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What
a scorcher we’ve had recently. It brings the fruit on to ripen faster too, so
it’s smart to pick some while still quite firm and after ripen it in doors,
rather than have it all ripen and possibly fall to the ground at once.
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All
stone fruits after ripen. That is as soon as they have colour they can be picked
and stored indoors, where they continue to ripen. The exception is grapes, that
will only ever be as ripe as they are when picked!
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Don’t
loose too much sleep over the terrible scorching that your roses took on their
leaves last week. They go brown fall off and are very quickly replaced by new
fresh foliage. They will appreciate a feed soon though, as soon as we get a few
mild days though.
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The
rain and heat of the past week is likely to be dynamite for fungal diseases on
roses this week, so rather than wait for blackspot and powdery mildew to appear,
use precautionary tactics. At the mild end, spray with water-soluble sulphur,
such as Sulfine® (not effective on all fungal diseases) and at the radical end
where your have lots of roses or shaded areas spray Triforine™, that controls
blackspot, powdery mildew and rusts.
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For
the soft soap option, which is as close to an organic solution as I know, is to
spray saponine, made by dicing Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) roots into
boiling water or crushing Sapium serbiferum nuts into boiling water which both
form a non-sudsy mix. Allow to cool and add three parts water and use gloves to
prepare and spray, as it might be organic, but it’s darn toxic. Used in
commercial detergents by cleaning companies it is not available to the gardener
or public, as far as I know, so collect your own material.
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If
we get forecast a few days of temperatures below 32°C,
then you could spray PestOil™ at the recommended strength for roses, but
hotter than that and it will burn your foliage… still that’s not terminal!
All good fungal controls anyhow.
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