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South Australia - 6th January 2003
Most grape vines plus their fruit and even the
tougher ornamental Glory Vines are covered in powdery mildew at present, due to
the humidity we have been having. Even a few hot days won’t make it disappear.
You can choose to thin your vines out a bit to expose bunches of fruit or spray
with wettable sulphur at 4 grams per litre of water, sold locally as ‘Microfine’.
Mix it as a paste first then top up with lukewarm water. That produces a more
miscible spray that is less likely to clog your spray jets.
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Hydrangeas are still looking sensational in many areas, later than is normal this year. You may have noticed some new varieties of almost red, or at least a very deep maroon colour. These stay true to colour no matter what your soil reaction and you can save on the cost of the alum powders to blue them. If you grew your own potatoes this year and may have already harvested a few and noticed a scabby wart like growth on their skins. It’s powdery potato scab and it’s caused by over watering or more accurately this year by high soil moisture and poor drainage. Too late to do much about it right now, but mound your tuber patch up ma bit higher next year. Once peeled even a scabby homegrown spud still taste pretty good, so don’t be too depressed. I tip pruned my Fuchsias a month ago and they have just erupted into flower. It’s not too late to do a light tip prune if yours are a bit slow this year. It presents some more mature wood and they sprout laterals that come into flower pretty quickly. The overall effect is a denser flowering, rather than clumps of flower on the end of long waving canes. Most gardeners soon learn that Parsley is a biennial plant, that when planted as seed or as seedlings will flourish in its first year then go to seed in its second year. Wrong. I reckon in our climate that planted anytime between Sept-March it will be in seed the following summer no matter what. That’s only 13-15 months, which is why we all need to plant fresh parsley each year not every two years. I planted Nasturtiums under some new fruit trees in my small orchard back in spring, but the Nasturtiums have gone so rampant that I now have powdery mildew on the adjacent roses and they have provided a lovely cover crop for slugs to venture from and consume our netted nectarines. Nets may keep the birds away but not the slugs! Anyhow I’ve got some sections of PVC pipe and have pinned them down to act as slug sanctuaries and slug bait farms, because our curious dog would only eat the baits otherwise! I reckon Hills gardens get more attention at this time of year than at any other. I suppose because it’s so pleasant to be outside toiling in one… so what to plant right now? All the root crops, like Swedes, turnips, parsnips, carrots, radish, leeks, kohl rabi and red beet can be sown from seed. Also seedlings of silver beet and the brassicas, like cabbages, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts (that is the correct spelling too). I’d also suggest you plant some more zucchini, even if yours are fruiting well at present, because as they age they get prone to mildew infestations and cropping suffers. The young plants can resist mildew if growing strongly, so plan for a transition and a removal of the old vines in about four to six weeks. Plant some more lettuce seedlings too and mulch them with organic pellets. Also foliar spray then after a week with a water-soluble fertilizer since they thrive on a high nitrogen nutrient and unless kept growing rapidly they taste bitter when harvested. If growing the fancy leaf types such as the ‘Combo’ mix, try harvesting a few leaves at a time rather than pick the whole plant. They last ages and don’t take up much room at all. Even when they run to seed the younger leaves are still quite tasty. |
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