Gardening in North Otago 31st July 2010

What a lovely winters week we have had in North Otago, frost, sun and blue, blue sky's
Trees and shrubs have been moving around our garden this week, now that trees are bare I can see where some trees and shrubs would be better in another place.
If you have a shrubs or trees that are not growing in the right spot?

It's best to dig them up carefully and shift them now, in winter, while

they are dormant, and to give them time to adjust to a new home

before spring growth starts.

Once dug out dig a hole twice as big as the root ball, cut back any

damaged roots and invest in some peat moss to put in the bottom of

the planting hole, add water to wet the peat, new feeder roots

will grow well.

Each large transplant should to be staked well against the coming

winds until new roots have established well enough to hold it.




Best to get all your winter pruning done before the end of the month and spring bud burst. Once roses are all pruned they can be sprayed with a copper spray mixed with winter oil to clean up disease and seal cuts. Follow directions printed on containers.

Citrus and tamarillo will be ripening and colouring up with the frosty days we have been experiencing. Prune your citrus shrubs as you pick the fruit by cutting stems out to open up the bush to the sun so as to encourage new growth and flowers in spring.

If your lemons are dry and pithy this winter it will be most probably due to a lack of nitrogen last summer when the fruit was developing. Give your bushes plenty of nitrogen next summer, nitrophoska blue would do the trick.

I have seen tamarillo growing here in North Otago on the coast, the cheerful bright red fruit are wonderful to see in a winter garden and will withstand coastal frosts. For best flavour harvest tamarillo when they fall, rather than picking them off the tree.


Vegetable garden

It's time to start tidying up the garden in preparation for spring planting. Clear weeds and give a dressing of manure, compost and a little lime to the soil where you have recently grown crops, this will prepare for the next round of planting. However not all crops like lime – potatoes and tomatoes don't, but peas, beans and capsicums love it along with the worms.

Cut down and dig in green manure crops such as mustard, lupin and oats to help improve soil fertility. Cut them down before they flower and dig them into the soil shallowly. It takes at least a month to six weeks for them rot down before replanting new veges.

Cheers, Linda (Parkside Stone & Garden Weston)