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- Citrus plants of most types are looking a little jaded
at present. The dry subsoil brings on the signs of lime-induced-chlorosis (LIC)
caused by the iron in the soil getting locked up and so unavailable to your
plants due to the alkalinity of the soil. The remedy is to water in a
solution of iron chelate (pronounced kilate) to the root zone. Although it
can be used as a foliar spray on very alkaline soils, it marks the leaves.
Anyhow that turns the yellowing leaves a bright green in days and may need
to be done again in late spring and mid summer.
- Emerging freesia corms are getting infested with thrips
at present. They affect the leaf tips so they look as though they are dying.
Use a safe lime-sulphur spray to control them and if we get some rain, it
gets washed off easily, so you need to apply it almost weekly to stay on
top. I use a cheap half-litre hand spray and have some on the ready all the
time.
- If you’re growing bulbs or corms in pots, check with
a spirit level to see that they are sitting level or the drainage hole can
hold enough water to cause rapid bulb decay. A few stones or a coin is
usually enough.
- Mint will make very rapid recovery if cut back at the
moment and fed with water-soluble fertilizer. Even if you normally stage
your mint in a shaded spot in summer, which is ideal, move them out to get
some sun now and they will take off.
- Annie’s roses have a few light infestations of aphids
at present, caused by the shorter days and the wasps that have been feeding
on them all summer, now working a shorter day, effectively having knocked
off by 5pm., so I’ve been using a simple jet of water from the hose and it
seems to work. Sure they come back but I jet every couple of days and the
honeyeaters seem to gobble a few too. It beats spraying on such small
outbreaks.
- With the vines shedding their leaves at present it won’t
be too long before we are thinking about pruning so it’s a good time to
service your loppers and secateurs. Either by sharpening the by-pass blade
or replacing it if they are a quality brand. If that sounds beyond you there
are loads of sharpening agencies in the yellow pages that will do it for you
and that’s why you need to do it now, rather than in a month when you want
to use them.
- My lawn is down to being cut fortnightly at present, so
the soil temperature certainly drops faster than the air temperature. Even
with such slow growth, it is a good time to give your lawn an enriched
organic feed of crushed pellets (the locally made Neutrog Upsurge™ is
ideal). That may sound as though it’s flying in the face of conventional
wisdom, but the organic material will break down slowly over winter and
provide a great buffer in spring, when you start fertilizing with
water-soluble nutrient.
- While most of this year’s fruit crop has been picked,
unless you still have some late apples, persimmons or the odd pear, but make
sure you’ve removed all the old mummified fruit as well. That forms the
over wintering diet for fungal diseases (and fruit flies in some areas) as
well as European Wasps, that will revisit your trees early in spring, if
left. Relegate the old fruits to the bin rather than compost them, unless
you have a good hot system.
- Plant Iceland Poppies now but do not feed them with too
much nitrogen. Stay with the Fruit and flower set liquids that are a source
of concentrated potassium. Poppies get too soft if overfed and all that does
is create a whole crop of weak stemmed poppies. No good to anyone. I have
seen some bunches of poppy buds in local florist shops already, but don’t
be deterred by that. Plant some now and they will flower in this area until
early November.
- The Oak leaves have fallen in many hills areas
recently, but did you know if collected, they make an excellent barrier to
ward off snails. Line the leaves out on your lawn and shred them with a
lawnmower then spread the shredded leaves around your tender seedlings.
Keeps the snails at bay.
- Other leaves raked up and composted makes a better
grade nutrient for your spring garden than leaving them where they fall,
since that only provides habitat for earwigs, slugs, snails and if dry
enough, red-back spiders! Composted at 50 degrees C all the weed seeds and
plant pathogens are destroyed and you have a fine friable compost to mulch
your prize plants with in spring when they need it.
- I’m a great advocate of using worm water and worm
castings on various hungry plants in the garden. Lettuce just loves it. I’ve
no idea what’s in it, but I found recently that it has killed my rhubarb.
It dropped all its leaves immediately and after just four weeks I dug around
to see how the big fat rhubarb crown was fairing and it was just a rotten
cavity. Stone dead!
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