Gardening in North Otago 4th May 2012

We sure have had an early taste of winter this week to remind us what is to come It had me looking about for warmer clothes.
Nature has it right, leaves fall to cover the ground protecting roots from the cold to come. I have been filling wool pack after wool pack with leaves which I will turn into mulch and return to the garden come spring.
Mulch:
Leaves, soft garden waste, grass clippings and a lot of water to encourage all to rot down. When the heap is full I cover with a layer of wet straw.
Large holding bays can be made with bales of straw as the side walls against an existing wall as the back of the bay. You may have to bang in
stakes to hold the straw bales if you go up 3 high.

Erica's - Autumn is when they bud up to start flowering as the days get colder, if they were cut after flowering they should have gone through the Summer looking fresh and green and should now be well in bud. They are a wonderful ground cover and look good growing down walls. There are many different shades of pink, lavender and white, some are ground covers and some are upright. Erica's need full sun and good drainage to look their best. They are frost hardy and their colour intensifies the colder it is. They look great planted in drifts of 3 or 5 together to give great impact. My garden would be very dull in the Winter months without Erica's.

Roses: I stop dead heading roses now, pull off the spent blooms and let the seeds form which will harden the wood needing to be pruned in July. Then I remove all diseased leaves from the bushes and on the ground around bushes before compost & manure and pea straw is added to bed them down for winter.

Tidy up daylillies, by pulling off old leaves and cutting back those that will not pull off, divide over grown clumps by putting a sharp spade through the clump and transplanting pieces with a little blood & bone then mulch to retain moisture.

The seeds I planted not so long ago are up and growing well with the ground still so nice and warm, I will nurse them along in a warm spot until spring. Potting them up before then should they put on a lot of growth before the cold slows them right down.

Vegetables:

Keep planting salad plants and a main sowing of cabbage, cauliflower, onions, shallots, broad beans, and other hardy vegetables.

Fruit
Gather late fruiting peaches, apples & pears and use quickly because any even slightly damaged fruit will soon rot and affect the sound fruit.
A dressing of lime now will assist next seasons fruiting.

Gardening by the moon
FIRST QUARTER
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Garden:
Last chance to plant compost/carbon crops and have them grow strongly over winter

Clean up your strawberry bed, removing runners and placing them into trenches in the garden or seed raising trays to root for planting a new bed etc, now is the time to get your strawberry orders if you haven't done so yet
Plant winter salad greens, rocket , Winter Mesclun Mix, land cress, Winter lettuce, etc under microclima or cloches or cold frames

Transplant flowers for early spring flowering, heartsease, snap dragons, calendula larskpur, love in a mist, hollyhock

Foliar feed all brassicas, celery, beetroot, salad greens that need it while the soil is still warm and active

Orchard:
Feed citrus well now, manure, seaweed, and mulch. Citrus trees will only produce well year after year high brix fruit if you feed well and keep the roots moist but not water logged, and cool!

Spray neem oil on apples for codlin and woolly aphid (if you have woolly aphid you'll have to put neem onto the roots of the apples using a watering can as well as spraying the leaves because bugs over winter and live in the roots, re-infecting the tops), same for pear slug and citrus aphid and mealy bug if necessary. These pests will only be a problem if you do not have the mineral balance right in soil.



Cheers Linda.