|
- It’s rumoured that a well-presented garden can add up to 15% to the
value of a house when and if you come to sell yours.
- It’s potato-planting season now, but why plant varieties that you will
be able to buy at the greengrocers’ in a few weeks for $1.00 a kilo? I had
a stoush with a potato grower a few years ago about putting the cultivar
names on potatoes for sale, since all potatoes do not cook the same way.
Well he argued that it would never happen… too hard. Anyhow I’m pleased
to report that most potatoes are now labelled, albeit a little too laxly at
times, but it’s a start.
- If you like French fries at home plant the classic King Edward with its
pale cream-pink skin and white flesh holds its shape when cooked in oil. If
a firm yellow flesh for curries or salads and roasting that holds its shape
is your aim, plant the pale pink skinned Desireé. Bintje has white skin and
yellow flesh that bakes, boils and fries well. For mash and roasting you
have Pontiac with pink skin and white flesh, Bison with red skin and white
flesh and Ruby Lou with pale pink skin and white flesh. For special effect
Purple Congo has both purple skin and flesh and is for steaming and a pretty
firm purple mash!
- Plant the whole potato for high yields and spread superphosphate over the
sown tubers. If drainage is below par, plant onto raised mounds, even if it’s
only 10cm high. All of the above varieties and several more are currently in
your favourite nursery outlet and best of all I reckon potatoes can be
planted anywhere so long as they get at least 8 hours sunlight and digging
your own is a real thrill.
- Another crop that’s dead easy is carrots. Sow the seed thinly in shallow
drills and backfill with no more than 1cm of soil and keep them watered.
When they appear you can use the densely germinated ones as a treat to
nibble in the garden, because they never make it inside and then fertilize
lightly with superphosphate over the plants. Too much though and they grow
funny and forked.
- I’d guess that you’ve pruned your roses by now and what might have
been overlooked is the need to spray them with some light PestOil or Bug
Oil, which will protect them from many of the early fungal diseases. It’s
a lot cheaper than using coper compounds and a lot safer on your earthworms
too.
- If you missed the boat with autumn planted Sweet Peas, don’t despair,
there are varieties that can be sown now. The little Tiffany is ideal for
containers and the late flowering Spencer strain can go in now too. There’s
probably no better way to cover a fence than with a section of chicken wire
and a packet of sweet pea seed, not to mention the heavenly scent on the
picked blooms indoors.
- I planted a hyacinth bulb in one of those special glass bulb containers a
few months ago and it opened its lovely purple flower this week on our
window sill in front of the kitchen sink. I’m reminded of that verse by
Omar Khayyam that says something about ‘better to invest in a hyacinth to
fill the soul than bread to feed it.’ Or words to that effect. It’s such
a stunning flower and everyone has room for one.
- The brown woolly bear caterpillars are on the move. Either don a rubber
glove and go squashing them or spray Dipel HG onto larger plants that cannot
be reached with the glove. Dipel HG contains the Baccillus thuringiensis
that rots the caterpillar’s stomach, but does not cause any other effects
further down the food chain.
- A word of caution if you use any of those weed and feed sprays that
contain Dicamba as the herbicide. A very senior tree specialist told me
recently that he is absolutely convinced after having delivering last rights
on literally hundreds of dead Blue Cedars and Himalayan Cedars over the past
35 years since Dicamba started to be used extensively in home gardens, that
it kills Cedars. Now that I think of it that may have caused the death of
the large Cedar in the grounds at Scotch College. No other cause seemed
plausible.
- If you are planning a tomato patch in your vegetable garden this summer,
start by removing any milk thistles near by, as they harbour the Brown Leaf
Hopper that spreads the insidious big bug Mycoplasma. I’m sure you weren’t
thinking of planting tomatoes just yet were you?
Things that make you go hmmm.
|
