, when you plant your Tomatoes out.
That’s right October!
You’ll need to start looking for seedlings soon, if
you want robust disease free F1 hybrids like ‘Big Red’, ‘Mighty Red’
or ‘Dynamite’. All need to be potted into 100mm (4") pots of a pretty poor
potting mix, without fertilizer and literally starved for the next six weeks. Water only
when they wilt. Trust me! Of course if your grow yours from seed they can be started under
glass now too. |
