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- Time to stake and tie your chrysanthemums up, or else their stems develop
into long curves that defy placement in vases for cut flowers in April-May.
Start feeding them fortnightly with a high potassium water-soluble
fertilizer such as Cultisol, All-Grow or Phostrogen or even any special
purpose tomato fertilizer, all of which seems to suit them.
- Another trick that the really keen chrysie growers use is a fortnightly
soil drench of seaweed attract in the hot weather. That acts as an organic
buffer in the soil and keeps the nutrients flowing to the stems, in spite of
the heat. Keeping the fertilizer up to chrysies at this time of year is
critical if you want lots of blooms in 3-4 months time. It’s too late once
the buds start forming!
- Tomato Russet Mite is rampant on the tomato bushes at present. It makes
the leaves go a mottles yellow and then fall off, but worse still it mottles
the fruit with yellow blotches and affects the flavour. Control early in the
season before the bushes start bearing is easy with tomato dust, but right
now the best you can do is spray with Lime Sulphur on days when the
temperature is below 32 degrees C, or you get some leaf burn.
- This Lime Sulphur control is not 100% effective for controlling tomato
russet mite admittedly, but it’s a lot safer than using a miticide that
will control the problematic little brown crawlers, but then you cannot eat
that sprayed crop of tomatoes!
- I had thought that the new ‘Improved Apollo’ tomato looked to be
resistant to tomato russet mite, but I noticed a small outbreak on some this
week, so it seems it is susceptible too, but not as bad as most cultivars. I’d
still love to hear from any ready that thinks they have a resistant
cultivar.
- Azalea mite has been controlled by some folk in the hills, by simply
spreading small piles of sulphur under their azalea bushes. The volatile
sulphur causes enough irritation to the soft-bodied red mites to send them
over the fence and this may work with tomato russet mite too. Let me know if
it works for you. One word of caution though, sulphur burns the leaves of
many plants when air temperatures rise over 32 degrees C.
- At this hot time of year, it’s worth emptying some of your worm farm
castings out unto valued plants. With all the salad days’ scraps at this
time of year the worms bread up quickly and make life miserable for each
other in a closed worm farm so sacrifice them to the garden, where the birds
will clean them up and the castings in the lower worm farm hoppers make
great mulch material around lettuces, tomatoes and any plant that seems to
be struggling.
- Still plenty of time to plant some climbing beans and get a good pick
before winter sets in. You just need a fence or a light frame at least 2.5
meters tall and spread superphosphate around after sowing the seed. Do not
water until they germinate, then water when necessary, but keep them a
little on the dry side at least once a week.
- This Lime Sulphur control is not 100% effective for controlling tomato
russet mite admittedly, but it’s a lot safer than using a miticide that
will control the problematic little brown crawlers, but then you cannot eat
that sprayed crop of tomatoes! Last week I mentioned how some hills folk use
sulphur to control Azalea mites, so maybe this is worth trying on your
tomatoes too? Sulphur also burns the leaves of many plants when air
temperatures rise over 32 degrees C, but then what are a few burnt leaves on
a tomato bush?
- Raspberries, gooseberries and all those wonderful succulent hybrid
berries, need feeding now, so that they make strong canes for next season’s
fruit. The old brown raspberry canes can be discarded, but the new first
season canes must be fed, as they are your future fruit bearing canes.
- Feed these berries with any high potassium water-soluble fertilizer, such
as Cultisol, All-Grow or Phostrogen or even any special purpose tomato
fertilizer will do, plus plenty of organic pellets, like the local Neutrog
Rapid Raiser or Dynamic Lifter if you don’t have your own chickens!
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