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- It’s a good time to spray your grape vines with a light miscible oil such as winter
oil or PestOil™, that protects your vines from any early break of fungal diseases in
spring. No matter that most of the foliage will be pruned off in 2 months. Right now its
good protection and what’s more, cheap to apply.
- Right now is excellent time to apply gypsum to improve drainage and friability on clay
soils. It can be applied at 300 grams per metre and best of all it is pH neutral. The
white Meningie gypsum is our purest premium grade and contains 94% gypsum and 17.5%
sulphur that assist in acidifying your soil. Even the other grades (mostly from Victoria)
that are variously cream or orange coloured are still very useful soil conditioners, just
not as concentrated.
- Our household has a huge surplus of chillies at present and some are the lethal Habanero
(Scoville 10, the hottest of all) and so under Annie’s supervision we’ve made
some chilli oil complete with the scunge in the bottom. Use one cup of dried and a few
fresh chillies and with rubber gloves on, crush or chop, then carefully put them into a
heavy saucepan, simmering with 3 cups of corn oil or peanut oil for 15 minutes in the
range 105 to 120°C. Allow to cool and store.
- This is probably your last chance to plant Sweet Peas in the ground this autumn. Of
course if you are sowing them into containers that’s a different matter and they can
be sown up until mid September. Lime the soil and plant into moist soil but do not water
after planting or they may rot before they germinate. A sprinkle of superphosphate over
the patch works wonders.
- Even at this relatively late stage in the year, you can still get a bit of reaction from
your roses with a top dressing of organic pellets and the nutrient they pick up now gets
relocated when they go dormant so it’s not lost.
- Keep on top of the Aphids as we approach leaf fall on roses and so many deciduous trees.
Either wash them off, spray with PestOil™ or Neem Oil or if they are really plague
like and they certainly are in some local gardens, then spray with systemic Rogor or
Confidor™.
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