Gardening in Waitaki March 17th 2926

Comfrey plant tea.

The autumn change is with us some days and not others, and it is hard to determine what season it is right now. Warm, lingering days still feel like summer, yet cooler mornings and the occasional rain remind us that autumn is quietly settling in. The garden reflects this uncertainty too, growth continues strongly, weeds are thriving, but many plants are looking tired after a long growing season. At this time of year, weed seeds are ripe and falling or popping to settle in to germinate during spring, so be one step ahead by hoeing out or removing the ripened heads if time is limited.  Cutting back will be full on now. Once I start, there is no stopping me from leaving destruction in my wake. Cut back, lift and divide summer flowering perennials and shrubs, remove seed heads from ornamental grass if you have not already done so, and the clumps will look a lot tidier.  This is a good time to cut the leaves from comfrey plants while plump, before they disappear for winter. Comfrey leaves chopped and packed into a container with a lid, weigh leaves down, and just cover with water. The leaves will break down to a black tar-like substance packed with nutrients that plants love once diluted down into a comfrey tea. As sap in trees and shrubs declines to harden stems and trunks to cope with winter's chill, watering, then mulching from now on, will set your garden up for its long winter rest while at the same time building up my ornamental gardens and keeping weeds down. Also spread mulch around established plants in the veg garden and as layers on compost heaps.  I have been collecting seed and putting down cuttings daily. So many plants, trees and shrubs can be grown by you for your garden or shared by doing this now. Ponds will not have overheated this summer, so fish will have multiplied amongst oxygen weed where fish lay their eggs. I used to remove all the big fish into a bucket of pond water during early summer to protect eggs from being eaten. Small gold fish are light brown when hatched and hard to see, but they turn orange as they grow. Replace the big fish once the small fish are big enough not to be eaten.If ducks have visited your pond and introduced duckweed, it will increase rapidly. Once fish eggs had hatched, I used to remove duckweed and oxygen weed with a leaf rake and apply it all as mulch onto gardens. Topping ponds up often during hot weather helps to cool the water and keep ponds cleaner. Lawns Get new lawns sown now, the cooler nights and mornings are allowing moisture to remain longer after watering, and a strike will happen pretty fast in the warm ground. For established lawns, dry weather encourages thatch to build up around grass roots, and lawns can become thick with it, killing off good grass. If you feel your lawn is being choked by thatch, this is the time to address the problem; a de-thatcher can be hired from our local garden hire business. Once a good portion of thatch is removed, good grass gets a chance to grow strongly again. Scarification will also help remove moss, and a bonus is that thatch can be used to mulch gardens and added to compost heaps. Grass grubs are on the go, munching grass roots and leaving dead patches. Treat lawns with grass grub granuals from now until May. Vegetables. March is an important month for planting winter veg. Prepare the soil before planting with compost, general garden fertiliser and lime (only if needed to bring the pH up), I add lime to my compost. Keep planting all veg seedlings on offer, cover from birds and white butterflies. Prepare garlic beds with compost/ manure worked in, then left to settle until planting out in June. Heartease (small wild pansy) is a companion plant to garlic and onions. Fruit: Share your harvest if you are loaded with fruit. When picking is over, weed, manure, mulch/compost around fruit trees. Citrus have been producing flowers and fruit well this season, give them citrus food as a reward, or allow the dropped fruit to add the acid needed by breaking down over the tree roots. Cheers, Linda.

Lawn dethatcher.