It is about that time of the year when gardeners oil up their secateurs, put on their gloves and go out to do battle with their thorny but well loved roses.
Just how you go about pruning your roses is really up to you, but the most popular cut is to prune somewhere above the third or fourth outgoing buds. This will create a champagne-glass shape which means that the inner part of the rose will receive adequate light. Some in growing buds can be rubbed out to prevent the centre of the bush becoming too congested.
If you prune low to second outgoing buds, you will end up with strong new growths which will bear fewer flowers, but better blooms. If you prune high, say to the fifth or sixth outgoing buds, you'll end up with a denser bush with a lot of flowers.
PRUNING CLIMBING ROSES

Pruning climbing roses is a somewhat different affair.
Assuming you don't want a rambling rose which grows where and how it wants, you need to shape your climbing rose to form a framework of main branches along a wall, a fence, or over an archway.
The aim is to have the new season's growth sprouting from this framework and producing the much-wanted floral display, but to get to that stage requires careful training and selective pruning.
After planting your climber, let the branches grow and tie them to the support over which the rose is growing, to cover the desired area.
A reader recently asked me how many plants he should buy, and how far apart he should plant them, when putting in Dublin Bay climbing roses to create a solid "wall" along his fence line.
I replied that the normal distance apart would be one metre, but it would be his subsequent pruning and control which would determine how thickly the lower part of the floral structure would grow.
For example, I explained, take the lowest buds and train them sideways to fill in the space between the rose plants.
Take the next buds at about 30 degrees, then 60 degrees, then 90 degrees until each rose has a fan-like structure from which each year's new shoots will grow.
Once the wall is nicely covered, it is simply a matter of cutting back or tying in those growths extending too far from the wall.
Once you've established the basic framework of the climber, the only pruning needed is to remove any branches which have grown outwards and detract from the desired effect, and remove any dead wood, spindly growth or dead branches.
Over time, replace the old main branches with new ones which you have trained during the season to become part of the framework. Your work during the growing season of a climber consists more of training and tying back than anything else, as the branches will grow quickly from new shoots in the spring and summer period.
The chances are, they will initially grow away from where you want them, but all you need do is tie them back to the framework.
Then in winter, you can remove them if you want to prevent the framework from becoming too congested, or you can leave them in the framework and remove older branches instead.
It is really important to remember to never cut a climber down as low as you would a bush rose.
Climbers treated in this fashion can revert back to bush roses.
Always leave a few branches of a metre or more in length, even when doing a hard cut-back such as might be the case when you're repairing or painting the wall or fence.
PRUNING HYGIENE

I remember some years back a prominent rose grower criticised an article that I wrote about using hygienic practices when pruning roses or other plants. His retort was you did not need to take any special care when pruning several roses, one after another.
My answer to this is common sense and logic. If an aphid can travel from one rose to another and transfer a virus or disease then the jaws of a pair of a pair of secateurs are a lot bigger than the jaws of an aphid!
Anyway lets read on a bit more;
Whatever rose you are pruning, and whatever technique you use, there are some invaluable tips you should adopt for the post-prune process. First, you must spray each rose with Liquid Copper immediately after pruning to protect the wounds.
Don't, however, prune on a cool moist day as silver leaf disease is likely to be air borne in these conditions. It is also crucial to keep in mind that viruses can be transferred from rose to rose, so make sure you spray copper onto the secateurs after pruning each rose.
Alternatively, use methylated spirits. The latter is even better than the copper in providing protection.
Simply fill a cup almost full of the meths, and dip the partly open blades into the cup, making sure all the cutting edges are well soaked prior to moving onto the next rose.
In a nutshell then, pruning consists of cutting back the rose, spraying the remaining canes with Liquid Copper, and then dipping the secateurs blades into methylated spirits. Then move on to the next rose and repeat the procedure.
Thats all fairly simple isn't it? But lets give a few extra tips.
Take your bottle of Liquid Copper, (it has the great advantage of already being liquid so there is little risk of blocked jets in the middle of a job) and double the normal amount (which is 3.5 mils to a litre of water) to 7 mils per litre, add in one ml of Raingard so the spray stays on, rain or shine for up to 14 days. Mix up and place in a trigger sprayer and use this spray after pruning each rose to cover the wounds.
Once made up the spray will keep for sometime but you need shake the sprayer well as the copper will settle. When using Raingard or its spray on frost protection cousin, Vaporgard, you must remember that these are films which set on the areas sprayed, to obtain their benefits.
This means that after you have finished spraying with these aids, that you should flush and spray some clean water through your sprayer, otherwise the residues left will set and block up the jets.
Hot water is best to use for this purpose and spray the water till it runs clean.
If on the other hand you forget to do this simple task, then when you come to use the same sprayer again and find that the jets are blocked, you need to dismantle and clear the jets with a bit of fine wire and soak them in methylated spirits.
Choose your day to prune carefully, it should be after a few days without rain with sun and wind to dry the soil and air. This is very important as the deadly silver leaf disease favours entering fresh wounds when the air is moist and cool.
In areas where silver leaf disease is a major problem extra care should be taken. It is also a very good practise in the spring, after a reasonable amount of new foliage appears, to give the roses a couple of sprays, a month apart, with Perkfection.
This builds up the immune system of the rose and can allow a rose to recover from the disease if it is not too far advanced.
It also protects against a number of other diseases as well, through fortifying the rose’s immune system.
If early in the season when the new shoots are out and we have a cold snap you can protect the delicate shoots with a spray of Vaporgard.
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July is the month to begin sowing seeds in trays or punnets to grow on for planting out later.
Start with the more hardy types this month and then the more tender ones later in August.
Sowing your own seeds for plants makes economical sense. The cost of transport and fertilisers that nurseries now have to pay to grow and get their products to garden centres will mean that these costs will be passed onto you, when you buy seedlings in punnets this coming spring.
It is simple logics; if you have to pay several dollars for half a dozen lettuces in a punnet and it costs you less than that for a packet of lettuce seeds, which should give you over a hundred lettuce plants, which is better value?
All you need to do is learn how to germinate seeds successfully and grow them onto the stage where you can plant them out into your gardens. Which is very easy once you get the knack.
Once you have mastered the art of germination and growing seedlings on, you will have more plants that you could ever hope to use, year after year.
You can even go a stage further and allow one of each of a crop to mature and go to seed and harvest your own seed at no cost for future plantings.
If you do this year after year you will develop a strain of plants that are perfectly suited to your growing conditions.
All you have to do is let the best looking plant of a crop go to seed. Never let an inferior looking plant go to seed for this purpose as you will be collecting inferior seed.
For the most success in germinating and growing on, you should consider buying a heat pad and making a cold frame. Heat pads for seed germination should be available from most good garden centres.
A cold frame can be made out of plastic or glass and the most simple one would be an old drawer that is about 15cm deep or deeper and one or more sheets of glass to cover the drawer area.
This should be located outside in a sunny area (for winter) sitting on some bricks or similar so it is not in contact with wet ground. In summer you would move it to a partly shaded area where it does not get all day sun and cause the seedlings to dry out and burn.
Using a heat pad to warm the seedling trays into which you have sown your seeds means that you will germinate much quicker and get a better strike of more seeds than you would without one.
Punnets that you have purchased in the past are ideal for doing small batches of seeds having one punnet for each type of plant you wish to grow. A plastic label with the type of seed named along with the date you sowed the seeds should be placed at one end of the punnet.
The best medium for placing in the punnet is a good friable potting mix. Seed raising mixes are more expensive and generally speaking are not as good as a potting mix for best results.
Fill the punnet to two thirds full with the potting mix and then using a sieve such as you have in the kitchen, sieve some more of the mix over what has been placed in the punnet.
This places a nice fine layer of mix for you to sprinkle the seeds on.
The amount of seeds you sow should be a bit more than the number of plants you require and the seeds should be spaced nicely apart as best able.
Next make up a solution of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) in non chlorinated water at 20 mls per litre into a trigger type sprayer and mist the exposed seeds to make the whole area nice and moist.
Then lightly sieve a little more mix over the seeds to partly cover and mist again. Most seeds like a little light to germinate so they do not need to be completely covered.
The MBL assists greatly in rapid germination and gives the seedlings a great start.
Last season I had one gardener tell me that by using MBL on the pumpkin seeds he was germinating, it took just over a week for the plants to be ready for planting out, normally it would be 2-3 weeks.
Now that the seeds are sown, place the punnet onto your heat pad and mist twice a day with the MBL solution, which can have more non chlorinated water added to it to make it about 5mls per litre ratio.
It is very important that the mix and seeds are kept moist and you must remember to mist regularly when using a heat pad.
Where the pad and punnets are placed is not important but should be somewhere that you are going to be a few times a day such as in the kitchen. (so you don't forget to mist regularly)
Once you see a strike, with a number of the seedlings pushing up, with their first embryo leaves, you need to move the punnet to your cold frame because the germinated seedlings need overhead natural light.
This is the time that some gardeners make the mistake of not placing the freshly germinated seedlings into proper light.
When the natural light is coming sideways such as through a window then the baby seedlings will stretch and grow towards the light.
The stems stretch making them weak and prone to the disease which we call dampening off.
Once out into the cold frame or on a bench in a glasshouse the watering requirements will lessen greatly and likely a daily misting will be all that is required as there is now no under heat to dry the growing medium.
The seedlings will soon develop what we call the first true set of leaves and in doing so will begin to gather greater amounts of energy from the sun.
Seedlings are grown on till they reach a suitable size to handle and transplant (Pricking out) into either small individual pots or into a larger seedling tray, nicely spaced apart individually to grow on.
In most cases about 6 seedlings to a punnet or even better one per cell in a cell tray.
Before you prick out, spray the young plants with Vaporgard and leave them for a day.
Then you plunge the punnet into a bucket of non chlorinated water till it stops bubbling.
With the mix being really saturated means it is easier to prick out each plant with minimal root damage.
To make this task easier take an old teaspoon and with a hammer flatten out the spoon part and then grind the spoon so the it has a blunt point. This can be used like a little spade to aid the separation of the seedlings.
Grow your seedlings in their new containers till they are of a suitable size to plant out.
When they are about ready to plant out spray them once again with Vaporgard which reduces transplant shock and then wait a day or two before planting into the garden.
Placing 2 litre plastic bottles, with their bottoms cut off and cap removed, over the seedlings will give them a great start. This can achieve 2 to 3 times the growth compared to a seedling without the protection.
Now what to do with the seeds not sown or ones collected?
Fold seed packets, to seal and with collected seeds place in small plastic bags with a label saying what they are. These are then placed in a sealed glass jar and stored in the fridge.
The cold temperatures give a false winter and will aid greatly, when you come to germinate the next batch. Some seeds keep better than others so you can expect that most seeds will be good for at least a year and in some cases over 20 years.
There are good seed stand ranges available from garden centres which include Mr.Fothergill’s and Niche Seeds.
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With some miserable weather covering much of the country recently, now is a good time to look to those plants that we grow indoors which we commonly call house plants.
House plants not only brighten up the indoors they also assist in purifying the air we breath, converting carbon dioxide to oxygen and filtering out harmful air borne substances.
A very valid point to remember as the owner and care giver of indoor plants is that house plants are solely dependant on us for their well being. We supply the moisture that they require along with nutrients in the form of plant foods and where we place them in a room will depend on how much natural light they receive.
Winter can be a hard time for house plants if you are not very careful about the amount of water you provide. Many plants are lost in winter as a result of root rots through overwatering.
This even applies in a heated room where a plant that hates wet feet, is sitting in a saucer that is full of water, which means that the potting mix is saturated.
When we turn off the heat the room quickly chills making it very uncomfortable for the plant and as there is a lack of air around the roots they soon begin to rot.
In the warmer months with longer day light hours the plant is able to use the water and evaporation rates are higher also, which means the root rot problem will not occur unless we continue to overwater too often.
In winter the secret is to give your house plants a small drink of water on the average of once a week.
This may vary with plants that are pot bound and need a bit of a top up before the weekly watering comes around. The plant will tell you as they go into water stress through lack of moisture, foliage and flowers will begin to droop indicating that the mix has become too dry.
(Note; drooping flowers and foliage can also be displayed when a plant has been over watered)
A quick test is to lift the pot up and if it feels light then all is ok and a small drink maybe applied.
If the pot feels heavy and there is water in the saucer then it is too wet and needs to be dried out by placing it in a warm room and not giving any further water till it is light in weight.
It is surprising how light the container can become before any sign of water stress is displayed.
Plants that are in rooms not normally heated may only require a small drink every 2 to 4 weeks to keep them happy in winter.
The amount of natural light that a plant receives indoors in winter is also another important aspect to its well being.
We are down to about only 8 hours of daylight at this time and through a window the brightest light is within one metre of that window. As we move across the room the light level dramatically drops, something we don't notice but plants do.
There are a number of house plants such as philodendrons with their larger leaves that adjust to lower light levels very well. Smaller leaf plants such as maidenhair ferns need a really bright light and to be within a metre of a good bright light window to do well through the winter months.
A quick guide to the amount of light a plant needs is by the size of the leaves, generally speaking small leaf plants need better light levels than do large leaf plants.
Indoor plants that are in flower need ample bright light by being placed very near to a bright light window. If there is insufficient light they may either not flower at all, or produce flower buds that fail to open and eventually fall off the plant.
Cyclamen are a neat winter flowering plant for winter as they like the cold. Indoors they will not do well in a heated room unless you place them right on a window sill where it is cooler.
You can move them onto the coffee table when visitors are coming, to make them a star attraction but once the visitors go, back onto the window sill or even better pop them outside on the porch by an entrance way.
African Violets are another neat flowering plant that does not require a high level of light, instead they require very long hours of light, which includes your indoor lighting.
Given 12 to 16 hours of light every day they can keep on producing flowers all year round.
Poinsettias are the reverse as they flower when the daylight hours are short and will flower for you this time of the year if they only receive natural light without having their light hours extended by artificial light.
The red leaf poinsettias that one finds in the shops coming up to Xmas have been forced to flower out of season.
By the way the red leaves that we may think are the flowering are not, as they produce small short lived unattractive flowers at the axis of the leaf bracts.
I have currently two red leaf poinsettias sitting on a window sill in the lounge, when the curtains are pulled at night they do not receive any artificial light and thus they are giving a neat display of red leaves.
No longer are they squat as they were when purchased, as the nurseries use dwarfing hormones on the plants to produce the dense, squat plants we buy.
Once the hormone treatment wears off they become natural again and even a bit leggy if we don't trim them back now and then.
One house plant that is very hardy and can suffer overwatering is the Spathiphyllums with their sword like dark green leaves and their white flowers which are often referred to as the Peace Lily.
Spathiphyllums resent direct strong natural light and will do well, away from the windows, as long as the spot is not too dark. They are also a plant that can live very happily under water in a fish tank that has a light above it.
House plants often are attacked by the pest insect, mealy bugs which live both in the root system and also in the foliage. They are white and look a bit like strings of cotton wool both on the foliage and in the root system.
The best treatment is to plunge the container into a solution of Professor Macs 3 in 1 for lawns to kill the pests in the root zone. The mealy bugs on the foliage can be sprayed with Neem Tree Oil.
Scale and a few other insect pests can also be found on indoor plants and Neem Tree Oil is ideal for their control. Take the plants out to the shed and spray them there so as not to affect wall paper or furnishings. Leave for a few hours and return them to their spots indoors.
As house plants are not actively growing in the winter there is no need to worry about feeding them till the spring. Flowering house plants on the other hand will do better with a little plant food such as Matrix Reloaded.
Take care of your house plants and they will give you pleasure for many years, my oldest are now over 30 years old.
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On the 21st of June the Northern hemisphere had their summer solstice and we, our winter solstice.
The shortest day means the longest night which also equates to the shortest hours of natural light.
Plants are really effected by short light hours and one of the main reasons that growth is so slow during the middle of winter. If you give plants 24/7 of light and they never stop growing, which is a trick some nursery and glasshouse owners use to get plants moving at this time..
Over the next few weeks your garden plants will start to respond to the increasing amount of light each day. Buds will start to swell as we enter into spring. June is also the beginning of the new year of gardening and the time for you to start for another season.
The first thing to do is to make a list of what you are going to grow this season in annual flowers and vegetables.
Seed potatoes wont be far away for instance. (In fact some garden centres have them already)
Once you have your list, then you can visit your local garden centre and pick out the packets of seeds of the plants you wish to grow. The hardy types can be started anytime now, for planting out after they are hardened off.
The time frame from obtaining seeds, germinating, pricking out, growing on and then hardening off is about 8 weeks or more. That takes us into August and a nice early start.
Cabbages, lettuce, silverbeet are good early choices to start now.
Being the keen gardeners that many of us are, we use methods to beat the system.
For instance a length of plastic film (growers plastic) and a number of lengths of No 8 wire can be used to start of seeds or seedlings early in spring. You bend the wire to form good sized loops which are placed about every 30cm into the prepared soil.
The top of the loop should be about 30 cm above soil level. The distance between, where each end of the loops enter the ground, should be between 30 to 40 cm.
Lay your plastic film along the row of loops and on the prevailing wind side, cover the plastic edge thats laying on the ground (out side of the loops) with soil.
Now along the row, under the loops sow your dwarf beans, carrots or parsnips etc. Once sown and lightly watered in with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL), bring the plastic over the hoops and secure to the ground with lengths of old 100x50mm (4 x 2)wood. The ends of this low tunnel house are also secured with wood.
On sunny days there will be a build up of condensation inside the plastic which is not healthy if allowed to happen, day after day. So you remove the wood and fold back the plastic to the earth side of the row, for a couple of hours, on nice sunny days.
The shelter and sun trap the plastic offers, warms the soil and your seeds germinate. The plastic allows the plants to establish quicker and can be left on till the plant’s foliage come near to touching the plastic.
It is important that you do pull back the plastic on sunny days for a few hours. A few days before removing the plastic for good, you need to harden up the plants and a spray of Vaporgard is ideal for this.
This method is a cheap way to grow rows of vegetables or flowers quickly, early in the season or sometimes late in the season for some crops.”
The above is designed to do in a month or so but you can construct it any time and start to warm the soil under the plastic to later plant seeds. Seedlings obtained from garden centres now, can be planted under this tunnel of plastic, where they will grow much quicker and give you early crops of vegetables or flowers.
The plastic will give you protection from bird damage but slugs and snails maybe able to get to the plants so spray the seedlings and soil under the plastic with Liquid Copper.
A layer about 1cm deep of sawdust around the seedlings and over the ground under the plastic can help. Spray the sawdust with the Liquid Copper and Raingard about every 2 weeks.
Birds are hungry at this time and you will likely find that the flowers of your polyanthus are being eaten, especially the blue ones. Place some Bird Repeller Ribbon to protect the flowers and else where throw out bread or cheap grain to feed the poor hungry birds.
As I have free ranging chooks in my back yard there are big populations of sparrows and other birds that wait in the trees at 8 am and 4 pm, which are the times the chooks get feed their mash or wheat.
Germinate hardy seeds in punnets on a sunny windowsill in a warm room. As soon as there is a show of germinating leaves place the punnet in the glasshouse or under a plastic tunnel as described above.
When the seedlings are big enough to transplant, prick out into punnets or cell packs (even better) and grow on till they are big enough to place in the garden under another plastic tunnel.
This will give you a great early start.
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There are two alternatives to using green or cover crops, dig in or cut down and cover.
Traditionally July is the month when most green manure crops are dug under. But the timing is not critical, as long as there is a reasonable gap between digging under and sowing or planting the subsequent crop.
When a heavy green crop is dug under, bacteria start to work on the foliage and stalks to break down the hard lignin as well as the softer tissues.
To do this they draw nitrogen from the soil, and if seeds have been sown or young plants set out, these may suffer from lack of nitrogen. The products of swift decomposition are also inimical to good growth by healthy roots, so once again living plants in the area can suffer.
The minimum time between digging under and planting out is said to be six weeks in winter, less in warmer summer conditions. But I have dug under a green crop of lupins one weekend and planted a crop of potatoes the following weekend, to gain an excellent harvest.
I think the stricture about leaving plenty of time for decomposition applies more to sowing seeds and setting out very young seedlings.
There is much more leeway when planting hardy crops like potatoes or planting newly arrived rose bushes, for instance.
A soil drench of Thatch Busta and MBL after digging in will speed up the breakdown period to half.
To make life easier with tall growing green crops; first cut the crop down near ground level with a weed eater, rotary mower or hedge clippers. Next spray the cut foliage with Thatch Busta and MBL.
Now instead of digging in the crop, cover with wet newspaper and over this a layer of compost to hold down the paper. The soil is not disturbed and overall you will have better results.
Before planting out sprinkle Ocean Solids and Simalith over the area and lightly rake into the soil.
These products are mineral rich and will greatly aid the health of your plants and on vegetable crops will place the valuable minerals into your food chain.
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Gardeners starting off their gardening activities in the spring are likely to have a rude shock when they come to purchase fertilisers for the new season.
It was only a couple of years back when you could buy a couple of 10kg bags of General Garden fertiliser for about $18.00 now on the current price at the time of writing; one 10kg bag is going to cost you about $18.00.
To make matters worse, with the way fertilisers prices are increasing, on nearly a weekly bases, in the spring it would not surprise me, that the same 10kg maybe between $25 to $30.00 a bag.
I recently spoke to a supplier of Agri-chem Fertilisers for the commercial market and he told me that one particular type of fertiliser was costing $300.00 a ton a few months ago. Then 6 weeks ago the same ton when up to $600.00 a ton and in the last few days has reached $1200.00 a ton.
Fertiliser companies such as Balance and Ravensdown are into the situation where they cannot quote ton prices on various fertilisers until they are landed and the costs tallied up.
Commercial users such as farmers, agriculturists and horticulturists who have been able to, have brought up and stock piled their most commonly used fertilisers, to obtain the best price for now.
What has caused this rapid increase in prices and the continual upward movement of prices?
There are many factors, one of which is most obvious, is the cost of transport and the escalating oil prices. This not only affects the price indirectly, but also the by-products of the oil industry which some fertilisers come into this area.
China, who up to recently was a major supplier to the world market with a range of fertilisers has placed a 135% tax on any fertilisers being exported out of China. (Till recently the tax was only 35%)
The reason is; China does not want their fertilisers being exported as they need them for food production in China. We all know now that there is a critical world shortage of basic foods such as rice, wheat, corn, etc.
Reasons being two fold; populations in both China and India and other Asian countries are changing their diets for a more western one, making shortages of these basic food lines.
Land which was used to produce food crops has been switched to the new Bio-Fuel plantations making a further great shortfall.
There is an urgent need for the world to double its food production to assist those countries where people are already starving, but with the costs of fertilisers, transport, oil etc, escalating rapidly, leaves the big question as to whether the poorer countries can actually afford the food produced.
Are we affected in New Zealand? The answer has to be yes as we go down to the Supermarket to buy our weekly groceries which are going to become dearer and dearer. Not only that we are now paying double the cost of filling the car to actually go to the Supermarket, go to work and do other activities.
Talk about the world prices spinning out of control.
Talking recently to a garden centre owner about the rapidly rising cost of fertilisers, they brought up further interesting points as to the cost of plants, seedlings etc which will also be on the rise as growers add on the additional costs of production and transport.
It is time that we as gardeners became more self-sufficient in our gardening and food production methods. If we raise say a lettuce using cheap animal manures and kitchen wastes as the food for the plant and allow that lettuce to go to seed, we can collect enough seed to produce hundreds of lettuces.
It costs you a few seconds of your time to walk down to the garden plot and harvest a fresh lettuce that is full of nutritional value. Seed can be stored for a couple of seasons, but of each of the vegetables that you like to grow and consume, it is better to collect fresh seed each year by letting one of the crop go to seed.
Over a period of time by doing this, you will create a strain of seed from that plant that will be perfectly adapted to your gardening conditions.
Your costs are minimal and by composting and collecting animal manure from farms or buying sheep manure pellets you will be putting much of the nutrient back into the soil needed by the plants growing there. Visit a local poultry farm and obtain some bags of chicken manure which can either be added as is, to the compost heap, to enrich it or laid as a mulch across the garden.
Even better place a quantity of the manure in a tub with water and after stirring it occasionally you can take off some of the manure rich water, dilute it 10 parts of water to 1 part of manure water and spray that over soil and plants.
If applying directly to the soil and not the plant’s foliage you can either use it straight or dilute it 1 to 1. Using natural products will build up the humus levels of your soil and make for better gardening and healthier plants.
As opposed to this, the now expensive fertilisers directly feed the plants and harm the soil life along with the worms.
Another interesting point with man made fertilisers is that only a small percentage of the fertiliser is used by plants, somewhere around about 20%, the rest will lock up in the soil till it leaches away contaminating our water supplies and oceans.
Small amounts of man made fertilisers can be an advantage as long as they are used at the right time to give a boost of growth when needed. The word is, Small Amounts which can equate to about a teaspoon or tablespoon full dependant on plant and needs.
You can also obtain the best results of these small amounts by drenching them in with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) which aids in the uptake by the plant and reduces the lock-up effect that happens in the soil.
Add to the MBL some Mycorrcin which is both a natural food for the plants and a prime food for the soil life and you reduce the damage that the fertilisers do.
Obtain a worm farm so you can convert your kitchen wastes to vermicast and worm pee. This not only provides you with most of the best nutrients for the gardens but also reduces the amount of rubbish you send to a landfill and makes you more self sufficient.
Alternatively purchase a few chickens, build a hen house with a run, for throwing your kitchen scraps and weeds along with a bit of chicken food. You will obtain great eggs, far better than purchased ones along with a regular supply of great manure for your gardens.
If you are near a beach collect seaweed and put that either onto your gardens as a mulch or into a drum with water. Autumn gives us a bounty of leaves from deciduous trees which are ideal for composting, used as a mulch or stuffed into black plastic bags, tied off, and numerous small holes punched into the bags.
Left like this, in a sunny spot, they will turn to a rich leaf mould over the ensuing months.
Grow as much as you can of the vegetables that you eat, in either open ground or in containers so you can save money and have a healthier diet.
Maybe we need to seriously start doing much of the above to survive over the next period of time.
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Recently a reader sent me a email that linked to a web site which was about the Doctrine of Signatures. Herbalists in days gone by found that certain whole foods or herbs had a ‘signature’ which indicated to the wise, what part of the human body that particular food was good for either in healing or to fortify.
The web site gave a range of whole foods and explained what part of the body the food looked similar too and now with modern science we can determine the truth of these ancient beliefs.
Here are some examples:

When you slice a Carrot through the section looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye. Science now shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four Chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food.
Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the Research today shows that grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuro-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and they look exactly like the Human kidneys.
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and others look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength.
Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough Sodium in your diet the body pulls it from the bones, making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Eggplant, Avocados and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs.
Today’s research shows that when a woman eats 1 avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight and prevents cervical cancers.
And how profound is this? It takes exactly 9 months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 phytolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the motility of male sperm and increase the numbers of sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemicindex of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
Onions look like body cells. Todays research shows that onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.
A small raw onion eaten everyday will aid in lowering cholesterol levels. With white onions chop up and mix with honey or eat a milder red onion.
Bananas, Cucumber and Zucchini target the size and strength of the male sexual organ.
Peanuts have a profound effect on the testicles and sexual libido.
Peanuts were banned as a food for males by the church during the middle ages.
Most people don’t realize that arginine, the main component of Viagra, comes from peanuts. So men, if the need is there, start eating raw peanuts.
Talking along the same lines there is an old Scottish saying that goes something like this; ‘He is sowing his wild oats’ and interestingly oats assist in virility and many Scots love their porridge.
If you put the words, ‘Doctrine of Signatures’ into a search engine on the Internet you will come up with similar to the above and many other examples of where certain foods or their colours, shapes etc pertain to different aspects of the human body.
Happy gardening.
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I visited a couple of garden centres this week and saw all the staff busy potting up and placing the new season’s roses out for display in the retail areas. A sea of roses would be an understatement.
I was very impressed with the Standard Roses, where on display, I found the two most popular Standard Roses with a selection of 200 to 300 of each variety. Plenty to choose from to get the best shape and the strongest plants. (Well thats true for the early birds.)
Roses would be the most popular garden plant in New Zealand with most gardeners having one or many specimens growing as bush, standard or climbers.
For some gardeners they are the only feature plants that are really well cared for. It is because of all this attention to roses, that gardeners endeavour to have them looking perfect, well shaped, lots of buds and flowers with no blemishes on the foliage.
You can have perfect or near perfect roses if you work with nature rather than against it.
Natural products will promote healthy roses, chemical products designed as rescue remedies and rose foods, will remove the natural balances, causing both insect pests and diseases to run rampant.
In the spring when the new season’s growths appear they are perfect and will remain so with a little help from a number of natural, health promoting products.
If on the other hand we apply Rose Fertilisers or Nitrophoska Blue we knock back the vital soil life (micro organisms and worms) because of these product’s acidity.
If we then apply chemical rose sprays, we damage the natural immune systems of the plants, causing greater problems, as well as further harming the soil life.
Our poor roses become targets for both insect pests and diseases as these are the cleaners of nature, taking out the weak, sickly plants. Roses are not easily killed but will remain sickly looking for the rest of the season. The situation becomes worse when we need to water, if our tap water contains chlorine.
If you want really healthy roses through the summer you need to either fit a filter on the garden tap to remove the chlorine or have a tub or old bath that you can fill with chlorinated water and leave exposed to the sun to remove the chlorine. Fill the bath late in the day or early morning, use the water next day to water the roses after which refill the bath for the following late afternoon watering. (The filter is easier and less work)
To have really healthy roses (or any plant for that matter) you need to supply all the minerals and elements that the plant needs, feed the soil life and the micro organisms that live on the plants, control any insect pests that sap the vitality and ensure that they have ample moisture and a suitable sunny spot to grow in.
Do this and you will have great roses that everyone will admire.
For a new container grown rose (Standard or Bush) I would pot it into a 45 litre container using a mix of compost, (80%) a bit of soil (15%) and chook manure.(5%) Under the plant I would place some Simalith, Ocean Solids and sheep manure pellets. A sprinkling of Dolomite also.
Once planted, the mix will receive a drench of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and Mycorrcin. About a month later I would prune it to the 3 rd out going bud then spray it with Liquid Copper to seal the wounds.
When the new foliage appears the plant will receive a 2 weekly spray of MBL and Mycorrcin and on every second spray, Perkfection would be added to the spray.
If aphids appear on the buds and foliage, they will be sprayed with Key Pyrethrum. If the rose is one from good breeding then there should be no further problems.
(Note; some modern hybrid roses may have great flowers but will always have health problems)
A sprinkling of Neem Tree Granules and Fruit and Flower Power on top of the mix every couple of months should keep the plant free of any other insect pests as well as supplying the extra magnesium and potassium needed.
The same principals as above can be applied to roses planted in the open ground.
Make a hole twice the size as needed and mix a good compost with the soil removed (half and half) Use this to line the base of the hole to the right height, place the Ocean Solids, Simalith etc on top of this along with the rose. Back fill with the same mix. Simalith (Rock dust) really assists in great new root development.
If you have a heavy clay soil then ensure the base of the hole and sides are rough, not smooth and apply two or three handfuls of Gypsum to the clay base before the mix.This extra preperation work gives the new rose a great growing area for root establishment.
Ensure that in either method of planting (Open ground or containers) that the soil is kept moist for the following 12 months while the root system is establishing. Do not cut flowers off for vases during the first season, but you can dead head without removing foliage. It is most important that a new rose has as much foliage as possible to gain energy from the sun while establishing.
You can enhance the energy production by spraying the foliage with Vaporgard every 3 months which protects the plant from UV damage. (It also makes the leaves a darker green and shiny, also added protection against pests and diseases)
If you use Vaporgard then you will need to add Raingard to the other sprays on the 2 weekly cycle.
With new roses it is very important that the roots never become dry. There is a great danger that roses purchased from chain stores that only have their roots wrapped, will dry out in the controlled atmosphere of these stores. The roses may have died as a result before you even buy them.
What to do with your existing roses? Cut all bush and standard roses back to half and remove any dead wood and spindly canes. Then spray either with Lime Sulphur or Liquid Copper. Leave till about end of July and then do your proper pruning and spray the wounds with Liquid Copper as you go. Don’t prune or cut on damp cool days as this can let Silver Leaf disease into the rose. Pick a warm sunny day when the air is drier.
In the spring place the Simalith, Ocean Solids etc, on top of the soil around the base of the rose and cover with a good compost.
Use the natural sprays and products suggested as for the new roses. If you avoid the use of any chemical fertilisers and sprays as well as any chemical herbicides, anywhere near the roses and follow the above natural program, the health of the roses should greatly benefit and you too will be healthier for not using the chemicals.
A number of gardeners that have followed my natural advise with their roses and other gardens ring me up to tell me how great their gardens are. Work with Nature, not against it.

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The importance of earthworms in our garden soils cannot be unstated. They are a quick and visual guide to how healthy your garden soils are, lots of earthworms in a square foot of soil is the goal to having healthy plants.
Few or no earthworms in your gardens indicates a big problem and a continuing fight to maintain your garden plants until you resolve the health aspects of the soil and worm numbers increase.
Now that the soils are moist you can easily find out what your worm populations are like by carefully lifting some soil in each of your garden plots. During dry times you are unlikely to find worms near the surface of the soil.
The recent publication of OrganicNZ magazine has an interesting article on earthworms in New Zealand which lead me to do a little research at (a free government NZ encyclopedia ) The following is information from that site:
The term “earthworm” cannot be satisfactorily defined in the scientific sense but it serves to describe a large number of species of the order Oligochaeta which inhabit soils and accumulations of decaying plant materials, and are occasionally found in shore and aquatic habitats. The earthworms of New Zealand consist of two groups of species.
A large group of 173 native and five introduced species (27 genera) belong to the family Megascolecidae and a smaller group of 14 introduced species (seven genera) belong to the family Lumbricidae.
From the evidence of known distribution it is most likely that the native earthworms came originally from the Indo-Malayan or Australian region and entered New Zealand across a land-bridge connection from the north. They probably arrived in at least two waves, the first (subfamily Acanthodrilinae) in Cretaceous times and the second (subfamily Megascolecinae) in Tertiary times.
The largest, Spenceriella gigantea from North Auckland, attains a length of 4 ft 6 in. and a diameter approaching an inch, while a number of the smaller species are up to 1 in. long and less than 1/10 in. in diameter. Most of the native species are red or brown.
Earthworms are hermaphroditic, both male and female organs being present, but they are not self-fertilising and, when mating takes place, sperm cells are exchanged.
Native earthworms feed almost entirely on dead and decaying remains of plants and, because of their limited capacity to move about, they are obliged to live very close to their sources of food. The presence of free water is essential for they have virtually no mechanism for conserving moisture. Respiration takes place by diffusion of gases through the moist body wall; hence both moisture and dissolved oxygen are essential.
Earthworms are injured and may die by exposure to daylight, except when the intensity is very low, the more pigmented species being more resistant to light damage than the less pigmented. They are killed by temperatures in excess of 85°F100F, but in most New Zealand habitats they escape the effects of extreme high or low temperatures by retreating to lower layers.
The pH tolerance varies from species to species but no native earthworms have been found in soils lower than pH4. Most earthworms are able to tolerate submersion in water and there are a few species that prefer an aquatic life. During heavy rains, however, earthworms are commonly driven to the surface, but this is most probably due to the shortage of oxygen in the water in their burrows.
The leaf-mould species are small, active, and heavily pigmented. The smallest is 15mm long and the largest 180 mm but most are between 20 mm and 50 mm. They do not make permanent burrows but move around freely in the loose material just as arthropods and other animals do; hence they are more prone to capture by predatory birds and are more frequently exposed to ultraviolet light than those species inhabiting topsoil or subsoil.
Both the topsoil and the subsoil dwellers have two distinct methods of making burrows in which to live. In the first method soil is swallowed and subsequently cast either at the soil surface or in natural cracks and cavities in the soil and in deserted burrows.
In the second method the anterior end of the body is extended and inserted in spaces between the soil particles and then, by contracting the longitudinal muscles, the body is expanded laterally, compressing the soil to form a burrow.
Usually burrowing consists of a combination of these two methods, the former predominating in more-compact soils and the latter in less-compact soils.
As a burrow is formed it is lined with slime and thus has smooth walls firmly compacted by the lateral pressure applied during its construction.
Subsoil earthworms are usually large, sluggish, and unpigmented. The smallest is 32·5 mm and the largest 1,400 mm, but most are between 100 mm and 400 mm in length. The majority are circular in cross-section and have weakly developed body-wall muscles.
They occasionally come to the surface or near to the surface for food, but otherwise are found only in the subsoil. They make very extensive burrows extending both laterally and vertically in the subsoil and occasionally going up into the topsoil. (Burrows of Spenceriella gigantea have been found about 20 mm in diameter and still continuing downwards at a depth of 11 ft 6 in.)
They appear to make these burrows to obtain food by ingestion of soil and not primarily for shelter, like the burrows of the topsoil species. As they move forward they may deposit castings in the section of burrow left behind and it is not uncommon to find burrows partly filled with subsoil castings.
The most common introduced earthworms belong to the family Lumbricidae and, since such a large part of New Zealand has been cleared of the original vegetation and sown down to pasture, the lumbricid earthworms which feed on dead root and leaf material from pasture have become the dominant earthworm fauna both in pasture and in cultivated lands.
After the clearing of the land, native earthworms decline rapidly. The leaf-mould fauna is eliminated since there is no supply of leaf-mould; the topsoil fauna is usually eliminated but occasionally persists in a much reduced form; the subsoil fauna may be relatively unaffected but, if the soil is continually cultivated, this, too, fails to survive.
Earthworms affect soil fertility in various ways.
Their burrows provide drainage channels through the soil, improve its aeration, and assist deep root penetration. The lumbricid species of New Zealand pasture lands are all topsoil dwellers but in summer, if the surface soil becomes too dry, they retreat into the subsoil and go into diapause a state of suspended animation. The vertical channels so made remain for a short time as subsoil drainage channels but, as their thin walls are not usually firmly compacted, they soon collapse.
The quantity of soil deposited at the surface in the form of worm casts was found (Evans 1948), on eight fields with different management histories, to range between 1 and 25 tons per acre per year. Calculations, based on total populations and taking account of species that cast beneath the surface, showed that from 4 to 36 tons of soil per acre per year passed through the alimentary systems of earthworms and were cast at or near the surface.
These topsoil earthworms play an important part in our grassland farming and gardens. They stimulate pasture growth by removing dead root material, loosening up the sod, and providing an enriched layer of cast soil in which perennial grasses, clovers and your plants are able to re-root year by year.
Too many gardeners destroy their worm populations by using herbicides, manmade fertilisers, chemical sprays and chlorinated water. If the worms are scarce then so is the rest of the soil life and your garden plants suffer as a result. You need to reverse this process if you want great gardens.
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Taking a slightly altered quote from Shakespeare; ‘To dig or not to dig, that is the question?’
This is one aspect of gardening that has not really been thought about by many gardeners.
Traditionally digging or tilling the soil has been going on for about 10,000 years (more so in the last couple of hundred years) and the only two factors that I can see reasons for doing this are; To clean up and bury whatever is currently growing on the bit of dirt we wish to plant out, whether this be weeds, a cover crop or the remains of a past crop.
The other reason would be to open compacted soils that have been flattened through our walking on the area or stock doing the same.
There is the suggestion that by digging and turning over the soil, we are bring to the surface nutrients that are in the sub soils. If we have good earthworm populations they are already doing this job for us and providing nitrogen from their slime, something our spade is incapable of doing.
There are more reasons why we should not dig our soils than there are for doing so.
The first and most obvious is that it is hard work unless one is younger and really fit.
If the top soil level is shallow and there is a hard clay base beneath, then from my experience it is damn hard work and you end up with a lot of clay lumps on top which have to be broken down before they turn to concrete in the dry times.
I used to dig gardens in days gone by till I obtained a rotary hoe and used that to cultivate the soil, I now realise that I wasted a lot of time and sweat, doing damage to the soil life and gaining little advantage.
From the Internet at http://ohioline.osu.edu/aex-fact/0510.html

‘Soil carbon sequestration is the process of transferring carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the soil through crop residues and other organic solids, and in a form that is not immediately re-emitted. This transfer or “sequestering” of carbon helps off-set emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other carbon-emitting activities while enhancing soil quality and long-term agronomic productivity.
Soil carbon sequestration can be accomplished by management systems that add high amounts of biomass to the soil, cause minimal soil disturbance, conserve soil and water, improve soil structure, and enhance soil fauna activity. Continuous no-till crop production is a prime example.’ Cultivation of the soil releases carbon dioxide.
Here is another interesting fact:

‘The estimated amount of carbon stored in world soils is about 1,100 to 1,600 petagrams (one petagram is one billion metric tons), more than twice the carbon in living vegetation (560 petagrams) or in the atmosphere (750 petagrams). Hence, even relatively small changes in soil carbon storage per unit area could have a significant impact on the global carbon balance.
Carbon sequestration in soils occurs through plant production. Plants convert carbon dioxide into tissue through photosynthesis. When we dig our gardens we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
Another good reason not to dig.
In our soils there are at least 10,000 living species and more than 1 billion individual bacteria in 1 gram of soil (Torsvik et al. 1990).
There is a massive, complex, microscopic world in our soils which we call the soil food web.
Beneficial fungi attach themselves to the roots of plants and send out threads into the surrounding soil to gather moisture and nutrients, which they then supply to the plant in exchange for some carbohydrates (sugars) This intimate, mutually beneficial relationship is one of the key aspects of healthy plants as the fungi can increase the available moisture/nutrient catchment area by about 800%.
This web of strands grows in healthy soils and interlinks the roots of other plants to each other like a great road or railway system linking small towns (plants) to each other. Likely this is one of the reasons for companion planting as two plants that are compatible will provide each other better growth or protection aspects, through the web system.
When we dig the soil or pull out a plants, roots and all, we break up millions of these chains to the decrement of the whole system. Besides not digging the soil we should ideally not pull out plants or weeds but cut them off with a sharp knife just below ground level.
By doing this we do not disrupt the web and the roots will decay giving further nutrients to the soil and plants. The foliage should be left on top of the bare soil to further build up your humus or top soil.
We also can increase the soil activity (bred more soil life) by applying things like liquid manures, worm pee, Mycorrcin (which is a special food for this purpose).
What we should not do is apply chlorinated water, chemical fertilisers, chemical sprays and herbicides to the gardens as these poisons kill what we need to protect and nourish. Also we should not dig or walk on our gardens.
It is easy enough to create garden plots especially if you make raised gardens with wood or concrete blocks of a width that is suitable to work each plot from the sides. This is also a great way of overcoming the problems of heavy clay soils or light sandy soils.
Forget what is underneath as you will be gardening well above that level.
I made a raised garden at the beginning of the year using corrugated iron and 100 x 100mm posts.
The posts were tanalised so I gave them coats of acrylic paint to seal the chemicals in.
I made the posts the same length as the width of the corrugated sheets and did not bury the posts in the ground.
Simply drilled and screwed the sheets to the posts and have the structure just sitting on top of the soil.(Note iron sheet length used was 1.8 metres and the third sheet was cut in half for the two ends)
As I can walk around the whole structure it is easy to work it from all sides. One full side of iron is facing in a northerly direction to catch the sun which warms the contents.
Now the depth of a width of a sheet of iron makes for a fairly deep structure and the problem is to fill it up to a suitable height for planting up.
I had an amount of weeds, bracken, blackberry foliage and branches which I placed in the bottom of the raised garden and trampled it down.
Compost from my bins which would contain weed seeds was placed on top of this.
Next went in used compost from container plants that had finished, bringing up the level nicely.
This was followed by wet newspaper and cardboard on top of which I placed a good layer of animal manure.
Worms and worm casts from my worm bins followed along with a good dose of worm pee.
A few bags of new and purchased compost was used to cover this and then the minerals were applied such as; Rapid Lime, Ocean Solids, rock dust and Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL).
To finish off more purchased compost was used bringing up the level of material about 30cm from the top of the structure.
I then planted some seeds of carrots, spring onions and dwarf beans and a good number of silverbeet seedlings. All watered in with MBL and filtered water (to remove the chlorine)
As the iron made a heat trap the seeds soon germinated and the silverbeet surprised me in the speed of growth. From very young seedlings to the first harvest of outside leaves was only 4-5 weeks.
The dwarf beans started producing pods to harvest a couple of weeks later.
Way to go.
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The most common health problem that many plants face at this time of the year is wet feet, which simply means too much water in the root zone.
Roots need moisture and air for them to be healthy and do the work of acquiring nutrients from the surrounding soil. If the soil becomes too dry the food gathering process is slowed or ceases.
Usually when this happens the foliage of the plant is dehydrating and showing definite signs of collapse.
Gardeners are wary of this factor and apply water to the soil to save their gardens.
Which leads to an interesting point about the type of water we apply to our gardens.
If the water contains chlorine and we apply that to our soil we are harming the mycorrhizae fungi, the microbes and earthworms all of which are vital to the health of your plants.
(Chemical fertilisers also do the same damage) You will likely have noticed that in summer the more chlorinated water you need to apply to your gardens the slower the growth and the more health problems the plants have such as rusts and black spot.
When in summer, the gardens get a good shower of rain, everything comes away and plants look a lot happier.
This state lasts for a while until we have to apply more chlorinated water to the soil and plants.
Sprinkler systems that are throwing chlorinated water over the foliage of plants makes matters even worse as the chlorine will kill the beneficial microbes on the foliage allowing the disease microbes easy access to set up shop.
(More black spot and rusts) Suitable filters to remove the chlorine should be used on all garden hoses if you want really healthy gardens and plants.
When it comes to winter the need to water gardens disappears just about completely.
It is only those areas that do not get rained on, such as under the eaves or container plants, that we need to water occasionally. The shorter daylight hours and lower temperatures greatly reduce each plant’s need for moisture.
Watering plants and gardens is an art that one needs to cultivate to be a successful gardener.
It is a process of learning when to water, how much to water and when not to water.
A typical example of a problem is the gardener who waters their container plants outdoors everyday during the summer and their indoor plants once or twice a week.
As the season moves into autumn the same pattern is followed applying the same amount of water at the same frequency.
In summer likely much of the water applied has been used up before the gardener applies the next dose. The plants are using the water along with moisture loss through evaporation.
This changes, the plants do not require as much water and evaporation lessens so when we apply the next lot of water the soil/growing medium is already fairly damp. The added water makes the mix wet and removes the air making a problem for the roots.
If a saucer is below the container this will fill up with water also and sit there keeping the mix very wet.
(The saucer was likely a big advantage in the summer, as reservoir of water for plants that used up all the available moisture before the next watering) In the winter the saucer is deadly if you are not very careful.
About an hour or so after watering container plants in the winter the saucer should be removed and any surplus water in the saucer tossed away.
All container plants outdoors that can be rained on, should have not only the saucers removed (if applicable) but also be slightly raised above the surface they sit on, using a couple of slats of wood.
This gives a clearance to the drainage holes for surplus water to escape if you overwater.
Container plants either indoors or outside should be kept a little on the dry side during winter with only small amounts of water applied infrequently to slightly moisten up the growing medium.
Often indoor plants in non heated rooms can go for weeks without applications of water.
Heated rooms with plants in, will likely need a small drink every week or two dependant on the amount of heat used and how pot bound the plants are.
My method is to check the plants indoors every day or so for any drooping foliage and when noticed apply a small amount of warm water.
With container plants we have a reasonable degree of control of how much moisture is applied but not so with our garden plants when it comes to the wet season.
Many are the plants in the garden that are lost in a wet winter due to wet feet with poor drainage.
Cases include citrus trees, years old and great producers dying in a wet winter.
Sometimes the gardener is lucky as only some of the root system is lost through rots and even though the tree has had a major set back, loosing many of its leaves, sufficient roots are able to re-establish to produce new foliage.
We can also have the situation where a garden was free draining for years but because of new buildings, paths or driveways the watercourse changes and the same garden becomes water logged.
It may not even be a change on your property but one that has happened next door.
Last winter several gardeners told me about how they lost well established shrubs and trees.
On questioning them I found that they had barked or used mulches in the area during the summer for moisture retention and weed suppression. This worked a treat, but when the rains came in the autumn, the mulches prevented the area from drying out and hence the losses occurred.
Thick mulches around the root zone of plants in areas that may become too wet in the winter, should be raked back away to allow the soil to breathe.
You may also recall in days gone by that vegetable gardens would be dug with a trench all around them and the soil from the trench would go to raise the vegetable plot. This achieved two important aspects for successful vegetable growing during the wet season.
A raised garden allows much of the plant’s roots to be above the water table and the trench means that surplus water will drain into it. Water exposed to sun and wind will evaporate away quickly compared to water below the soil, once again reducing the amount of moisture in the soil.
The same principal can be applied to citrus and other plants in areas where surplus water is a problem.
Just go out beyond the root zone and dig a circular trench and take the soil away (don't throw it onto the root zone.)
Good drainage is essential to keeping your plants alive in winter unless they are bog plants.
Sump holes, nova-flow piping and submersible pumps can be used to keep areas drained.
Raised gardens are constructed for the planting of plants such as citrus that are prone to root rots.
Spraying the foliage of evergreen plants once a month with Perkfection aids in the faster recovery of the plants, from wet weather diseases.
By taking appropriate actions, will avoid the need to purchase replacement plants in the spring.

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Now that the cooler weather has started, all our deciduous plants and trees including our roses, will shed their leaves after giving us a display of autumn colour.
For some gardeners the leaf fall is a curse, raking up the leaves, clearing gutters and drains, all extra work. For some, it is not even their leaves as they are leaf falls from neighbouring properties.
For the rest of us leaf fall is like finding a $20.00 note in the gutter, a valuable resource.
The question for newer gardeners is what to do with all these leaves?
Leaves that fall under trees and don't interfere with gardens or lawns can be allowed to lay where nature intended, to breakdown and supply a valuable food resource for the soil food web.
You can speed up their breakdown by spraying them with either Thatch Busta or Mycorrcin.
These two natural products feed the microbes, greatly increasing their numbers and thus millions more to do the essential work of creating humus.
Leaves that fall in other areas can be raked up and stuffed into black plastic rubbish bags.
Once again you can speed up the break down of the leaves in the bags by adding a little top soil and spraying the contents with either the above mentioned products.
Fill the bag a quarter full, add a handful of soil and spray with the above. Add another quarter of leaves and soil and repeat till the bag is just about full with the contents compressed. Tie the bag off and then with a nail or small screwdriver punch lots of small holes all over the bag so that air can circulate into the mix. The bags should then be placed in a suitable spot that is sunny and a bit sheltered from chilling winds.
If all goes well, you should have what we call leaf mould later in summer, to use in your gardens and container plants.
The process can be further sped up by placing your leaves in a rough part of the lawn and running over them with a rotary lawn mower and catcher. This will chop up the leaves into smaller bits which when added to the bags, will breakdown quicker giving you material to use in the spring.
Another method would be to dig a trench in your vegetable garden and fill the trench with the leaves, as they are, or broken up by the mower.
Kitchen scraps, animal manure, lime and grass clippings can be added along with wet newspaper and then the trench is covered with a layer of soil.
If you are planing on making a raised garden bed then the leaves can be part of the fill you use to build up the height of the growing medium of the bed.
Leaf fall is a valuable resource for the garden so don't waste it by sending it to a landfill.
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The wet weather brings us the lower plant life forms called bryophytes. This includes Moss, Liverwort, Algae, Slimes and Lichen all of which thrive in the moist conditions.
In lawns moss will suffocate the grasses making the lawn unsightly, difficult to mow and increase the wetness of the area. Moss and Liverwort control should be sprayed over the affected areas as soon as the first appearance of moss is noticed.
It is interesting to note that some gardeners use sulphate of iron to control moss in lawns. The product does not actually kill the moss, instead it burns or blackens off the top of the moss and it is not long after application that the problem is back, worse than ever. You have wasted your time and money and not achieved a longer term, effective control.
Slimes and algae on paths and cobbles make for dangerous walking in damp conditions and you can have a bad fall unless very careful.
For elderly people it is a real hazard if their bones are more brittle and a fall can result in many years of pain and possible incapacity. Spray the walking areas as soon as the first sign of either of these bryophytes appear.
Liverwort grows on paths, fences, roofs and the trunks of plants as well as in gardens and on container plants.
Liverwort is unsightly and will over time do damage to the surface it is growing on, so spray it with the mentioned control, to kill. It will die but takes time to weather off unless blasted with a hose or water blaster.
Lichen is seen mostly on the trunks of bushes and trees and can often look attractive to the eye.
Damage can occur as the lichen is harming the tree’s natural protection or bark and left unchecked over time can cause the loss of the branches affected.
Spray with the propriety control which does not harm the tree but will kill off the lichen.
Not only will the propriety product be safe to use around your gardens and over plants (Recommendation is that 30 minutes after application you lightly water the foliage of plants that have been sprayed) it can also be used indoors in showers and other areas where algae or moulds may occur.
There are some expensive products available that are only suitable for surface areas such as roofs and paths. They are not suitable for garden situations.
The Moss and Liverwort control has the active ingredient of 500g / litre benzalkonium chloride in the form of a soluble concentrate.
Benzalkonium, I am told, originally was a chemical used for sterilisation of medical instruments then later it was found to be an excellent control for bryophytes, the botanical name given to a number of primitive plant forms which include mosses etc.
Benzalkonium is found in a great number of products in different levels of strength from 1% upwards.
For instance in Veterinary Medicine; Avisafe contains 2.5-5.5% of the chemical and some pharmacy preparations contain small amounts for problems such as athletic foot and other fungal problems.
Do not use the concentrate as a self cure as I heard that one chap did when he had athletic foot fungal problems. He was hopping around for sometime in pain.
The product is also excellent for cleaning out the algae in ponds that do not have fish. (Do not use where there are fish as it robs the oxygen out of the water and the fish will die)
The simple treatment for control of ponds with fish is to place either wheat straw or barley straw into a plastic bag with a stone. (so the bag sinks) Tie off the bag and punch lots of small holes in the sides and toss it into the pond.

It works well after cleaning out the pond first which can be done by removing the fish and placing them in a holding tank. The Moss and Liverwort control can then be applied to the water and the pump turned on.
Then it is a matter of getting the oxygen back into the water and a aquarium air pump and air stone can be used for this. After running the air pump for say 24 hours then place one fish back into the pond.
If he is happy and swimming around with no problems then all the fish can be returned.
Now with the pond clear of algae you can use the straw method to keep it clean.
This works by the fact that either of these two straws will absorb the nitrogen from the water, which the algae needs to grow. Fresh bags of straw need to be used from time to time.
Do not use pea straw as one gardener did as this works in reverse placing nitrogen into the water.
The same applies to hay. (Dried grass) Only use wheat or barley straw.
Wally's Moss and Liverwort Control is available from some garden centres or by mail order from this web site.

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A couple of weeks back, I mentioned that researchers had determined that two factors in our conventional food chain are having adverse effects on our health, namely;
The amount of chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicide and fertilisers that are in our food chain, many of which affect our health over a period of time. Some of these are known to cause cancer and other health problems.
The other factor is that our food lacks the nutritional values that it once had.
The general consensus was that if our food had more nutritional value then the chemical poisons would be of less significance to our health.
My conclusion to this, as with any common sense thinking person, would be that our conventional food chain, (fruit, vegetables, dairy produce and meats) has a double whammy; lacking in good nutrition and consisting of a number of harmful substances.
When we look at the dedicated Organic food producers, we can rest assured that they have done their best to eliminate the chemical poisons from their produce. That is great but have they really obtained the nutritional values that their produce should contain?
In some cases likely so but in the tough requirements of being organically certified they are prevented in using many natural sources of minerals as the source may contain heavy metals and other pollutants.
This always amuses me as there is two factors that they seem to sweep under the rug.
Previous use of poisons in the soil, in the past, that have long term toxic effects such as DDT.
The requirement I believe is 3 years without further chemicals being used on land that will become certified. Lack of soil tests to determine what harmful substances will be taken up by organically certified produce and no real requirements to remove these past harmful substances.
The other one is even more difficult and that is the rain or water, that is used to irrigate the organic produce, which can contain all manner of pollutants.
These aspects would fade into less importance if the food produced contained as much nutritional value as possible. The following are examples from the USDA (America) which are likely to be similar to our own country as we tend to follow similar agriculture practices; USDA figures show a decline in nutrient content of 43 crops it has tracked since the 1950’s.
A recent analysis shows vitamin C declined by 20%, iron by 15%, riboflavin by 38%, calcium by 16%.
Figures from England show similar results and put another way, you would now have to eat 3 apples to get the same amount of iron you would have got from a 1940’s apple.
Why has our food crops and the grasses (or crops) that are feed to animals declined in nutritional value?
A good question and one that is puzzling researchers that are so locked into our modern conventional agriculture methods that they cannot think outside of the square.
The reasons are simply: The introduction of NPK chemical fertilisers into agriculture reduced or killed off the soil life which naturally assisted plants in obtaining nutrients and even created more nutrients in the soil.
Modern fertilisers directly feed plants (like hydroponics) with between 3 to 16 elements that are contained in the fertiliser used. Most fertilisers only have half a dozen elements yet we know that there are 92 natural elements. What we don't know is how many and which ones, each plant needs to be very healthy.
(We know that wheat and barley will take all the 92 elements but these two grasses are exceptions rather than the rule) The old saying you only get out what you put in is a logical fact.
If a plant such as a lettuce required say 35 elements and we only supply 16 man made fertiliser elements, we are about half the nutritional value of that lettuce potential.
Plants and grasses grown with the aid of man made fertilisers have more shallow root systems than normal.
The fertilisers are applied to the top area of the soil so the roots do not have to penetrate deep to gain the basic nutrients to grow. On the other hand deep rooting plants get their roots into sub soils which contain more minerals.
Man made fertilisers make plants grow faster and reach maturity quicker than plants grown naturally.
This could mean that a fast grown plant does not have the same time to gain the nutritional value of its naturally grown counterpart.
Another problem arises with man made fertilisers is that they lock up in the soil causing deficiencies in in the elements that have been supplied.
Man has also created a further problem in breeding hybrid crop and grass seeds that produce quantity rather than quality. Experiments have been conducted which prove these modern variations of plants when grown in a natural or good soil, do not take up the natural goodness available as their older original fore bearers do.
In fact I am told that some of these modern hybrid seed/plants will only grow successfully in the man made chemical fertiliser conditions they are designed for and will be poor or fail in natural soil conditions.
The answer to the home gardener in this aspect is to grow the older open pollinated types and keep their own seed for future plantings. (Old varieties are constantly disappearing)
A lot of you readers are already aware of the health problems which are a direct result of modern agriculture, processed foods and dietary information which is so far out of touch with our daily body needs for good health. So what can you do to obtain some real nutritional food value?
Grow your own vegetables and fruit. Grow them naturally using natural manures and products.
Ensure that the produce has all the possible minerals by applying Ocean Solids, Simalith rock dust and Magic Botanic Liquid to the soil and plants. Stop using the chemical solutions that will contaminate the soil and your health. Don't water the soil with chlorinated water.
Grow your soil life and the soil food web with the use of natural products and Mycorrcin.(Mycorrcin is a special food for the soil life)
A recent book called, In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan is well worth reading in regards to how our diets have altered over the last 100 odd years and the health problems that have resulted.
For instance the ratio of omega-6s to omega-3s used to be 3 to 1. Now it is 10 to 1 in favour of omega-6s. This big unnatural change to our bodies leads to obesity, diabetics and heart disease (as well as other problems) The Western diet shifted from eating leaves (vegetables; leaves contain omega-3s as do fish oils. Fish obtain their omega-3s from eating plants; plankton and seaweeds) to seeds (grains which contain omega-6s)
As Michael Pollan points out in the book, this switch, such as from butter (omega-3s) to margarine (omega-6s) in regards to heart attacks showed that fewer people died from heart attacks. It also showed that just as many if not more people had heart attacks but due to modern medical intervention few attacks result in death.
You may come to the conclusion that we are part of a giant experiment between the food producers and the pharmaceutical companies and it has the appearance of a mad hatter’s tea party.
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Time flies faster these days than it ever did when I was young; now its May already with only a few more weeks till the shortest day and the beginning of a new gardening year.
May is the time to preserve and protect what we have in our gardens so that all will be in good stead for the new gardening year.
The extended mild weather that most of the country has been privileged with, has kept things in the garden going longer than normal, with only the every shortening of daylight hours making the gradual seasonal changes.
I note with interest that my deciduous fruit trees and roses are still fairly much in full leaf, not having a cold snap to change them into their autumn colours.
This raises an interesting point in my mind in that having nice green leaves on my deciduous fruit trees, so much longer than normal, gathering energy from the sunlight, will this mean better crops in the spring/summer period?
It will be interesting to see but as the same plants do enjoy a rest, so a good hard cold snap is needed to put them into dormancy even if it is only for a short time.
On Anzac day I was able to spare a bit of time to winter proof my gardens and plants in anticipation of a cold snap and possible frosts.
The first aspect was out with the potash and magnesium (Fruit and Flower Power) to give a liberal dosage to the garden plots and fruit trees, especially the citrus.
Winter chills tend to lock up some elements in the soil if there is insufficient amounts of them available to plants. Magnesium is vital to maintain green foliage and that is the reason for applications of the element at this time.
Potash (sulphate of potassium) hardens up plant growth giving the plants the natural protection they need against the cold, frosts and drought conditions.
A sprinkling of these two elements into the root zone or drip line of your plants should be applied now with a further dose in about a months time.
Frost protection for areas that have frosts normally in winter and even for those gardeners that are frost free, there is still the chilling of winter winds that make life unpleasant for our plants.
Each winter I wrap up my more tender plants in a natural film of Vaporgard which gives them initial frost protection down to minus 3 degrees for a period of about 3 months from one application.
The film is slowly broken down my UV over the following months.
There are several advantages in having this film placed over the foliage of garden plants.
The film acts as a sunscreen against UV allowing the chlorophyll to work to maximum producing energy from sunlight for the plant’s needs.
The chlorophyll build-up makes the leaf a more efficient food factory producing more carbohydrates, especially glycols giving stress protection from moisture loss and extra fuel for better growth and faster maturity.
The glycols are like the anti-freeze we place in our car’s radiators and hence the plant produces its own anti-freeze system. This works very well on tender plants such as tamarillo when there is an occasional frost every so often.
If there is a series of frosts night after night, then the plant cells do not have time to recover from the previous frost and damage will occur. Frost damage will be seen by the leaves going black as the cells in the leaves have frozen and not recovered.
When it appears that there are going to be two or more frosts in a row additional protection is needed in the form of Frost Cloth or other insulating materials such as newspaper and sacks.
The frost protecting spray film has another advantage in that if you spray under and over the foliage you reduce the amount of moisture loss (transpiration) which means that the water requirements of the plant reduces by about 30%.
This advantage can be used at this time of the year on evergreen plants or shrubs that you need to move from their present location. Simply spray the foliage, under and over with Vaporgard, wait about 3 days for the full effect to kick in, then lift the plant and move it too its new location. Winter is by far the best time to relocate plants as there is less stress on them and they have right through till next summer to re-establish.
Deciduous trees should also be moved or new ones plants during the next month or two while they are dormant.
The sprayed on film smothers any insect pests that may be still present on the foliage of plants treated, giving you the advantage of cleaning up pest insects such as scale, thrips, aphids etc.
The film can also be used to protect a plant’s leaves from leaf diseases such as black spot, mildew and rusts.

Gardeners that have stored produce such as potatoes, kumara and pumpkins should check the produce every few weeks for rots. Also beware of those little mammals on four feet called mice and rats as they can get into your pumpkins and ruin them.
Weeds are much easier to control in winter and there are several less harmful ways to eliminate them when compared to using a harmful chemical herbicide.
The best way is to cut them off just below ground level with a sharp knife and leave the foliage on the top of the soil to be broken down naturally. Don't leave foliage that has produced seeds as these will only appear as many more weeds in the spring.
Sprays of vinegar or cooking oil used on a sunny day will dehydrate the foliage of the target plants.
Salt can be applied to weeds in cobbles or areas where you are not concerned about other plants growing for a period of time.
In those areas where you do want other plants to grow apply sulphate of ammonia directly to the weed’s foliage when the foliage is dry. If there are taller weeds then these need to be cut down low before applying. The sulphate of ammonia burns the foliage and crown of the weed and being nitrogen dissipates fairly quickly without leaving any longer term residue as will the salt.
This treatment (sulphate of ammonia) can be applied to weeds in the lawn also and if any grasses nearby get burnt they should recover.
Lawns can still be de-thatched with Thatch Busta at this time but do so soon as the results will take longer as the cold creeps in.
Clean up grass grubs and porina in you lawn areas with the new natural control of Professor Macs 3 in one for lawns. Over the next few months you can get organised for your vegetable gardens in the spring.
Give a thought to making some raised gardens for vegetables, they are easy to work and produce some great produce if done correctly.

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Every now and then a gardener will come up with a gem of an idea that will naturally solve some gardening problem.
A few months ago I happen to be talking to a green keeper, (Ray) from up north about a couple of gardening problems that he had, and during the conversation he mentioned a product that came from Australia that he was using on his bowling greens.
The product consisted of Eucalyptus oil and Tea Tree oil along with natural plant foods in the form of manures and seaweed/fish extracts.
Ray told me about how he is using the product on his greens to give fantastic control of grass grubs, black beetles, root nematodes and porina caterpillars.
In the past Ray had been using various chemical poisons which he detested as the residue of these poisons would be left on the greens for bowlers to not only get onto their footwear but also onto the bowling balls which of course are been handled. Unless the bowlers washed both hands, clothes and footwear they would be tracking home substances that are not good for their health.
This new natural product was going to overcome any health aspects but how would it go controlling pest insects in the greens?
Ray told me it was magic and did a far better control than any of the chemicals had ever done.
Ray also cited a case where some fellow green keepers, up his way, were having problems with porina caterpillars in their greens. They firstly used diazinon at normal strength and the caterpillars just laughed and kept on munching.
So then they applied the same poison at 3 times the recommended rate and still a number of porina survived.
So Ray gave them a few litres of this natural product which they applied. The result was a complete control of the porina from one application.
The product is applied at the rate one 1 litre to 25 litres of water to cover 50 square metres of lawn.
(Diluted at the above rate; 200mls to 5 litres of water applied to 10 square metres of lawn)
After application the lawn is further lightly watered with the hose or a sprinkler to wash the oils off the grass and down into the top 6 to 10cm of the lawn. It is there that it does its job.
Often lawns are the home of garden slugs which emerge out of the soil and thatch to invade our gardens during moist times. The product knocks them out also.
Worms will happily live underneath the oil layer in the top soil without any known adverse effects.
Worms that are near the surface when applied may not fair so well.
During a more recent conversation with Ray I found that these oils will control other soil insects such as eel worm, centipedes, root mealy bugs etc. Even the likes of earwigs and slaters can be given the old hurry on if they are causing problems.
Being a bit of an experimenter I obtained a bottle of the product and mixed it at 10 mils to 250 mls of water in a trigger sprayer and went hunting for bugs on leaves.
I found some whitefly, (adults and nymphs) caterpillars and leaf hoppers on the backs of some leaves. Sprayed them and the leaves and checked the next day to find dead whitefly and a caterpillar that was a funny yellow colour, still alive but fairly sick.
The manufacture informed me that the oils act as an irritant to the pests and they succumb as a result.
Imaginative gardeners may find this product an interesting tool in assisting in the control of some pests such as wire worm in the soil by treating the area a few weeks before planting (say) their new seasons potatoes.
The product is only recommended for lawn use and should only be used for the control of pests in the lawn areas.
Used for any other purpose is not recommended but being two natural oils I cannot see any health concerns as you are not likely to spray over any food crops and eat them without first washing as normal.
Being a oil based product, it can of course burn foliage and grass if sprayed in sunlight.
For lawn applications it is recommended to use early in the morning or late afternoon and washing in with the hose, the oils off the foliage and into the soil.
My research on the net indicates that Eucalyptus oil is toxic, but in weak solutions is used medically with warnings of possible toxic effects. (uses inhalers and medications)
Tea Tree oil should not be taken orally as it can be toxic in this form also. (Also used in various medical preparations externally)
The product’s label states ; ‘Do not feed grass clippings to animals and birds’ which would apply to the first or second mowing after application to a lawn area.
If you have pets that eat grass then make sure you water the oils off the grass after initial application before allowing the pets to roam the lawn.
Mind you the oils are only in the following strengths; Eucalyptus oil 10g/L and Tea Tree oil at 2.5g/L and then they are going to be further diluted at 1 litre concentrate to 25 litres of water and further reduced when washing into the soil off the grass’s foliage. Bearing these precautions in mind the possible harm to pets and birds would be very minimal.
This Australian product is called Professor Macs 3 in 1, been a natural lawn pest insecticide, lawn food and wetting agent. For lawn fertilising it is used at any time of the year at 100mls to 2 litres of water to cover 10 square metres. This rate will in fact assist a little in the control of lawn pests as a sort of top up after the initial application rate.
The wetting agent aspect will assist in drier times for the prevention of ‘Dry Spot’ in lawns.
This is when the soil dries out and surface tension prevents the rain or your watering from sinking into the soil. Noticed often as a brown area with nice green grass around it.
Professor Macs 3 in 1 is becoming available now through garden centres (ask for it by name) in a one litre container and also in a 2 litre container that you snap your hose onto, to apply easily to 100 square metres of lawn area.
From my conversations with Ray, the green keeper and his absolute phrase for this natural product I can see it being a fantastic boon for those gardeners that want a great lawn without the need to use harmful chemicals.

A neat Green product.

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Now that daylight savings has finished for the current season, gardeners have to re-organise themselves a bit more not having that extra hour of light in the evenings.
One comment that tickled my fancy the other day was a diligent home keeper who made the comment, ‘Thank god daylight savings is over, I was worried about the curtains fading too quickly.’
Makes one wonder about the education standards in this country. You need a good sense of humor in this day and age and on the radio the other day I heard the tale about a granny that had acquired her first cell phone and was out visiting her friend, Peggy. About this time her granddaughter rang her cell phone and when Granny answered she asked her granddaughter, ‘How did you know I was visiting Peggy?’
One of the best items that I came across this week was that a number of scientists and researchers have determined that one of the main areas of health concerns is our food chain. (Rocket Science?)
They stated that the chemical additives were bad enough on our health, but the biggest concern was that our food lacked nutritional value. They believed that if our food had more nutrition (minerals etc) then the harmful chemical additives would be of less concern.
This has also been a belief of mine for sometime. Gardeners that grow their own fruit and vegetables naturally, ensuring that the crops have all the minerals and elements the plants need, know this also.
In my case I ensure my body has a daily intake of high nutrition growing not only as many vegetables and fruit as possible but also growing and juicing wheat grass, taking MSM, drinking raw organic cows milk and having my own chickens. Since taking these things on a daily bases, my health is far better than it was a few years back.
In fact I feel 20 years younger, a lot more energy, clearer thinking, better memory and I don't catch colds anymore.
Just recently I was in a local office fixing up some business and the chap I was dealing with knew me and at the conclusion of the business asked if I would mind answering a gardening problem he had and could not solve.
We sorted out the problem and found a solution and then he asked if I would mind helping another staff member. Always happy to oblige I was introduced to a young lass likely in her late teens about a problem she was having with a bed of silverbeet that she had started to grow.
She is a first time gardener but very proud of her efforts to the extent that she was able to show me a photograph of the bed on her cell phone. The solution was likely a pH problem and lack of food for the heavy feeding crop. Next, another young lass popped in with a problem that she had growing in a outdoor container.
It is great to see young people being aware of their health and vitality and wanting to grow at least some good healthy food.
Both these girls were very proud of their efforts but lacked the knowledge and experience that many readers of this column have.
We must look to pass on our experience to these budding gardeners so that they have successes and don't become dishearten by repeat failures.
This might be a good time to give out some basic gardening tips that are easy to use and will assist in success.
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If you are making a new garden area select a spot that is fairly sunny then after clearing the soil of whatever was there previously (often this is done by digging and turning over the soil to the depth of one spade or more) While digging and turning over the bed you will be able to see what sort of soil you have and what worms are present.
(Worms will only be present, if at all, if the soil has been moist for a period of time.)
In heavy clay like soil, apply ample amounts of gypsum to assist in breaking up the clay particles.
If very light soil then cover with compost and fork this into the soil. Also untreated sawdust can be used as well.
Make the garden bed of a size that you can plant, weed and work the bed without ever having to actually walk on it again.
A slightly raised garden with wood, bricks, concrete blocks can be used to keep the bed from spilling onto the surrounding area.
Next spread a fast acting lime or soft lime such as Rapid Lime over the area and rake in.
Initial food value can be obtained by spreading sheep manure pellets and blood & bone over the area and lightly raking once again.
In a sense the area is now ready to plant up but there are likely to be untold numbers of weed seeds waiting and ready to germinate so we need to make life a little harder for them and reduce the amount of weeding we have to do.
Lay several thicknesses of newspaper over the area, overlapping them and wetting them down as you go.
Do this on a calm day and have ready several bags of purchased compost ready to cover the sheets of newspaper as you go. The final thickness of the compost should be about 30 to 50mm or even greater as your budget allows.
Now the neat part, time to plant up. Select vegetables that are suitable for the time of the year and likely punnets of seedlings are best value at this time.
Lettuce, silverbeet, spinach, miniature brassicas, spring onions, garlic, herbs of choice and maybe a stand of broad beans at one end furtherest from the sun so they don't shade the smaller crops. Plant all these directly into the compost layer.
If in punnets, plunge the punnets under water to soak before trying to separate the seedlings for planting.
This reduces root damage.
A small hole is made into the compost to the depth where the newspaper layer is and the seedlings placed in the hole (roots down) and compost pushed over the exposed roots to cover them with the base of the plant been level with the soil surface.
Watering; it is important that you keep the bed moist and without rain it means you need to hand water. Do not use tap water that has chlorine in it as you will do more harm than good.
Obtain a number of cheap buckets and fill them with the chlorinated water and leave them to stand in the sun for a day. Pour the then de-chlorinated water into a watering can and water the garden with it.
Then refill the buckets ready for the next time. These should be on hand ready to use directly after you have planted up your seedlings.
Check your local papers for poultry farms and give them a call to see if you can obtain some chicken manure. You don't need much but many of them do sell bagfuls.
Obtain a big container like a plastic rubbish tin which can hold about 75 litres and fill the bottom third with the chicken manure then fill about two thirds full with de-chlorinated water.
With a suitable paddle like stick give the whole mix a good stir. Top up with some more water to about 50mm from the top and give a light stir. Now you have made up a heavy duty feed for your new garden.
Water some of this into your garden every few days in this manner. In a 10 litre watering can place one litre of the food and add 9 litres of de-chlorinated water to it and water over the seedlings.
Afterwards give the contents of the rubbish tin another stir before placing the lid back on. More water and manure can be added as required.
Weeding: some weeds will appear in your new bed and these are valuable to building up the soil food web you are creating. Let them grow up to about 50 to 60mm tall and then with sharp scissors cut them off at ground level and let them fall onto the surface of the soil where they will be broken down, feeding the soil life. Don't pull them out as their roots left in the soil to rot are very valuable.
Now you are getting into what is called Permaculture. A self sustaining system that mimics what naturally happens in nature amongst many other aspects.
Likewise when you harvest vegetables of the types such as lettuce and brassicas cut the heads off with a sharp knife leaving their roots to decompose in the bed. (Some vegetables will need soil disturbance to harvest such as potatoes and carrots but try to keep disturbance to a minimum.)
There are products you can buy to further enhance your plants and increase either their nutritional value or increase the soil food web populations. One of these has to be Magic Botanic Liquid which can be used occasionally as a soil drench or sprayed over the soil and plant foliage on a two weekly frequency.
The golden rule in starting off is never bite more than you can comfortably chew in other words start off small with say a garden strip about a metre wide and a couple of metres long.
It is not a big area but is one that is easy to manage. You can, in that area, by not walking on the soil get about 3 rows of plants such as silverbeet, lettuce spinach and miniature brassicas.
Clumps of spring onions, carrots and broadbeans.
For your herbs they also can be part of the bed or alternatively planted into about 20cm pots using purchased compost, a little soil added along with the food mentioned above.
These can sit spaced out around the outside of your garden bed to make the whole thing look more attractive and productive.
If you do not have any area where you can make a garden bed (like in a flatting or town house situation) not all is lost as you can grow a vast selection of vegetables in containers and polyestrene boxes that are 150 to 180mm deep.
Don't use potting mix instead use a friable purchased compost with a little soil added and follow the above instructions.
You can plant about 8 silverbeet plants into one of these boxes with holes in the base for drainage and once established you can start harvesting the outer leaves.
A box as such will give you a few cuttings each week for a long period (dependant on time of the year). Use the food as above.
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Life is interesting and when it comes to gardening and our current weather patterns, we have a really strange situation. Fruit trees such as apples maybe coming into blossom as an example.
At this time of the year I would normally be writing about all those autumn type gardening jobs for gardeners to get completed before winter completely sets in.
The way the weather is holding out, mild to warm days with the lack of rain, we certainly have a Indian Summer which is likely to last for another month or more.
On the other hand we are only 11 weeks away from the shortest day and now that daylight savings are finishing we will notice the change in an abrupt manner.
Mine you our garden plants relate very strongly to the amount of sunlight they receive on a daily bases.
Their biological clocks function on either the increasing or decreasing light hours they receive.
Annuals; either plants or weeds, are setting seeds so their offspring will be held safe through the winter.
The lack of a cold blast, which should have started to happen, would have began the leaf colour change in deciduous plants and trees. Instead I note that my deciduous fruit trees are as green as, with little sign of a true autumn change.
The worst of this is the lack of rain in most areas. It would have made our gardening life a lot better if a reasonable amount of rain fell each week. Compound this with areas that have water restrictions and you have a few problems.
Gardeners wishing to put down new lawns or do a bit of patching will not be able to do so till the autumn rains come unless they have ample non-restricted water supplies.
You can buy your lawn seed, prepare the area then wait till the rain comes and in the meantime with what water you can spare, wet down the bare area to germinate the weed seeds. A couple of waterings two days apart should be enough to break the weed seed’s dormancy. Then you can either kill off the weeds or don't water anymore so that the baby weeds shrivel up in the dry soil.
Hopefully sufficient rains will come to allow a successful lawn planting autumn. Another lawn problem arises in dry times called ‘dry spot’ which happens when the soil becomes too dry and surface tension prevents the absorption of moisture.
You will notice brown, dried off areas/patches in a lawn and if you have been able to water a bit then the grass around the brown patch will be nice and green.
Some gardeners think the problem is caused by grass grubs eating the roots of the browned off grass.
Unless you have been able to apply a reasonable amount of water to the lawn over the past few months it is highly unlikely to be grass grubs as they go into a summer dormancy when the soil becomes too dry. (You can always lift some turf to make sure.)
Dry spot can be fixed cheaply by filling your watering can with warm water and squirting some dish washing liquid in and lather up by stirring. Gently water this onto the dry area to break the surface tension and then next time you water the lawn the water will sink in better in those dry areas.
One of the problems with rain is that it can come too heavy when it does come and if it cant sink into the soil it will cause minor erosion effects.
If you have one of the those used ‘snap on the hose’ applicators that had only plant food in them (not a lawn weed killer) then you can fill the container with dish washing liquid, snap on the hose and water both lawn and gardens late in the day when the sun is off the plants.
This can be done a couple of times a few days apart to help make your gardens and lawns rain ready.
That will help the rain actually sink into the soil rather than cause a minor amount of flooding.
Drought times and grasses is interesting, for instance you can see a playing field that is totally browned off but later when the rains come this dead looking playing field bursts into a swath of green.
This can mean that your brown patches in the lawn maybe able to recover without having to re-sow.
Lack of rain and a evenly moist soil also means you cant really get into planting spring bulbs other than daffodils and fressias. Purchase your bulbs so you are ready to plant out when the rains come.
Insect pests have been able to build up massive populations due to the great summer and if you have not kept knocking them back, they will be a big problem at this time.
A spray of Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum added, sprayed late in the day just before dusk, under and over the foliage of all plants with insect pest problems.
If you have a plant which the foliage is being eaten but you cant find what is doing the damage then after inspection check the ground underneath and you might find a loopy caterpillar.
These fellows drop off the plant when disturbed. If on the other hand you don't find anything then likely it is a beetle feeding in the early hours of the evening.
I have suggested to gardeners to grab a torch early in the evening and go out to see whats happening.
If you find some beetles on the foliage then while they are eating away you can stop them in their tracks by making up a spray of Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum and spray them. (You might need someone to hold the torch.)
You may also find either snails and slugs having a feed and if that is the case make up some Liquid Copper spray and while they are feeding spray them with the copper. Both these pests cannot handle copper causing them to shrivel up.
A few gardeners have asked me recently how do you tell when pumpkins and squash are ready to harvest.
When fully ripe the stalk connecting the fruit to the vine will wither. By this time likely the leaves will have also started to die back. You then pick the pumpkins and finish drying and hardening the skin in the sun, especially the part that has been sitting on the soil.
Then they can be stored in a cool shed that is free of rats or mice. (lay poison) The ideal is to have a fishing net hung in the rafters like a hammock and the pumpkins stored in the net.
Another question is how to store potatoes and kumara? In actual fact they are best stored in the soil they have grown in, as long as the area is free draining and not prone to water logging when the rains come.
This means you can just lift a few as required for the table.
Alternative is to lift the crops and sun dry to firm the skins for a day or two and store in a cool shed layered in either sand or untreated sawdust that is slightly moist.
Dew comes with the autumn and can be seen early in the mornings on the foliage of plants.
This moisture can be absorbed into the leaves, reducing the plant’s need for so much moisture in the root zone.
Problem is the moisture from dew can bring about the ideal situation for some foliage diseases to set up such as powdery mildew.
Mixing a heaped table spoon of baking soda into one litre of warm water with 1 mil of Raingard will control this for a period but on plants finishing for the season it is really not worth a lot of effort. Young plants, planted out should be protected with this spray.
Prevent weed seeds from developing on garden weeds as they will only bring forth a new weed problem later on.

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Summer gardens, as they are harvested, will leave bare ground which never stays bare for long.
My old Science teacher used to say to us, ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’ and that is also true in gardens as bare soil will soon produce an abundance of weeds. This is Nature’s cover crop and could be used to fortify the soil if cut down before the weeds produce a fresh crop of seeds.
The problem is that weeds tend to mature very quickly and re-seed and you are most likely to only increase your weed problems.
So what is best to do with bare ground after harvesting?
First thing would be to lightly rake the soil and then water to keep the area moist. This action will germinate many of the weed seeds that are laying dormant. Once there is a nice show of baby weeds, stop watering and allow the soil to dry for a day or two.
Then with a sharp Dutch Hoe slice the baby weeds off at ground level. If you do not have a Dutch Hoe then use a sharp carving knife to either slice or scrape off the weeds at soil level.
The foliage of the weeds is just left on the soil to shrivel up in the sun.
Now we have dealt to the weed threat to the area, we can pick a cover crop of our preference to plant.
There are a number of plants suitable for this purpose and each type will provide certain benefits to the soil. Some gardeners prefer to sow a mix of several types to obtain more than one benefit.
Alfalfa: Has a vigorous root system that aids in the break up of soil pans and brings up sub-soil minerals.
Lupin: Nitrogen fixer. (there is tons of nitrogen in the air above your gardens and this is one way of capturing it) Mustard: Aids in weed control and assists in control of some soil fungi. Should not be planted if you have club root disease.
Oats: Supplies good mulch material.
Peas: Also an excellent nitrogen fixer, provides you with your own pea straw and likely a crop of peas for the table. Wheat: Good for carbon and humus.
If you are just to plant one type I would suggest the peas as they give you 3 benefits otherwise mix some or all the others together and sow them, avoiding mustard if you have club root problems.
Scatter the seeds over the bare soil and wet them down with Magic Botanic Liquid which improves the germination and places extra minerals into the soil.
Lightly cover the exposed seed with purchased compost and water down. Keep the area moist.
It does not take long for the seeds to germinate and then all you need to do is ensure that the young plants have adequate moisture.
How long do you allow the cover crop to grow? That is up to yourself but do not let the crop go to seed except for Peas as you want to harvest them for the table.
At sometime you will cut the crop down close to the soil level. This can be done easily with a weed eater or a rotary lawn mower without the catcher on. Alternative to either of these would be hedge clippers.
Many gardeners dig the crop in and this is a disadvantage as digging disturbs the soil food web and is work! The best and easy way is to cut the crop down, leaving the roots to rot in the soil which is heaven for the soil life and worms. The cut crop then can be sprayed with either Mycorrcin or Thatch Busta to aid its breakdown.
You may also like to throw any kitchen scraps, lawn clippings (without seeds) over the cut crop. If you can obtain any animal manure or chicken manure spread that over also. Then sprinkle a few handfuls of Rapid Lime over the area.
Next if you have an abundance of newspaper spread several sheets over the area and wet them down. Finally cover the whole area with a compost such as mushroom compost or any good purchased compost to a depth of about 20mm. Keep the area moist and it is ready to plant up when you want to.
Avoid walking on the area at all times and if the area is too wide to plant out without trampling over it divide the area into plots after cutting down the cover crop with walkways about 25 to 30cm wide.
Weedmat strips can be laid on these walkways. Then the ‘after cutting treatment as above’ will be applied to the plots not the walkways. The plots will be higher than the walkways and you may like to use a wooden frame or old bricks around the edges of the plots to obtain excellent, raised gardens.
You can before sowing your cover crop, construct plots with pathways between and then just sow the plots. The ideal No-no, is don't walk on your gardens where plants are to grow as you compact the soil and have to revert to turning over the garden by digging..

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I am often asked by gardeners where they can obtain Elephant Garlic from, to grow.
A South Island firm, Morton Smith-Dawe has secured a good supply of this variety of garlic which should be available through your local garden centres or they should be able to obtain it for you from the said company.
Elephant garlic according to Wikipedia, the free Internet encyclopedia says:
‘Elephant garlic or Russian garlic (Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum) is not a true garlic, but actually a variant of the species to which the garden leek belongs. It has a tall, solid, flowering stalk and broad, flat leaves much like those of the leek, but forms a bulb consisting of very large, garlic-like cloves. The flavor of these, while not exactly like garlic, is much more similar to garlic than to leeks. The flavor is milder than garlic, and much more palatable to some people than garlic when used raw as in salads.
The mature bulb is broken up into cloves which are quite large and with papery skins and these are used for both culinary purposes and propagation. There are also much smaller cloves with a hard shell that occur on the outside of the bulb. These are often ignored, but if they are planted, they will the first year produce a non-flowering plant which has a solid bulb, essentially a single large clove. In their second year, this single clove will break up into many separate cloves. Elephant garlic is not generally propagated by seeds.
Some people use the young unopened flowering heads as a vegetable.
The plant, if left alone, will spread into a clump with many flowering heads. These are often left in flower gardens as an ornamental and to discourage pests.’
You plant Elephant Garlic in the period April to June, about 6 to 10 cm apart with the necks protruding.
Pick a full sun situation that is free draining and keep the soil moist. The bulbs with their new cloves will be ready to harvest about December-January.
If you have a pet Elephant avoid feeding it Elephant Garlic unless there is a need for humongous amounts of manure.
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Autumn is drawing her cloak around us as winter approaches and for some, problems exist in the garden. The excellent summer we have had, has given us great gardens, being one of the best years for tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums, flowers, the list goes on.
Good growing times also means an abundance of insect pests such as whitefly, leaf hoppers, caterpillars, the list goes on.
Now that we have reached a seasonal change not only can we enjoy a bountiful harvest but we may have a big insect pest problem to boot.
Pest insects breed very quickly with females laying a few to several hundred eggs during their short lives. When one starts off in spring and the insect populations are beginning for the new season, then it is a relatively simple matter to use natural controls to keep the populations low.
When you see a whitefly in the spring flitting around your newly planted tomatoes, you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a number you don't see. You ignore the sighting and a week or two later you notice a few more.
If you ignore the potential problem within another few weeks you have a big problem that is much more difficult to control.
On the other hand some gardeners take the first sighting as a warning and act on it.
But even these gardeners can come foul of a major problem looming, invasions of insect pests from other non-treated areas of the garden or in many cases from the gardens next door.
No matter whether its whitefly or any other insect pest, a good summer will allow massive insect populations to build and then invade your preferred plants as their previous host plants become over populated or destroyed.
So what do you do? Do you hope for an early winter so Nature can do what your frequent sprayings cant? I don't think we are going to have an early winter this year so all you can do is keep knocking down as many of the pests as possible. This makes sense as the less pests to winter over, the less problems in the beginning of next season.
Two natural products combined and sprayed just on dusk will help reduce the problems, now and in the future. The products are Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum added. (You can include Raingard with them for a longer control residual)
Another excellent method of upsetting insect pests is your hose if you water by hand.
I remember as a child watching old gardeners watering their gardens late in the day, not only would they moisten the soil but often would turn the nozzle of their hose to a jet and blast the foliage of their plants.
This simple method would wash many insect pests off the plants onto the ground where they would either drown or be unable to get back up onto their host plants.
Watering each evening by hand is a great time to check your plants for possible problems, which you would not be so quick to notice otherwise.
You may like to try a combination of spraying and water jetting to keep insect populations down.
Firstly use the spray products mentioned above, late in the day after you have watered only the soil of your gardens with a hand held wand.
You should see, during watering, where possible problem areas are.
Only water the soil for the next couple of days and then on the third day blast the foliage of the plants with a jet strong enough to wash off many insect pests but not strong enough to damage the plants.
Repeat this for the following 3 days then do another spray of the products on the seventh evening.
Outside of fresh invasions from next door you should get on top of the pest insect problem.
Susan, a keen natural gardener from Christchurch told me how she controls whitefly in her glasshouse by using an overhead sprinkler system every few days or once a week, as the need for moisture is required.
The system is run for a good period of time to wash the adult whitefly off the tomatoes and onto the wet soil which becomes flooded and they drown. Add to this some Neem Tree Granules around the root zone of the plants and you have an excellent natural control.
Autumn is also the time when plant diseases become really to the fore. Black spot, rust and mildews abound on plants such as our roses and this is part of Nature and the natural cycle for older annuals and deciduous plants.
They are finishing for the year and the foliage has to be broken down, to be recycled into the soil. It is really a losing battle to try and keep the foliage clean and you will not win.
Save yourself time and money and let Nature take its course. Young freshly planted plants can be protected against mildews using a heaped tablespoon of baking soda to one litre of warm water with one mil of Raingard added.
Don't worry about picking up dying leaves off the ground to assist in preventing disease re-occurrence next spring.
Instead spray the dying leaves and soil with Mycorrcin to aid the breakdown of the organic matter and increase the beneficial soil life, which will do the job far more efficiently than you could ever hope to.
Autumn is also the time to harvest seeds from your annuals and other plants for planting next spring.
There is big savings in collecting your own seeds and it is easy to do.
Seeds from seeding vegetables such as tomatoes, pumpkin, beans, cucumber etc are easy to collect and dry on a south facing window sill.
For silverbeet, cabbage, lettuce, carrots etc you need to let one of the best looking plants go to seed. This takes sometime but the end result is more seeds than you can ever hope to sow.
With flowers you may have to study the flowers and work out the seed pod bit to collect the seeds.
If you are not sure you can place a small plastic bag over a flower or two as it is finishing flowering.
You tie the bag onto the stem so that the seeds will fall into the bag when mature. If the bag starts to fill with condensation make a couple of small holes in the top of the bag.
Once your seeds have been collected and dried you place them in a lock type small plastic bag with the name of seed/plant and then place all your plastic bags into a sealed glass jar and store in the fridge.
The seeds can keep well for several years in this way and as they are chilled, they germinate readily when sown.
With the likelyhood of a mild winter it is not too late to plant out seedlings of green vegetables for winter harvesting. Silverbeet, winter type lettuce, cabbages and other brassicas can be planted out now.
(Not so for areas prone to early frosts)
The story is to speed up their growth while the day light hours are still reasonable as the growth is dependant of the number of hours of sunlight.
Ideally spray the seedlings with Vaporgard a day before you transplant them into the garden or containers. (This reduces the transplant shock so they get a better quicker start.)
Wet the punnet by plunging into a bucket of water before removing the seedlings.
This reduces root damage.
Plant them out into moist soil and water in.
Once the seedlings establish and show signs of new growth then mix up some nitrogen such as sulphate of ammonia at the rate of a tablespoon dissolved in 10 litres of water, then water some of this into the root zone once a week for about a month.
Then apply potash to the root zone (about a level teaspoon) once a month to firm up growth.
A two weekly spray with Magic Botanic Liquid onto the foliage and soil will also assist in good growth.
With the cost of things going up it pays to have a good garden of vegetables to pick.
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Easter is fast approaching and for many working people it is a great time to get the summer gardens cleaned up and preparations made for the coming winter.
It is also the last chance to do some late plantings of vegetables and flowers for winter use and colour.
In the vegetable garden you can do a late planting of winter type brassicas such as cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.
As white butterflies are still flitting around the garden you can place some Neem Tree Granules in the planting hole and about a teaspoon full on the soil around the plant.
This helps reduce damage from the caterpillars and gives the young plants a good start.
Further protection can be done by cutting the base off 2 litre clear plastic bottles and place one of these over each plant with the cap removed. Once the plants have settled in and started growing nicely you can speed up their development by watering in a weak solution of nitrogen.
There are two ways this can be obtained, take a few handfuls of fresh chicken manure (or any other manure) and place in a large bucket filled with non chlorinated water. Stir occasionally and once a week take about a litre or two of the solution off and apply about 100mls per plant after having watered the area they are growing in. Do not pour over the foliage just on the soil in the root zone.
The other way is to take Urea or sulphate of ammonia and place 50 grams into 10 litres of water to dissolve the granules. Apply about 500 mls of this to each plant after watering the area.
The use of these nitrogen rich solutions can only be used weekly for about a month to boost growth before the winter chills strike. Come about the middle of April you have to firm up the growth gained by applying about a level tablespoon of sulphate of potash (potassium sulphate) to the soil around each plant previously treated. Lightly water in preferably with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL)
The above treatments can be applied to both vegetable and flower seedlings planted at this time.
A further advantage is to place a few sheep manure pellets and a little blood & bone in every planting hole, cover with a little soil and then in with your seedling.
If you have been growing capsicums or peppers in open ground over the summer you will likely loose these to the chills of winter. That is a waste in my mind as given adequate shelter these plants will keep on preforming for you right through the winter and for a few years with care.
If you would like to keep them going pick out the best preforming plants and spray the foliage under and over with Vaporgard and leave for a few days. This helps reduce transplant shock when you lift them and pot them into a small bucket or 20 cm pot. Use a friable compost for the extra mix needed.
Place the pots initially in a sheltered semi shaded area while they settle down.
Later place back in full sun and as winter settles in, move them to a sunny frost free spot or into a glasshouse/conservatory to grow on through the winter. During winter keep the pots a little on the dry side during the cold times.
This leads me to the next point at this time of the year reduce your watering of the gardens.
It is best to turn off the irrigation systems and water by hand just to moisten up the soil.
If you still need to use an irrigation system only run it for a very short time.
Too much moisture during the cooler months does more harm than good.
As the cooler weather comes we need to firm up our garden plants and the best way to do this is to sprinkle some Fruit and Flower Power around the garden. The product contains both magnesium and potash in balance which means it will firm up growth and aid in keeping the foliage green.
In areas where early frosts are likely you need to spray any frost tender plants with Vaporgard.
This natural product gives plants frost protection down to minus three for three months within 3 days of application. A further application can be applied in June. If you have two or more frosts in a row, night after night, additional protection will be needed.
It is a good time to pot up some flower plants for colour around your entrance ways. Use purchased compost for the growing medium (not potting mix) and add some sheep manure pellets and blood & bone to the mix. Flowers to choose from includes cyclamen, cineraria, lobelia, primula, dwarf stocks, polyanthus, pansies etc. Keep moist but don't over water.
Preparations for sowing new lawns or patching up existing should be well underway at this time and if you have ensured that most of the weed seeds in the area have germinated and the resulting weeds killed you can, if you have no water restrictions, sow your lawn seed.
If you want a good lawn you have to sow a top quality lawn seed. Super Strike is one that I am lead to believe is of very good quality.
Damp weather brings out the snails and slugs and even those these fellows are excellent in the garden for breaking down decaying matter they are a pest if they attack our preferred plants.
Poison baits are bad news for pets and wild life and the only bait I recommend would be Quash which does no harm to soil or pets.
Alternatively sprays of Liquid Copper with Raingard added over susceptible plants and over the soil around them creates a perfect barrier against slugs and snails while the copper particles are present.
Now that autumn has arrived roses and a number of other plants are coming into their end of the season time and thus Nature takes over and diseases such as black spot, mildew and rusts will appear.
This is natural and you will waste your time and money trying to combat them now.
On the other hand young plants such as celery, pansies etc should be protected with sprays of Liquid Sulphur and Baking Soda.
Insect pests such as whitefly and leaf hoppers are also coming to an end as the winter seeps in. It is still an advantage to keep up your sprays of Neem Tree Oil to ensure that their populations will not be too high come spring.
In both the vegetable garden and flower garden you can let one of each plant go to seed to harvest the seeds later on for next season. This is a great savings as the seeds are free.
Easter is also a good time to have a look around your garden and check the shrubs and trees to see if they are starting to crowd each other and gauge if any are causing problems for your neighbours.
Trim back all offending ones so that each plant receives its share of sunlight.
Trees that have got too tall and causing shading problems for the folk next door should be topped.
Also check trees that are planted in front of your sections to make sure they are trimmed back if reaching over footpaths. Likewise any trees that are reaching into power lines should be cut back.
It is nice to have a good range of trees and shrubs growing but the same may not be so nice for the people next door. Trimmings should be put through a chipper and mulched back over gardens or placed in the compost.
It is free food for your gardens so don't waste it.
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It is March already, first month of autumn and only 4 weeks till daylight savings ends.
Daylight savings gives us a perception that the days are still long, with a good amount of time in the early evening to do a few jobs outside as well as water.
We run by the clock on the wall or our wrist, while plants run to the universal clock of the sun. They (the plants) have been watching the days shorten and they know that winter is looming. Strawberries are right on the button with the seasonal change and have for a few weeks now, been producing runners which create new strawberry plants.
Strawberries have the ability to reproduce in three ways, seeds on their outer skins, runners in autumn and by clumping.
A few newer gardeners have asked me recently what to do with the runners on their strawberry plants.
It all depends on whether you would like some new young plants for your own use or to give to a friend.
If this is the case then all you need to do is ensure that the runners move over the soil so the young plants formed at the nodules can root into the soil.
You leave them attached to the parent plant till about May and then you can cut the runner and lift the new plants for re-planting. If you do not want any new plants for yourself or friends then the best thing to do is cut off the runners as they appear and keep all the energy in the parent plant.
Either way, to promote healthy plants, new or old, a 2 weekly spray of Mycorrcin should be applied to both. Mycorrcin is magic on strawberries and with its use can increase your crop by 200 to 400% as well as assisting in keeping the plants healthy.
A healthy bed of strawberries can produce well for several years till the clumps get too big and production falls. On some varieties of strawberries you will find a late crop of flowers and berries, on others they will be finished fruiting for the season.
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Likely you have never heard the name Justus von Liebig, in fact it was only in the beginning weeks of 2008 that this name was mentioned to me. Here is what Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia has to say:
(Reference at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justus_von_Liebig )

“Justus von Liebig (May 12, 1803 April 18, 1873) was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organization of organic chemistry. As a professor, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the greatest chemistry teachers of all time.
He is known as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient, and his formulation of the Law of the Minimum which described the effect of individual nutrients on crops.
He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extract, and founded a company, Liebig Extract of Meat Company, that later trademarked the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube.
One of his most recognized and far-reaching accomplishments was the invention of nitrogen-based fertilizer. Liebig believed that nitrogen must be supplied to plant roots in the form of ammonia.
Though a practical and commercial failure, his invention of fertilizer recognized the possibility of substituting chemical fertilizers for natural (animal dung, etc.) ones.
He also formulated the Law of the Minimum, stating that a plant's development is limited by the one essential mineral that is in the relatively shortest supply, visualized as "Liebig's barrel".
This concept is a qualitative version of the principles used to determine the application of fertilizer in modern agriculture.”

So back in the 1800’s this remarkable man worked on establishing what was to become known as N P K fertilisers.
The ability to bypass the natural way plants feed by applying chemical elements directly to the root zone.
This was a great turn of events and soon fertiliser companies were established to produce man made fertilisers.
Farmers and orchardists swapped their old natural ways of growing for the new chemical way.
Plants grew quicker without so much manual work, fertiliser companies became rich, universities studied and refined the process.
Man had discovered a way to beat nature and bend the creator’s work to his will.
But here is a little secret that the fertiliser companies and their consultants don't want you to know:
Later in life, Justus Von Liebig came to the realisation that his work with NPK fertilisers was incorrect. From reference:
http://www.ibiblio.org/london/permaculture/permaculture-list-archives-1999-2002/msg03631.html In 1855, Justus Von Liebig wrote:

"Unfortunately the true beauty of agriculture with its intellectual and animating principles is almost unrecognized.
The art of agriculture will be lost when ignorant, unscientific and short sighted teachers persuade the farmer to put all his hopes in universal remedies, which don't exist in nature.
Following their advice, bedazzled by an ephemeral success, the farmer will forget the soil and lose sight of his inherent values and their influence."
So here is the famous admission from Liebig--- that he had spent his professional life with a lying basis---- that has been the false foundation of practically all the university type researches (catering to the chemical companies) that so fondly embrace the lies about ion absorption by plant roots:

Justus Von Liebig wrote in 1855;

"I had sinned against the wisdom of our creator, and received just punishment for it. I wanted to improve his handiwork, and in my blindness, I believed that in this wonderful chain of laws, which ties life to the surface of the earth and always keeps it rejuvenated, there might be a link missing that had to be replaced by me--this weak, powerless nothing.
The law, to which my research on the topsoil led me, states, 'On the outer crust of the earth, under the influence of the sun, organic life shall develop’. and so, the great master and builder gave the fragments of the earth the ability to attract and hold all these elements necessary to feed plants and further serve animals, like a magnet attracts and holds iron particles, so as no piece be lost.
Our master enclosed a second law unto this one, through which the plant bearing earth becomes an enormous cleansing apparatus for the water.
Through this particular ability, the earth removes from the water all substances harmful to humans and animals--all products of decay and putrefaction, of perished plant and animal generations.
The opinion, that plants draw their food from a solution that is formed in the soil through rainwater, was everyone's belief. It was engraved into my mind. This opinion was wrong and the source of my foolish behaviour.
After I learned the reason why my fertilizers weren't effective in the proper way, I was like a person that received a new life. For along with that, all processes of tillage were now explained as to their natural laws.
Now that this principle is known and clear to all eyes, the only thing that remains is the astonishment of why it hadn't been discovered a long time ago.
The human spirit, however, is a strange thing. Whatever doesn't fit into the given circle of thinking; doesn't exist."

Well there you have it gardeners, from the horses mouth so to speak, the father of fertilisers came to realise his system was not sustainable, it destroyed the natural order of things, killed the soil life, made for unhealthy plants, animals and us at the end of the food chain.
It took nature millions of years to create the biology of soil/plant relationship and it only took us a fraction of that time to destroy it.
Once when a cow pooped on a paddock it was considered an asset.
The soil life converted the poo to food to fed the grasses and to re-feed the cow.
Now with the soil life gone that poo is a pollutant and along with nitrates/super phosphate etc harm our water ways and oceans. (plus our health)
Mind you there is a lot of money to be made out of man made fertilisers. (who cares about the planet?)

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Nature is never constant, there are ebbs and flows and at times unusual things can happen.
Unusual for the observer maybe but just another interesting aspect in the ever changing world of plants and gardens.
Last month I received the following email from a gardener; Hi Wally,
This season I planted some seeds from a butternut pumpkin that we had saved seeds from. As you can see from the photo it has turned into a monster, it roughly measures 26inches from the stalk to end.
Other pumpkins in the patch are round, some are long and thin but they all have the same markings.
One or two are starting to turn a faint orange colour. Are you able to confirm from the photo if this is indeed a butternut pumpkin. Look forward to hearing from you. Regards Elaine.

The picture shows a butternut colored, long marrow, growing next to a butternut. Both are growing off the same plant, side by side.
Another gardener rang me about a week ago and told how this season she planted a few squash plants and also a couple of water melons in the same area.
Now that the plants are reaching maturity she has found that the watermelon plants have produced only squash fruit, no water melons. Yet the plants are really water melons with their distinctly different foliage to squash foliage. All these plants are cucurbits and what has happened is the bumble bees have taken pollen from one type and pollinated the female flowers of the other, resulting in cross pollination and strange fruit.
This cross pollination can occur between certain members of the family but not between another member, cucumbers. So it is safe to grow cucumbers near pumpkins, squash, gourds, zucchini and melons but maybe not so good when you grow these others near each other.
Corn is another plant that can easily cross pollinate with other members of the family being maize, ornamental corn and pop corn. Thus if growing a variety of sweet corn ideally you should only grow that one variety and not other varieties of sweet corn, pop corn or maize anywhere near (if you want the type to be true.)
Corn is wind pollinated and the pollen can travel great distances and one of the big reasons for us to never allow GE corn to be grown in this country.
I came across a situation some years ago where a gardener grew pop corn and sweet corn near each other and the resulting cobs had both pop corn and sweet corn on the same cobs. Making both crops just about useless.
It would have been interesting to have placed some of the cobs in the oven in their sheaths to cook.
Likely the popcorn would have popped and so you would have the sweet corn as the main meal and popcorn for dessert.
Corn or maize is actually an invention of man and is solely dependant on mankind for its survival on the planet.
It all started about 7000 years ago when the South American Natives took a grass called Teosinte (which resembles our modern corn or maize.)
Ancient Teosinte did not have large ears. Instead, hard, nut-like kernels were distributed in small, feathery cobs over many tertiary branches of the plant which has a similar growth habit/appearance to modern corn.
There are five recognized species of teosinte:
Zea diploperennis, Zea perennis, Zea luxurians, Zea nicaraguensis and Zea mays. The last species is further divided into four subspecies: ssp. huehuetenangensis, ssp. mexicana, ssp. parviglumis and ssp. mays.
The first three subspecies are teosintes; the last is maize, or corn, the only domesticated taxon in the genus Zea..
Over time this corn like grass was developed into the maize and corn we know today.
The following are the different types we see today;
Dent (Zea mays indenata) Dent corn is often used as livestock feed, in industrial products, or to make processed foods. Dent corn is also frequently referred to as "field" corn. Either white or yellow, dent kernels contain both hard and soft starch that become indented at maturity.
Flint (Zea mays indurata) Flint corn, also known as Indian corn, is used for similar purposes as dent corn. Flint corn is distinguished by a hard outer shell and kernels with a range of colors from white to red. (You can remember that it has a very hard exterior by thinking of flint, the stone.) Today, most flint corn is grown in Central and South America.
Sweet (Zea saccharata or Zea rugosa) Sweet corn is primarily eaten on the cob, or it can be canned or frozen for future consumption. Sweet corn is seldom used for feed or flour. Sweet corn is extra sweet because it contains more natural sugars than other types of corn. (Field corn contains 4% sugar at the same stage standard sweet corn contains 10% sugar.) Almost 50% of the sugar can be converted to starch within 24 hours after sweet corn is picked, so it is best to eat it fresh!
Flour (Zea mays amylacea) Flour corn is used in baked goods because it has a soft, starch-filled, kernel that is easy to grind. Flour corn is primarily white, although it can be grown in other colors, for example, blue corn. One of the oldest types of corn, flour corn was a chief type grown by Native Americans .
Popcorn (Zea mays everta) Popcorn, a type of flint corn, has a soft starchy center surrounded by a very hard exterior shell. When popcorn is heated the natural moisture inside the kernel turns to steam that builds up enough pressure for the kernel to explode. When the kernel explodes the white starchy mass that you like to eat forms.
All types of corn will pop to some degree, but they won't necessarily have enough starch to turn inside out, or an outside layer that will create enough pressure to explode .
One of the oldest forms of corn, evidence of popcorn from 3600 B.C. was found in New Mexico.

The most interesting aspect of Teosinte (which grows wild in various parts of South America) is that it will grow wild, where the more modern corns will not.
If you take a cob of corn and allow it to dry and then toss the whole cob on the ground or bury it.
The seeds will germinate but because of the way they are on the cob the young corn plants suffocate each other and fail.
Corn needs man’s intervention to remove the dried seeds from the cob and then scatter or plant them for the corn plants to grow and thrive. Therefore the existence of modern corns is entirely dependant on mankind and us gardeners and has been for over 5000 years.
Because corn is such a stable food source for much of mankind this unusual relationship has transpired.
Corn stores well, can be ground into flour and in the past some natives in America would likely have starved to death if it had not been for this mutual benefit, between man and plant, where one could not have existed without the other.
In recent times corn has become a major crop for the production of biofuel (especially in America).
Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn -- which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year.
I read somewhere that the amount of oil/petroleum needed to produce ethanol from corn is greater than the amount of ethanol produced. (Energy/transport/fertilisers/chemical sprays)
Meanwhile the price of corn and corn related food products have increased adding to the problems of millions that are starving on the planet.
It is a strange greedy world we live in.
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Citrus trees are still the very popular fruiting tree today, as they were in our grandparents time.
It is great to be able to pop outside and pick a few ripe oranges or lemons for the table.
There is little reason that all New Zealanders cannot do so, if they have a few citrus trees.
Growing up in Palmerston North I had an uncle (Jack Franks) who lived in the Awapuni area and on his returned serviceman’s quarter acre, he had a wonderful citrus orchard. I think he had just about every type of citrus fruit and variety available in those days.
Big, beautiful, rounded trees about 10 foot tall, with a never ending selection of ripe fruit to choose from. The really amazing thing about the whole orchard was that he had grown every tree himself, from pips!
I remember one time when my mother took me to the movies and during the shorts was ‘Movietone news’ where we saw a feature about oranges being grown on one of the Pacific Islands for export to New Zealand.
The film showed a cart full of oranges been taken to the packing house and on the cart, sitting on the oranges, were a couple of native children with bare bums.
After that my mum washed the skins of every orange she purchased, as soon as she got home.
Citrus trees are easy to grow as long as you give them the conditions that suit them best.
They are shallow rooting and resent wet feet, which means the soil needs to be free draining or that a good amount of their roots are above the water table.
If you have a heavy soil such as clay, that is prone to water logging in wet times, then that is not a good place to plant a citrus tree. You can however overcome the problem of wet feet by making a good size mound and planting the tree on the mound.
Another way around the problem is to plant the tree into a large container (50 to 100 litres) and bury the container halfway into the soil in the wet area. Using either method means that much of the root system will be above the wet soil and the tree will thrive.
I have several citrus trees growing in both size containers, 50 litres and 100 litres and have found that the larger container produces a bigger tree faster.
By the way if you have access to 200 litre plastic drums then these cut in half and with some drainage holes drilled, are ideal and cheap too. (often free from places that have to dispose of them)
Citrus trees need sunlight and will do poorly in shaded situations so the more open and sunny a spot the better. While the tree is establishing it is best to provide some wind protection such as a screen of windbreak cloth on the prevailing wind side.
If planting into a large container for either partly burying in the ground or sitting on top of the soil, use a mixture of purchased compost with a little soil or vermicast (worm casts) added.
Citrus trees require a good amount of natural food and it is best not to use Citrus Fertiliser, which harms the soil life and worms. Instead make up your own citrus feed using sheep manure pellets and blood & bone. Another excellent food is Bio Boost which is also available as Break Through.
A monthly sprinkle of Fruit and Flower Power for the magnesium and potash that the citrus require and a small amount of BioPhos (natural phosphate) occasionally caters for their basic needs.
I use old chicken mature around the root zone of my trees and find that it works well also.
Citrus trees are not free of diseases or pest insects so some controls are needed at times.
The common citrus diseases can be prevented or controlled with sprays of Liquid Copper.
A couple of sprays a month a part should fix any diseases that attack the trees or for prevention a spray of the same in the spring and autumn is good value.
The insects that attack the foliage causing black sooty mould can be controlled with Neem Tree Oil sprays. Two or three sprays about a week apart will control aphids, scale and mealy bugs.
If mealy bugs appear you need to also treat the soil with Neem Tree Granules to get the pests in the root zone. Citrus tree borer is a problem if they attack your trees. I had two of my younger trees attacked this summer and noticed the tell tale sawdust particles from their feeding.
To kill the grubs I made up a solution of Neem Tree Oil at 25 mls to a litre of warm water and watered this mix into the root zone after applying a good sprinkling of Neem Tree Granules on the soil.
It took two to three weeks before the activity stopped so the pests must be history now.
If you have a number of exit borer holes on your tree then these should be blocked with a dab of acrylic paint. Left open they are an invitation for the adults to enter the tree and lay their eggs.
A big mistake that many gardeners make with their established citrus trees is to trim the branches to obtain a nice shape or keep under control.
Trimming branches causes congestion as each branch trimmed will produce a number of branches along its length. The best way to keep a citrus tree in a good shape and open is to remove total branches back at their source which is the trunk.
The ideal time to do this is about now, as the citrus tree borers on the wing should be finished for the season. When you remove a branch seal the wound with a mix of petroleum jelly and copper mixed together or acrylic paint with copper added.
A mature citrus tree can have all of the following, at any one time for most of the year; new flowers, young fruit along with ripening fruit. When you tree reaches this stage ensure you water it regularly during dry times as the tree will take the juice out of the mature fruit for its water needs on the maturing fruit.
A young tree will tend to produce fruit with thick skins but as the tree matures the skins will become normal.
Lack of juice and sweetness is a sign that there is insufficient potash so remember to sprinkle some Fruit and Flower Power every month.
Some old tricks with citrus trees are: throw some steel nails or bolts under the tree. These will rust and release the iron content that the tree needs.
In days gone by one would empty the family po under the citrus tree occasionally. The reason is the nitrogen in urine. As family Po's are not a household item these days then us men should relieve ourselves occasionally out in nature by the citrus tree.
(In our PC world this is best done at night so not to be arrested for indecent exposure) The tea pot was also emptied occasionally under the citrus tree and as many do not use a tea pot anymore, throw a few used tea bags under the tree instead.
For those gardeners that are really keen on having healthy plants then a annual sprinkling of Ocean Solids and Simalith is good value for the mineral content they provide.
Occasional sprays of Magic Botanic Liquid over the foliage and under the tree will also assist greatly.
Young citrus trees can be protected in winter against frosts with Vaporgard.
In the cold of winter immature fruit may turn yellow as if they were ripe, don't be fooled it is just the cold, not ripe fruit.
Lime trees are the most difficult to grow and they are best planted in a container so they can be moved to a warmer sheltered spot in winter.
If you buy a seedless citrus tree make sure that it is planted well away from any lemon tree that bears seeds. Cross pollination will cause your seedless to have seeds.
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This hot, dry summer brings many insect pests into our gardens and onto the plants.
There are beetles chewing on the foliage at night (often we don't see what is doing the damage when we inspect during the day, as they are away hiding) Leaf hoppers and whitefly that flit all around when we disturb a plant. Caterpillars that are chopping their way through leaves, scale insects that are sucking on the stems and leaves of plants, thrips and spider mites rasping away. Mealy bugs releasing their honey dew and another cause of black sooty mould, along with aphids and scale.
There are others but generally speaking the ones mentioned are the most common and destructive.
How much damage do these pests do to our gardens? If their numbers are high, then a lot of damage to the plants they prefer. Plants suffer though loss of foliage (less energy from the sun) sap is sucked causing dehydration and all is not well.
It is surprising how quickly their populations build up and often we find we have a major problem that did not appear to exist a week or so back.
Fortunately these days there are a number of remedies that we can use to keep the pest insect populations under control, without harming the environment or our health and more controls are appearing as our understanding widens.
The purpose of this article is to gain understanding of the remedies, how they work and how best to use them.
Firstly lets look at the man made chemical sprays that are conventionally used by gardeners and commercial growers.
These are all poisons, some more deadly than others, many have shown links to cancer and other health concerns that none of us would like to have.
If a poison can kill an insect pest it can also kill beneficial insects, harm children, pets, wild life and the user.
Plants absorb a poison and if the plant is one which we eat, there will be a residue left in the plant, long after the withholding period has expired.
The residue maybe very low but over time the residues do build up in our fatty tissues.
The interesting thing with poisoning insects is that over a period of time the insects become immune to the poison and thus loses its control of the target pest. All it does is harm the environment and your health along with a waste of your dollars. Many pest insects have become immune to most of the common chemicals available to the home gardener, as we have been using them for too many years.
The more life-cycles a pest insect has in a season the greater the chance of resistance to poisons.
Say an insect has a life cycle of 7 days then there can be about 30 generations in a season.
White fly has a 3 day cycle which may mean 90 plus generations in a season. Ample generations to become ‘super’ pests over a few years. Chemical sprays kill insects and the ones that are affected die quickly. They are not nice to use and becoming very expensive.
Aphids have soft bodies and if we take the old, yellow, cake, Sunlight soap and lather it up in warm water and then spray the aphids with this what happens? The fatty acids in the soapy water breakdown the soft bodies of the aphids and they die over a period of a few hours to a day or two.
Do the aphids become immune to Sunlight soap? Apparently no as our grandmothers used to take the same soapy water out of the boiler (after washing the clothes) and throw it over the roses to kill the aphids. This is a more natural remedy that will still be killing aphids in a 1000 years time if Sunlight soap is still available. (Note that liquid soaps and chemical soaps will not work)
Pyrethrum is one of Natures natural insecticides. It is derived from the dried flowers of two members of the chrysanthemum family, C. cinerariifolium and C. coccineum. Pyrethrum affects the nervous system of many insects when they come into contact with it. Used in many non toxic fly sprays, you see the results of flies spinning on their backs as their nervous system is destroyed.
Some insects such as ants can detect the presents of pyrethrum and avoid that area, hence it has a repelling effect for some pest insects. Pyrethrum is very sensitive to UV and freshly sprayed in an area exposed to UV it will be broken down within about 2 hours.
To obtain the best advantage from pyrethrum you need to spray just on dusk so that the spray will be active till next morning. It is not 100% kill, according to the scientists than have tested the product and generally found about a 80% kill or better factor. Because Pyrethrum is broken down so quickly in sunlight and it is natural to boot, there is no withholding period on food crops.
Another advantage is Key Pyrethrum (trade name) can be used at only 1 ml per litre of water making it very economical. A great natural spray for most insect pests.
Another natural product is from the Neem Tree. The kernels of the Neem Tree contain an oil that has anti-feeding, growth regulator and repelling properties, besides being an oil which will smoother some insects such as scale. The oil does not kill any insects, instead it will prevent them from feeding or being able to go to the next stage of development which means they will eventually die.
It would appear the anti-feeding aspect is the most noticeable and when a pest insect gets some Neem in its gut it never eats again. Damage stops at that point and over the next few days the insect dies of starvation.
When we use Neem Tree Oil as a spray we will not have immediate deaths of the pests but a few days later you will note a marked decline in populations. One or two repeat sprays about 3 to 7 days apart usually gives great results.
Neem Tree Oil is also broken down by UV and has up to about 7 days control period. Sprayed on a leaf of a plant (over and under) it will control those insects on that leaf that are either chewing, sucking or rasping the leaf but it will not effect any insects on the leaf next to it if not also treated in a like manner.
This means the spray does not enter a leaf and translocate to other leaves. To be effective then, the whole plant needs to be sprayed, over and under the foliage.
We mentioned before that the oil is obtained from the kernels of the Neem Tree. This is done by cold pressing the kernels to extract the oil. What is left of the kernel is called Neem Cake in India and what we call ‘Neem Tree Granules’ These granules still retain a little of the Neem insecticide properties which can be used to advantage.
Sprinkle the Neem Tree Granules onto the soil in the root zone of a plant where they break down releasing the properties, which are then taken up by the roots of the plant.
Any pest insect chewing or sucking on the roots get a dose of Neem and stop eating. Great for root mealy bugs, nematodes, grass grubs etc. Because the Neem has entered the roots it is then translocated up the plant and in some cases to the foliage. When a plant takes up a substance that it does not need it works on converting the substance to carbohydrates or sugars. Plants maybe very efficient in doing this and others not so good.
With the ones not so good, means that the Neem properties reach the leaves and when an insect attacks the leaves it gets a small dose of Neem and stops eating. Populations don't build and you are happy as you have not needed to spray.
This will not work on all plants but appears to work for tomatoes, (whitefly) brassicas, (caterpillars) lettuce, (black aphid) rhododendrons (thrips)
apples (codlin moth) roses (aphids and maybe other pests) cabbage trees (caterpillars) citrus (borer) and likely some other plants as well. The granules need to be refreshed about every 4 to 8 weeks.
You can also take a strong solution of Neem Tree Oil say 25 mils into a litre of warm water and water that into the root zone for an initial dose and then apply the Neem Tree Granules.
Neem Oil sprayed on plants has also been found to be effective in stopping possum and rabbit damage to plants by a number of rural gardeners. (Likely because it tastes horrible)
Neem Tree Oil and Key Pyrethrum can be added together for good results and if Raingard is also applied then the protection period will be longer as Raingard reduces UV damage.
By the way the best natural control for mites (spider mites) is Liquid Sulphur sprays.
I hope that gives you a better understanding.
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Summer is hard on gardens and plants with dry soils plus rapidly increasing populations of pest insects.
Lack of moisture places water stress on plants and once plants become stressed they are much more susceptible to attacks of insect pests and diseases.
Water restrictions in many areas compounds the problem if you are only able to water every second day.
There are two ways to reduce a plant’s water needs, which can be applied to your preferred plants.
Firstly sprinkle potash or sulphate of potash (potassium sulphate) around the plants in the root zone and lightly water this in. Repeat once a month over the next few months as it does another important thing besides making the plant more drought resistant, it also makes the plants more cold hardy.
Using the potash applications you have assisted your plant’s ability to live with less water needs and hardened them up for the winter chills coming.
Plants are like us, we perspire, they transpire, both in humans and plants it is a means of keeping cooler in hot conditions.
We can reduce a plant’s water needs by spraying the plant over and under the foliage with Vaporgard.
Vaporgard puts a film over the foliage which acts as a sunscreen against UV and reduces moisture loss by about 30%.
The film which lasts for about 3 months from one application, creates a barrier against diseases such as black spot, rust, etc from establishing on the foliage. The film also makes it more difficult for sucking, rasping and chewing insects to do damage.
If insects such as trips, whitefly, aphids are on the foliage when you spray the Vaporgard the pests are locked up in the film and die.
Your plants have a new lease of life, water requirements are reduced, the plant can gain more energy from the sun and pests and diseases are less of a problem. If we happen to have an early frost your plants thus treated, will also have frost protection while the film is over the foliage. (Another spray 3 months later, over all your frost sensitive plants should be applied.)
Water restrictions such as only watering every second day is a big problem for those of us that have container plants outdoors.
I had an elderly lady ring me during the week from Hamilton saying what can she do for her six tomato plants in containers, now that they are only able to water every second day.
This is the time to save your grey water from the sink, washing machine and bath.
After washing the dishes take the water from the sink and water your plants.
When you use the washing machine take the outlet hose and place it into the laundry tub and collect the used water. (don't leave this to happen without keeping an eye on it as you might flood the laundry)
If you have a shower over a bath, place the plug in the bath and collect this water and if you have a bath use the water for the garden. In all these water recycling methods you have a bit more work in carrying water around but it can keep your garden plants happy in drought times.
There are people in drought prone areas that have installed holding tanks to collect all their grey water for the gardens. Maybe as global warming increases more of us may have to set up permanent arrangements like this. Did you know that the average household can collect about 83000 litres of grey water each year. That is a lot of water from baths, showers, laundry and kitchen.
By the way water from the toilet is called black water.
You may need to change some of the things you do so no harm will come to your plants or soil.
Don't use the following: Washing detergents with high phosphorous levels (many brands now have low or nil phosphorous, so choose one of these)
Bleaches and other disinfectants.
Fats (from soaps).
Washing detergents using salt. Many cheaper brands use salt as a filler. It does not add to the washing power of the powder. Use only concentrates; or, better still, liquid detergents.
Watering with dish washing liquids in the water has another advantage as this water breaks soil surface tension and allows water to penetrate rather than run off.
Grey water is applied directly onto the soil and not over the plants.
By adding some Magic Botanic Liquid to your grey water that you are going to water onto the garden will also greatly assist in keeping every thing more natural.
Here is a way of turning a very dry area into a better moisture retention area;
Firstly add some dish washing liquid to warm water in your watering can and moisten the area with this water. Next give the area a good watering. Place newspaper or cardboard over the bare soil and wet it down. Cover the wet paper with a layer of compost, bark fines or untreated sawdust.
For the later two always sprinkle blood and bone over the paper before covering.
In drought times even the deeper rooting shrubs and trees can suffer. One way to help make watering of them easier is to cut the bottom off 2 litre plastic bottles and bury them neck first into the soil in the root zone, so that the cut bottom is just above soil level. Then when watering fill up the bottles with water and the water will be forced down into where the roots can use it. This reduces moisture loss from evaporation.
When the soil becomes dry the soil life dies or becomes dormant along with worm activity.
This is not a healthy state for your plants. Next problem is chlorine in the tap water which is chlorine gas pumped into the water to kill bacteria. As water reservoirs become low in summer more chlorine is used. (Often you can smell it when you turn on the tap)
Chlorine is harmful to our soil and plants and can increase the amount of disease in the soil and on plants. (Kills off the good bacteria and not all of the bad fellows) Do not water the foliage with chlorinated water. Place a filter on your hose tap to remove the chlorine. (Best)
Alternatively fill tubs or buckets with chlorinated water and leave in the sun for a day to remove the chlorine, then water.
For your own health and that of your children and pets, place a filter on your kitchen tap to remove the chlorine. Did you know that drinking chlorinated water increases the risk of developing cancer of the rectum or the bladder, the risk increasing as the more chlorinated water is drunk.
A study by the U.S. Council of Environmental Quality showed that the cancer risk among people drinking chlorinated water is 93% higher than among those whose water does not contain chlorine.
Dr. Niels Skakkebaek of the University of Copenhagen made a study that demonstrated the average human sperm counts have dropped in Denmark by almost 50% due to the presence of man-made chlorine found in human tissues and breast milk.
Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, found that high levels of trihalomethanes, a by-product of chlorine in drinking water, significantly increased the risk of stillbirth.
A hundred or so dollars spent on a filter unit is obviously a great investment in your health.
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Weed barriers are a means of preventing weeds from growing in gardens or the roots of certain weeds invading into your property from next door.
The most common barrier is weedmat and it is a woven plastic mat which is spread over the surface of the soil that stops all weeds (with the exception of one or two types of grasses) from emerging in the garden.
This is a very effective barrier that works where there is a reasonable area covered with the mat. Where the mat is cut to allow preferred plants to grow or around the edges weeds will still appear.
Because the mat is woven it allows moisture and some water carried plant foods to pass through the mat to the soil below. It also allows the soil to breathe, preventing an anaerobic situation occurring.
Older gardeners will likely remember in the past that black plastic film was laid down in gardens and scoria (volcanic rock, reddish in colour) was laid over the plastic.
Gardens that were treated as such, over time, became anaerobic (lacking in oxygen) and the plants growing there would eventually die. People that lifted the scoria and plastic film would be greeted with a horrible smell.
Gardeners that like the scoria look can safely apply the rocks to cover weedmat.
Weedmat only works in one direction, preventing weeds from growing upwards. Weed seeds that land on the mat or in whatever material that is used to cover the mat, may germinate and their roots will penetrate the mat downwards and thus the weeds can grow. These weeds are easy to pull out as they cannot establish a secure root system.
The weedmat should be covered with material such as bark or stones so it is not exposed to UV and by covering you should find that the life of the mat is very long. (Likely over 25 years)
You must be careful about what you use to cover the mat if you do not want birds flicking lighter material off the mat. To prevent this bark nuggets (large bark pieces) or even better some suitable stones would be best used.
Gardens such as vegetable and flower beds are not so practical for weedmat and on these I would suggest that a number of sheets of newspaper be laid and soaked with water and then a purchased (weed free) compost be placed as a cover over the paper.
Cardboard can be used instead of newspaper if you have a good source of this material.
Either method will create a nice temporary weed barrier and you can plant your seedlings directly into the compost.
Three other advantages of using cardboard or newspaper are; the worms love it, moisture is retained better and you are putting carbon into the soil.
One of the worst problems is when you have an invasive weed such as convolvulus or twitch grass coming through from next door into your gardens.
You can repeatedly eradicate your side of the fence of the invading roots only to find more emerging sometime later.
Unless the weed is also cleaned up next door, you have many years of weeding till you move house.
The long term solution is to dig a trench along the fence line about 20 to 30 cm deep and line the fence side of the trench with sheets of galvanised iron.
Back fill the trench so that the iron is deep in the ground and protruding a few cm above the soil level (if it is safe to leave it so) don't leave the iron above ground if there is any possibility of feet or hands being cut on the metal.
You could however place a row of old bricks along the side of the protruding iron sheet.
If because of the construction of the fence you cannot get the iron flush with the fence and there is a bit of a gap between fence and iron then the weed is going to appear in this gap. Simply pour salt down the gap whenever you spot the weed appearing.
Talking about salt it is excellent way to control weeds growing between pavers or in cracks in drives or paths. The salt will prevent weeds reappearing for sometime.
Using the above methods for reducing your weed problems will make your gardening more pleasurable.
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I have, like yourself, a number of favourite plants that I enjoy growing and maybe if you do not have these growing already, you may like to give them a shot.
Thyme is a great container plant or hanging basket plant to grow. I placed on of these into a pot some years back and when it was well established I placed the pot on top of the mix of a large container that I am growing a Persimmon in.
The thyme soon rooted itself through the drainage holes into the larger container’s mix and it grew prolifically. The thing I like about the thyme is that it flowers most of the year with the best displays through spring and autumn.
The plant has a natural cascading habit so it flows all over the place making for an excellent display. Handy too when you require some fresh thyme for the kitchen.
Petunias have been a favourite of mine for many years and some of the newer types have really spectacular flowers. I grow mine in 15-20cm containers using purchased compost and add in a little extra food such as Bio Boost or Sheep Manure Pellets. When the plants get a bit scraggly simply trim them back a bit to tidy up and they will produce new growth and a lot more flowers.
When winter starts to set in give them a cut back and spray the remaining foliage with Vaporgard and move the pots to a more protected spot where they are not going to get rained on.
Every so often in winter, you will need to give them a little drink but you can keep them going for years if you wish. Too much water in winter and you are likely to lose them, losses can occur also if not protected from frost.
Another family of plants you can keep for several years is peppers or capsicum that you grow in pots. Once again always use compost (potting mix is useless) and keep them protected and dryish in the winter.
Feijoa ‘Unique’ is an excellent variety of feijoa to grow either in open ground or for a smaller specimen in a large container. This variety produces large fruit, does not need a pollinator and you are likely to obtain a small crop within one to two seasons of planting.
I have two growing, one in a container the other in open ground and both are a delight to own.
Surplus fruit can be made into relish or chutney and this also applies to your surplus of tomatoes at this time of the year.
Often when one has a well established fruiting tree or bush, you have more fruit than you can easily use. The answer is to make some jam.
Jam is easy to make and tastes far better than the chemically flavored jams that have become common in the supermarket.
Times are a changing and we will need to get back to doing some of the things our parents or grandparents used to do, in our gardening and dealing with surplus at harvest.
It is a great saving and better for your health.
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The monarch butterfly is a great fascination for gardeners, we just love seeing them flitting around our gardens during the summer months. Some become very worried when they don't have these butterflies arrive in their gardens, at the expected time each year with no caterpillars on any of the many swan plants, they have specially planted out for them.
There is even a Monarch Butterfly web site in New Zealand at http://www.monarch.org.nz/monarch/ where people can log into and participate in sightings and many other activities.
The Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is an interesting creature that is poisonous to birds and preditors because of its diet on the milkweed plant we commonly call the swan plant. (Gomphocarpus fruticosus) The caterpillars, having a diet of this plant, helps to keep them safe from predictors and the same applies to the adult butterfly.
If by chance a predictor was to eat either the caterpillar or butterfly it would become sick and then remember in the future to leave them alone.
Large amounts of caterpillars on even a large swan plant will soon decimate the plant to the point where the plant has no foliage left and it dies.
My recommendation to prevent this is to place a small clear plastic bag over a small portion of the foliage at the end of one branch.
Tied in such a manner so that no caterpillars can get to eat the foliage inside the bag. Punch very small holes in the bag so that the foliage can breath and moisture can escape.
By doing this it will save the plant and once the caterpillars have finished for the season the swan plant can regenerate for next summer. (Remove the bag when caterpillars are finished for the season)
In the mean time you can, once the caterpillars have eaten all the other foliage, either purchase more swan plants to enable them to reach the stage of pupating (forming their chrysalis) or you can take the caterpillars off the plant and feed them on pieces of pumpkin or cucumber till they reach their final stage.
Another problem that gardeners can have is insect pests such as aphids or mealy bug attacking the swan plant while there are caterpillars present.
There is no chemical or safe sprays that can be used to control the pests without also killing the caterpillars.
Generally speaking you need to control the pest insects by squashing them till such time as the caterpillars have all pupated and then if there are no further eggs on the swan plant you can safely spray Neem Tree Oil for control.
Also do not place any Neem Tree Granules anywhere near the root zone of the swan plant while the caterpillars and eggs are present.
If mites attack the swan plant you an safely spray with Liquid Sulphur without harming the caterpillars.
I looked up the Internet and found some interesting facts on Monarch Butterflies which I will share with you:

How do you tell the male monarch from the female?.
Males have a small spot on the inside surface of their hind wings that is not present in females. The ends of their abdomens also look different. Females tend to look slightly darker than males, and have slightly wider wing veins.
How come only male monarchs have a big black spot on their wings?
These dots are made of specialized scales that, in some butterflies, emit a chemical used in courtship. Even though this chemical does not appear to be important in monarch courtship, the males still have the spots. The spots are much larger on close relatives of monarchs.
. How many times do their wings flap in a minute? .
About 5 to 12 times a second, so about 300 to 720 times a minute. (This is actually quite slow compared to many other butterflies.)
How do monarchs breathe?
Monarchs breathe through tiny openings on the sides of their bodies called spiracles. (The spiracles are in their cuticle, like our skin). The holes open into a system of tubes in their body (called trachea) that carry the oxygen all over their bodies. They don't have lungs.
Do monarch butterflies have brains?
Yes, they do. All insects have brains. Just like our brains, their brains receive messages from the rest of the body, and send messages to the muscles and other organs in the body. They are relatively smaller than our brains, though. ( Likely there are some exceptions to this as I noted through my lifetime, my comment)
Can butterflies overheat if it gets too hot? .
Yes! Butterflies of many species need to avoid extreme heat, and have many strategies for doing so. Monarchs retreat to shady places when it's very hot.
Is it true that monarchs can only see one color? .
No, butterflies have the broadest visual spectrum of any known animals, and can see more colors that you can! They can see UV light, which humans can't.
Are butterflies nocturnal or diurnal?
Diurnal.
Where do they go and what do they do at night?
They remain still at night, probably on vegetation like bushes and trees.
The life span of the adult Monarch varies, depending on the season in which it emerged from the pupa and whether or not it belongs to a migratory group of Monarchs.
Adults that emerged in early summer have the shortest life spans and live for about two to five weeks.
Those that emerged in late summer survive over the winter months.
The migratory Monarchs, which emerge from the pupa in late summer and then migrate south, (America) live a much longer life, about 8-9 months.
I hope that has given you a better insight to our much loved Monarch Butterflies.
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Having a neat summer for a change has brought a problem for many gardeners and that is the number of insect pests such as leaf hoppers, whitefly and vegetable beetles that are ravaging our gardens.
When one finds hundreds of these types of pests attaching our plants the plants will be suffering and in some cases will succumb and die.
A common problem is that we may be repeat spraying our plants for control but never seem to get on top of the problem.
I had an example of this recently with leaf hoppers and discovered why when I decided to pull out an area of bracken ferns nearby. The ferns were covered in leaf hoppers, young fluffy bums and adults. By getting rid of this source or breeding plant I then was able to get control over my preferred plants.
If the breeding ground happens to be over the fence you either need to get permission to control there or just hang in with lots of reaped sprayings.
I had a lady call me the other day to say that everything was ok in her garden till the owner of the section next door decided to clear the vegetation to build. Within days all those pests that were living on the weeds and plants next door, invaded her gardens.
The safe way to maintain some sort of control is to place Neem Tree Granules on the soil in the root zone of plants and then to do repeat sprays, late in the day using Neem Tree Oil and Key Pyrethrum.
Repeat sprays would be between every 3 to 7 days till the situation is under control or till the weather turns cold and nature knocks back the breeding cycles.
Just one of the things we gardeners have to face on a good summer.
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January marks the half way point of the gardening year and as we do in June, preparing for the following spring/summer, now we must prepare for the coming autumn/winter.
Novice gardeners often miss this vital time in establishing vegetables for use later as the days shorten.
It is those shortening daylight hours that brings urgency, because the growth of plants relates strongly to the amount of sun hours they receive.
This month and then for succession over the next couple of months, we should be planting those vegetable crops that will withstand the cold temperatures and frosts making them available for the table in the heart of winter.
There are several good reasons to grow vegetables for all year harvesting; your own home vegetables can be picked fresh from the garden, full of taste and goodness, if you grow them naturally without the aid of chemical fertilisers and sprays. There is no comparison between natural home grown and the tasteless, chemically saturated produce you waste your money on in supermarkets.
With the rising price of oil the cost of commercially grown food stuffs is going to increase as the price of oil affects the cost of transport, fertilisers and chemicals.
To have a degree of self sufficiency in your food is becoming a priority and a natural hedge against disasters, which are becoming all too common place these days. The amount of vegetables you can grow is only limited to the amount of garden space you have, the number of containers you can place and your time involvement.
So what should you be doing now?
Potatoes: the early ones are likely to be harvested or ready to harvest soon and a further crop of seed potatoes should now be planted to mature in autumn.
This late crop need not be harvested when mature as they will keep better in the cold ground as long as the area is free draining. Just dig for the table as needed in winter. Seed potatoes should be available from good garden centres at this time.
Place a tablespoon of gypsum, a level teaspoon of BioPhos and a small handful of sheep manure pellets under each sprouted seed and water regularly till the rains take over.
A spray every couple of weeks of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) will increase the size of the crop and the same applies to all other vegetables and plants.
Tomatoes: it is time to germinate some cold tolerant tomatoes from seed and one which I especially favor is a Russian Tomato called ‘Silvery Fir Tree.’
I grew this during last winter and found it to be a dwarf type plant, ideal for 20 to 40 litre containers. The fruit are of a nice red colour, excellent flavour, varying from the size of a golf ball to about a tennis ball in size.
One plant has produced over 40 fruit so far and with more coming to maturity. (It was put in a 40 litre container)
The others in 20 litre pots have produced about half that much with more to harvest yet. I never removed any laterals being a dwarf, bush type and only minimal staking needed.
The plant has a natural cascading form which flows over the sides of the containers. No disease problems either with ones started in last winter, still producing well but beginning to slow now.
I do give them my own secret tomato food about every 3 to 4 weeks.
Which is another point about your own tomatoes that are producing now.
Many gardeners stop feeding their tomato plants once they start harvesting the tomatoes, this is silly as the plants run out of tucker and finish.
Keep feeding and watering regularly and these same plants can preform for you well into late autumn.
Keep whitefly under control with Neem Tree Granules on the growing medium, in the root zone, pick off any loop caterpillars that may attack and a monthly spray of Perkfection along with MBL will help prevent diseases.
By the way, seeds of Silver Fir Tree Tomato should be available in the Niche Seed Stands in good Garden Centres.
All the members of the brassica family can be planted now for winter harvesting (Cabbages, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Swedes, Brussel Sprouts, Mustard) In some ways this is the worst time of the year for brassicas as the white butterfly caterpillars can devastate a crop.
To overcome this problem place Neem Tree Granules in the planting hole and some on the surface of the soil. The granules are sprinkled every 6 weeks or so on the surface until the danger is past.
I did this last season and found the only damage was very small holes on the outside leaves. (The grubs hatched, took a small bite and it was all over Joe for them)
Silverbeet and spinach should now be planted for autumn/ winter harvesting along with parsnips, carrots, leeks, spring onions, celery, peas, snow peas, radish, lettuce and any other cold tolerant vegetables you like.
A trick with lettuce is to place a small handful of chook manure in the planting hole, cover with a little soil and pop the seedling in. They thrive of this manure and grow big and fast.
Plant lettuce at this time in a shaded spot so they do not get all day sun. Later in autumn plant in full sun spots.
Seeing we are having a decent summer for a change, you can plant another two late crops of vegetables for autumn harvesting being sweet corn and dwarf beans. As long as you are in an area where the winter does not come too soon you can sneak a crop of both these in.
Problems that gardeners have contacted me about recently include; leaf hoppers on various plants, spray Neem Tree Oil on all plants where they are spotted and repeat about 7 days later till under control.
Pear slug damaging, plum, cherry and pear leaves, spray Liquid Copper and Raingard over the foliage.
They cant stand copper and they fall off to die.
Mites or spider mites on various plants, spray Liquid Sulphur (that is not Lime Sulphur) over and under the foliage as they cannot handle sulphur. (Do not use Neem Tree Oil or any EC sprays on the same plants while the sulphur particles are present.)
Whitefly; use the Neem Tree Granules and Neem Tree Oil spray to control.
If you wish to plant a new lawn or kill off an old one for re-planting now is the time to start preparations for sowing later.
Roses: Dead head roses that can have repeat flowering to encourage new buds. On first year roses only remove the head, no leaves. On established roses remove the stem down to 2-3 leaves.
A lady at my Bank told me the other day that she has, this season, followed my advise about spraying the roses with MBL, Mycorrcin and Perkfection and her comment was the roses have never been healthier and the perfume is so strong that if wafts through the bed room window, when opened in the morning.
Yes gardeners if you use the natural products on your beloved roses you will have great roses.
Forget the chemical sprays and fertilisers they only sicken the plants.
For powdery mildew spray the foliage with baking soda (Heaped tablespoon into a litre of warm water with one mil of Raingard added) Try the same for black spot especially on apples.
It is also a great spray to kill oxalis foliage if used on a sunny day when the soil is dry.
Does not damage other plants and if repeated whenever more foliage appears you can beat the beast. (don't dig or work the soil)
Happy summer gardening.
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Back again with a new calender year (halfway though the gardening year) and wishing you all a great season in the garden.
This season has certainly been the best one (so far) for some years. Gardening here in Palmerston North has been great and I would presume the same applies to a number of other regions.
We have had some decent summer days, could do with a bit more rain, but at the same time, occasional chilling winds have helped take the heat off the plants without being depremental to their well being.
The past seasons been more even milder temperatures both summer and winter with only a brief period of real summer or winter. These conditions are not great for gardening and a problem for our heat loving plants.
The best gardening conditions comes about with really frosty winters followed by a warm moist spring, a balmy summer with adequate showers, followed by an Indian Summer well into autumn.
This year we are getting some of these aspects and along with global warming and the higher instance of carbon dioxide in the air plants are thriving.
So are the insect pests and it only takes a few days for a small colony of pests to explode into hundreds of plant suckers or munches.
Plants suffer as you would do if you were covered in lice, the insect pests sap the energy from the plant and damage the foliage which reduces the amount of energy they are able to gain from the sun. A double whammy.
Result is; that the plants cannot produce or flower as well and are more prone to attacks from diseases.
At this time of the year you need to be on top of the pest problem and soon as any outbreak is noticed go into control mode.
Using Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum added and sprayed late in the day just before dusk will solve the problem with repeat sprays about every sevens as required.
If you wish you can do a 14 day spray program to ensure no population build up.
A problem can arise from a neighbouring property (or even on your own) where you maybe spraying to control a pest such as whitefly or leaf hoppers and they have large populations nearby which keep on re-infesting your target plants. This state of affairs will continue until all problem areas are dealt to. (You might need to ask the neighbours if you can spray on their property to save you time and money with multiple repeat sprays.)
The cooling winds can also bring a new problem to plants such as zucchini, stocks, pumpkins, silverbeet and pansy in the form of powdery mildew.
The easy solution for this is take a heaped tablespoon of baking soda and dissolve in one litre of warm water, add 1 mil of Raingard and spray the effected plants or use as a prevention.
It is magic and the same recipe for killing the foliage of oxalis weeds. (use on a sunny day when the soil is on the dry side.)
Baking Soda spray used as above is also good for controlling black spot on apples which likely means it could be good for black spot on other plants. Being alkaline is the reason for this and that effects the spore’s ability to colonise the fruit or leaf. Repeat sprays are likely to be needed.
The break over the last couple of weeks has allowed me time to get onto writing another book which is to be titled, ‘Wally’s Green Tips’.
While researching for the book I came across some interesting information about the goodness of spinach and silverbeet. These are favourite vegetables of mine as they are so easy to grow and give a very long harvest period when you keep using the outer leaves.
I would like to share this with you (source is the Internet) as many people are very concerned about their health and doing all they can to avoid cancers.
“Researchers have identified at least 13 different flavonoid compounds in spinach that function as antioxidants and as anti-cancer agents. (Many of these substances fall into a technical category of flavonoids known as methylenedioxyflavonol glucuronides.)
The anticancer properties of these spinach flavonoids have been sufficiently impressive to prompt researchers to create specialized spinach extracts that could be used in controlled studies.
These spinach extracts have been shown to slow down cell division in stomach cancer cells (gastric adenocarcinomas), and in studies on laboratory animals, to reduce skin cancers (skin papillomas).
A study on adult women living in New England in the late 1980s also showed intake of spinach to be inversely related to incidence of breast cancer.
Spinach Carotenoid Combats Prostate Cancer, A carotenoid found in spinach and other green leafy vegetables fights human prostate cancer two different ways, according to research published in the Journal of Nutrition. The carotenoid, called neoxanthin, not only induces prostate cancer cells to self-destruct, but is converted in the intestines into additional compounds, called neochromes, which put prostate cancer cells into a state of stasis, thus preventing their replication.
Spinach has also been shown to be effective in stopping the development of ovarian cancer in women (also eating plenty of citrus will also assist)
Helping You Bone Up: The vitamin K provided by spinach-almost 200% of the Daily Value in one cup of fresh spinach leaves and over 1000% of the Daily Value in one cup of boiled spinach (which contains about 6 times as much spinach)-is important for maintaining bone health.
Vitamin K1 activates osteocalcin, the major non-collagen protein in bone. Osteocalcin anchors calcium molecules inside of the bone.
Therefore, without enough vitamin K1, osteocalcin levels are inadequate, and bone mineralization is impaired. Spinach is also an excellent source of other bone-building nutrients including calcium and magnesium.
Cardiovascular Protection from Spinach: For atherosclerosis and diabetic heart disease, few foods compare to spinach in their number of helpful nutrients.
Spinach is an excellent source of vitamin C and vitamin A, the latter notably through its concentration of beta-carotene.
These two nutrients are important antioxidants that work to reduce the amounts of free radicals in the body; vitamin C works as a water-soluble antioxidant and beta-carotene as a fat-soluble one.
This water-and-fat-soluble antioxidant team helps to prevent cholesterol from becoming oxidized. Oxidized cholesterol is able to stick to and build up in blood vessel walls, where it can cause blocked arteries, heart attack or stroke. Getting plenty of vitamin C and beta-carotene can help prevent these complications, and a cup of boiled spinach can provide you with 294.8% of the daily value (DV) for vitamin A along with 29.4% of the DV for vitamin C.
Spinach is also an excellent source of folate.
Folate is needed by the body to help convert a potentially dangerous chemical called homocysteine that can lead to heart attack or stroke if levels get too high, into other benign molecules.
In addition, spinach is an excellent source of magnesium, a mineral that can help to lower high blood pressure and protect against heart disease as well.
A cup of boiled spinach contains 65.6% of the daily value for folate and 39.1% of the daily value for magnesium.
Is that enough to make you want to go out and plant a couple of rows of spinach and silverbeet?
Happy Healthy Gardening.
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Compost is the very best thing that you can use on and in your gardens, for producing strong healthy plants.
It is how nature and the soil has maintained itself ever since the first plant life appeared on the planet. Its the way plants naturally obtain their needed nutrients. The plants along with the soil life, worms, micro organisms and beneficial fungi, work together to produce outstanding gardens. Chemical fertilisers are not natural and do affect the balance, but can be used if so desired, very sparingly.
Likely the slow release types are best as they do less damage and give an extended period of continual nutrients.
In a natural situation, plants grow and die, leaves fall, animals leave their droppings and these are found as a natural mulch which is broken down by micro organisms to fed existing plants and nurture seed grown plants.
For the best gardens you need to follow the same process, mulch compost onto gardens between plants or dig into new gardens that you are establishing or re-planting.
Compost can be made by using green waste and kitchen scraps plus animal manures.
You can use a compost bin to keep material tidy or just dig a shallow pit and progressively fill up till you have a good size mound. If you have a worm farm then you can use that to convert kitchen wastes to rich soil. Both these methods I highly recommend to gardeners that are serious about gardening.
You can buy chicken manure from poultry farms, horse manure from staples etc. Animal manure is very important and all the composts that you can buy contain mostly manure with other materials. I have two compost bins a worm farm, two chicken runs and yet I still buy bags of compost in. Having so many fruit trees, container plants and ornamental trees/shrubs as well as a good sized vegetable garden, takes a lot of compost.
Making compost is easy, just throw a mix of materials into a pile with a bit of lime and water some Thatch Busta in now and then to activate. There is very little that you cannot use from kitchen wastes, tea bags, coffee grinds, some lawn clippings (but not too much) other green waste, paper, any animal manure, weeds before they set seed, dust and dirt from sweeping etc, old woolen clothes, ash from fires of untreated wood.
The list goes on. The more different things, the better the compost. If you have a lot of grass clippings then add some each time you mow to the heap and put the balance spread under trees and bushes or over gardens as a mulch. When it starts to breakdown after the heat process spray with Thatch Busta to aid the final conversion.
DO NOT use lawn clippings that have been sprayed with a herbicide till they are safe to use (Check the packet or bottle label) Also if you miss mowing and the grass sets seed don't add this to where you don't want grass weeds to appear or into the compost.
You can also place a pile of grass clippings in a drum and fill with water. Stir occasionally and use the water taken off, diluted as a plant booster. Put some animal manure into the same drum for an even better liquid, plant food. You can buy bags of compost from most garden centres and some have bulk compost available for trailer loads and bulk delivery. The most common type is likely to be Mushroom Compost and it is my number one choice for gardens.
It is a must if you have heavy clay soils or light sandy soils. It breaks down clay soils over time making for great gardens. Simply spread over gardens and plant into it. Great way to overcome problems of oxalis as you bury the bulbs over time.
Two or more applications of Mushroom Compost per year for 2-3 years will give you the best of growing soils on heavy clay gardens. For light soils it builds up the humus and aids water retention giving you a good garden to grow in, over time. Mushroom Compost does contain Lime and one should be careful not to apply it around acid loving plants without adding Sulphate of Iron or similar to the area to counter the lime pH.
The next common compost is animal manures such as pig, horse and chicken mixed with bark fines and decomposed together. This makes an excellent topping on gardens, ideal for a bed to sow seeds in and cover with same.
I use this type of compost in all my larger outdoor containers. Its cheaper that potting mix and does not dry out as quickly as potting mix.
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Cucumbers are a very popular summer vegetable for salads, sandwiches and relishes.
Cucumbers are a heat loving plant/vine that only do well in warm temperatures times, in a sunny, sheltered situation. Like rock melons, water melons and some gourds, all of which are members of the cucurbit family, which need good summer weather to do well.
Poor weather gives poor and often no results. Given good conditions, cucumbers take about 60 odd days (dependent on type) from seed to fruiting. This means you still have ample time to plant and grow cucumbers for use in autumn. If you can find young plants in your garden centre all the better, as this gives you about 3 weeks head start.
A nice young cucumber plant, planted in a good situation, will show the first set fruit within a couple of weeks. As they are not a large sprawling plant like a pumpkin or gourd they can easily be grown in a good sized container with a stake or two for support upwards.
Vines bear two kinds of flowers, pistillate (female) and staminate (male).
The first flowers are staminate, will drop from the vine and will not bear fruit.
Subsequent flowers will include both male and female and pollination will occur. Recently, gynoecious plants (those bearing female flowers only) have been introduced.
The seed packet will have specifically marked seeds indicating that the marked seeds must be planted as well for proper pollination. Some are also self-fertile.
Now pollination means fruit and non pollination means the fruit often forms, grows, turns yellow on the end then rots off. The same applies to Zucchini, pumpkins, squash, melons and gourds.
Bumble bees are the common pollinators and if they are not around when the flowers are ready for pollination, then it pays to do it yourself. The female flower (pistillate) has the embryo fruit below the flower so it is easy to recognise.
The male flower (staminate) does not. To pollinate, I pick a male flower that has lots of pollen on the staminate and remove all the flower petals. Then I wipe the staminate onto the pistillate ensuring pollination.
(The plant may blush if it is shy) Do this on a nice sunny day about noon for best results. It certainly increases the number of fruit you obtain. All the cucurbits like ample moisture yet free draining so they do not have wet feet. They also love a nitrogen rich diet and Cucumber Booster should be applied to the plants once a week.
Cucumbers are one of the common fruit and vegetables that The NZ Food Safety Authority found to contain 3 or more insecticides in their tests. A very good reason for growing your own as the ones you buy can contain a toxic concoction if they are not organically grown.
Cucumbers and other cucurbits can suffer from aphids, whitefly and powdery mildew. To control you can use Neem Tree Oil for the pests and baking soda with Raingard for the mildew. Take away the insecticides and cucumbers are a very healthy food their analise been..

Cucumbers are 96% water by weight!
Calories 39 %
Calories from Fat 7.8
Total Fat (g) 0.4 %
Calories from Carbohydrates 73.8
Saturated Fat (g) 0.1 %
Calories from Protein 18.5
Monounsaturated Fat (g) 0.0 %
Refuse 3.0
Polyunsaturated Fat (g) 0.2
Vitamin C (mg) 16
Cholesterol (mg) 0
Vitamin A (i.u.) 647
Carbohydrate (g) 8.3
Vitamin B6 (mg) 0.13
Dietary Fiber (g) 2.4
Vitamin B12 (mcg) 0
Protein (g) 2.1
Thiamin B1 (mg) 0.07
Sodium (mg) 6
Riboflavin B2 (mg) 0.07 Potassium (mg) 433
Folacin (mcg) 39.1
Calcium (mg) 42
Niacin (mg) 0.7
Iron (mg) 0.8
Caffeine (mg) 0.0
Zinc (mg) 0.6
Alcohol (g) 0.0
So grow a few cucumbers this summer.
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A number of people either live near the sea or have holiday batches they stay at as they can. These days the seaside properties have escalated in value and made the owners more conscious of their now investment in owning this type of holiday home.
Thus the sections are looked after better and more plants are used for decoration and shelter. One problem arises is that storms, spray drift and wind burn can quickly destroy many plants or harm their foliage on the windward side. Certain native plants are not affected after they become established but even these can suffer some damage when young. Most of these hardier plants are recognized by their white or silvery foliage.
People that live full time at a seaside home are able too, after a storm, wash salt spray off their plants with a hose and reduce the damage that can happen.
Those that are only able to visit as time allows don't have this advantage.
It is very frustrating to go to your batch in a weekend with a nice range of shrubs and bits to enhance the section. These are planted with care, often with lots of compost and peat moss to assist the plants in root development in the sandy soil. Then watered in followed by a good mulch to preserve the moisture.
You leave the batch to return home, proud of what you have accomplished.
A week or two later you return to find your plantings damaged by sea spray, some burnt on one side and maybe some that will only be good for the compost heap or dry arrangements. You have lost money and time and not achieved your desired beautification program. Is there and easy answer? Yes there is and that is by spraying the plants, after planting out, with Vaporgard. The Vaporgard puts a protective film over the plants that will reduce the damage for about 3 months or longer.
New growth will not have the protection of the film and may have to be spot sprayed again in that 3 months odd period if there is a good amount of new growth, that you want to protect. Interestingly also, is that Vaporgard will reduce your plants need for water as the film reduces the loss of moisture through the foliage. This is especially so if you spray both sides of the foliage so all leaves has the protection film completely over them.
If you use this organic product, your new establishing plants will have less need for water, less chance of damage from the elements and a better chance to establish and enhance your property. A boon for those that visit their seaside homes infrequently.
The product can also be used by people not by the sea, but where they are planting in open areas and there is a likelihood of windburn.
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I have noticed recently an influx of leaf hoppers around my garden and also a number of people have rung me up to say that they have the pest too. In one case I was told the damage to some plants had actually killed the plants.
Leaf hoppers are a small flying insect about 1 cm across their wing span and can be a darkish browny/gray in colour or green. The green ones usually sit with their wings up like a white butterfly at rest, where the others, at rest, will spread their wings making a triangle shape. Both will often appear to jump away when disturbed giving the common name, leaf hopper to them.
These are not just a harmless insect that jump around your plants, they suck goodness out of the plants that they have as host plants causing stress, lack of vigor, fruit drop and in bad infestations death of the plant.
There is the passion fruit vine hopper that will cause the immature passion fruit to fall and sometimes kill the vine. Leaf hoppers like; ferns, figs, brambles, bracken, flax, beans, privet, fuchsia, lantana, coprosma, kiwifruit, jasmine and various other plants and weeds. Not an easy pest to control and as far as I am aware, none of the chemical sprays commonly available to the home gardener, have any effect on them these days.
But the natural Neem Tree Oil does and it will kill the pests and help control their populations, but a few spray applications maybe needed. I would suggest a spray program about every 5 to 7 days and then extended to a fortnightly and finally once a month till their time of the year is past.
If you have leaf hoppers, say on your passion fruit vines, then check all other plants in about a 10 to 20 metre radius for the pests as well. If found on other plants, spray them too or otherwise the pests will just come back to the passion fruit over time.
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Firstly I would like to wish all of you a very Marry Christmas and a safe, healthy Gardening New Year.
It has been an interesting gardening year and this spring/summer has been one of the best for sometime.
The weather has settled earlier and garden plants are certainly growing well as long as adequate water is supplied.
I have had several readers that have commented on their potato plants growing very tall, taller than usual. In the past I would have suggested that they may have been a bit heavy handed with the use of nitrogen, making for tall foliage and often resulting in a poorer crop.
On asking this question most have said that they have done nothing different to usual.
Thus the increased growth must come from another factor which is associated with Global Warming.
Increased carbon dioxide levels in the air increases growth because that gas is what the plants take in and convert with sunlight to oxygen.
I remember years back when I owned a nursery glasshouse complex, if we wanted to give the plants a growth spurt we would throw dry ice (carbon dioxide) down the pathways with the house sealed.
The increased carbon dioxide in the air would give the plants a nice boost of growth.
Simple and effective but now days with increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere our plants and gardens are benefiting.
Many gardeners like to show off their gardens over the holidays to family and friends while visiting, which is a boost to ones moral but also a mill-stone to make sure all is looking at its best.
Roses are the highlight of many gardens and so here is a little secret to make your roses look their very best; Spray the rose’s foliage with Vaporgard which will make the leaves turn into a much richer dark green and shine them at the same time.
The Vaporgard acts as a sunscreen against UV and the chlorophyll can work at maximum, creating more energy from the sun and greening up the foliage also.
Another aspect is the Vaporgard film, which will last up to 3 months on the foliage sprayed, makes it very difficult for diseases such as blackspot and rust to establish, especially if sprayed under and over the leaf surface. Any pest insects on the foliage at the time of spraying will be zapped in the film and any other pests attacking the rose will have a hard time while the film is present.
A further advantage is the rose’s daily water needs will reduce by about 30% as the film reduces transpiration loss. Within 2-3 days of spraying, the roses are looking great and protected from a number of summer problems.
Vaporgard can be a boon for gardeners going away for a few days or more and not being around to water their gardens. Spraying all your preferred plants and gardens with the product will help reduce their water needs.
Mulching the bare soil around plants after giving the gardens a good soak will also help conserve water levels in the soil, extending the period between waterings.
To mulch use compost, lawn clippings, untreated sawdust, bark fines and newspaper.
If using newspaper place that down on the wet soil first and wet it further with the hose then cover with a mulch product. Not only will you reduce the watering needs of the gardens but you will also reduce weed seed development plus feed the soil life including the worms.
If using sawdust or bark fines sprinkle blood and bone over the newspaper before applying to offset any nitrogen loss caused by the breaking down of these two carbon products.
Container plants are another matter as they dry out much quicker and will need more water than the mulch protected gardens. Once again you can reduce their water needs by spraying the foliage under and over with Vaporgard, moving the containers to a spot were they are shaded all day such as under trees.
Water well by plunging the pots into a tub of water and place sphagnum moss or compost on top of the mix. You may need to obtain the service of a friend to come and water the containers every 2 to 3 days while away.
Hopefully by doing these things you can come back to your gardens and containers without a lot of problems. Indoor plants will suffer also and for them a spray of Vaporgard over the foliage and then into the bath or laundry tubs place soaking wet towels and sit the plants on the towels after having plunged each one into a tub of water. (don't leave the plug in the plug hole)
The best solution for those that are going away for a holiday is to have a friend house-sit for you.
This solves a number of problems, giving security against burglary, pets do not have to relocated, (which they hate) fruit and vegetables can be harvested and used without waste and gardens can be watered, lawns mowed, mail cleared just as if you were still at home.
To make this work you need to take notes of how you water the gardens, container and pot plants.
The amount of water given or the time sprinklers are left on. The best intentioned house-sitter can easily overwater and cause problems which they will feel bad about and you will have to suffer.
Some good clear instructions are all that is needed and then everyone including your plants will be happy.
All the best for Christmas and the New Year, Regards Wally Richards.

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Last week with many new gardeners this season starting to grow their own healthy vegetables and fruit we looked at the most simplest way of growing, container plants.
Growing in containers is quick and efficient and requires very little time or effort and can produce quality vegetables and fruit. This can be achieved by both young and elderly and requires little room where the outdoor area is limited.
When you have more space and can have an outdoor garden by digging up some lawn in a sunny spot would be the next step. The problem is that a traditional garden bed for vegetables is not so quick and easy to establish and dependant on the type of soil, maybe a longer term investment.
To achieve a good vegetable garden quickly in any type of soil is to start with a raised garden.
Here is a plan to make this happen; a garden should not be walked on as this compacts the soil and interferes with the soil food web that we are trying to promote for really health giving produce. Thus our garden should be a strip about a metre or so wide so that we can work from either side without having to walk on the garden. The length is determined by your available space and resources. Mark out the area that you are going to use with string lines and corner pegs.
Ideally one long side should be facing towards the north so that the strip will receive as much sun as possible. Now we have to kill off what is growing there which will likely be lawn. If you do not want to use a chemical weed killer such as Roundup then sprinkling sulphate of ammonia over the area (after it has been mowed very short) will do the trick.
The sulphate of ammonia is applied dry and left to do its work. While this is happening pop down to a timber supply place and obtain some fencing timber about 15 to 20cm wide and as much as needed to surround the area marked. You will also need some 50x50mm lengths to make pegs that can be driven into the ground to support the timber.
Likely the wood will be tantalised with chemicals which you do not want leaching into your soil and food crops. Cut the timber to make your stakes and surround to fit nicely over your string line and once completed give all the timber a couple of coats of any old acrylic paint you may have to seal the wood.
Ensure that all surfaces of the wood are painted to seal in the chemicals.
An alternative to this would be to use concrete blocks or interlocking retaining wall concrete products or corrugated iron (strips about 15 to 20 cm wide) Now build the frame work for your raised garden over the string line. By this time hopefully the grass and weeds in the bed will have browned off.
Now we will cover the area with compost mixed with some Rapid Lime, Blood and Bone, Dolomite, Gypsum and Sheep Manure pellets. If you have straw, lawn mower clippings, trimmings of plants, newspaper and kitchen scraps these can be placed into the bed first before the compost mix.
The addition of these products will help build up the height of the bed at little cost and provide a rich mix for worms and soil life. Lay several sheets of wet newspaper over the dead grass, then leaves, shrub clippings with kitchen scraps and then grass clippings.
Sprinkle garden lime over this before applying a good layer of clean compost. This will reduce the emergence of weeds and thus your weeding problems. If weeds appear later just pull them out when they are very small and leave them laying on the top of the compost in the hot sun. If they get to be 50mm or taller then cut them off at ground level or just below and leave the foliage laying on the compost.
If you have a long strip, several metres long, you may prefer to fill part of the area as above and over time, treat the rest of the area to the products and compost. This will be less damaging on your pocket for the products purchased and allow for succession plantings of your favourite crops.
Tall growing plants such as corn and tomatoes can be grown at the back of the bed (front of bed is the north facing side) Medium tall plants such as cabbages, dwarf beans and silverbeet can be grown in the middle of the bed and short growing plants such as lettuce, beet root, carrots, parsnips, onions, spring onions and herbs can be grown in the front of the bed. The staging of your crops to potential heights allows for all plants to share the maximum amount of sunlight with minimum shading of each other.
If you want to ensure that your crops have the all the minerals possible then sprinkle Ocean Solids over the bed at the recommended rates and spray the plants two weekly with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL)
Some plants are best grown directly from seed where others can be obtained from a garden centre as seedlings.
Seed sown plants are, beans, peas, corn, onions, spring onions, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, yams.
You will get the best results from direct sowing of the above seeds.
There is no reason you cant grow all vegetable plants from seed direct sown where you want them to grow. Alternative is to buy seedlings which is a quicker start.
If you would like to grow pumpkins then plant a couple of plants at the end of the bed and train them to grow over the ground away from the bed as they do take a fair bit of room. Zucchini also takes a big space but by growing in a separate container or later as you start to pick the fruit remove some of the larger outer leaves. Progressively continue to pick fruit and remove leaves to keep it under control.
Another interesting way to grow corn and climbing beans is to plant a double row of corn seed, zigzagged at the back of the bed 150mm apart. When the corn plants are up about 150mm plant a climbing bean seed next to each corn plant.
The corn will provide support for the beans which can be easily trained to climb up the corn stalks.
Watering your vegetables should be done on all days when its is not raining by giving them a light watering to keep the area moist. A problem arises if your water supply has chlorine in it.
Chlorine kills soil life and harms worms which is not of benefit to the health of your plants.
You can overcome the problem by placing a filter on your tap that removes the chlorine.
Alternatively if you can place an open tank a metre or so off the ground with a hose fitted to the tank, fill the tank with tap water and stand till the following evening, then use this water to water the garden. (The open tank to sunlight gets rid of the chlorine and being raised allows gravity to supply the water)
Failing both these aspects instead of directing the water onto the soil, turn your chlorinated water hose nozzle to a jet and direct this high up into the air above the garden so water will fall like rain onto your garden. This helps reduce the amount of chlorine in the water especially when the jet of water is exposed to sunlight.
The best time to water is late in the day which suits most people that are working.
The amount of water applied should be sufficient for the plants to have adequate moisture till they are watered again. On the other hand do not water too much as this does more harm than good.
Applications of potash to the soil will help reduce the plant’s need for water.
Over time your garden bed will build up an excellent layer of humus which is the dead bodies of the microbes that live in the soil. This stores carbon and assists in reducing your carbon foot print.
Humus has great water retention properties.
Happy Gardening.
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Over the last few weeks I have spoken to the owners of several garden centres throughout New Zealand and they have all reported that a lot of both young and elderly people have become first time gardeners.
These new gardeners are starting up vegetable and herb gardens along with a few flowers to brighten up areas. They are asking very basic questions such as how far to plant seed potatoes apart.
(Ideally about 20 to 30cm apart)
What is the reason for this big upsurge in growing your own vegetables? Apparently the reason is that they are sick of buying supermarket produce that lacks flavour and is likely full of chemical residues from sprays. Many are very concerned about their health, the health of their families, and prefer to grow nutritionally valuable fruit and vegetables without the use of chemical fertilisers and sprays.
Recent TV programs that have highlighted the health concerns of conventional grown crops, the numerous chemical additives used by food manufactures and the lack of concern of the government to really do something about improving our food chain. (Conventionally grown food means the high use of chemicals including weed killers, fertilisers and rescue sprays)
I believe that these new gardeners have come to realise that they can have control of what chemicals (if any) go into that nice fresh green lettuce that they grow and eat.
Times they are a-changing and the days of commercial growers/farmers spreading tons of man-made fertilisers over their now dead land is coming to an end as it is not sustainable. Soil has being lost instead of being built up and the environment is being destroyed. Once upon a time when a farmer’s cow pooed on the soil it was an asset as it fed the soil life and grasses. Now the chemicals have killed the soil life that same poo has become a pollutant.
Chemically grown food is not healthy as the waiting lists of our hospitals show. Leading scientists are now telling us this has to change if we want to save the planet and survive. A great reason for people to become gardeners.
How does one become a gardener and grow some crops? There are two ways, in soil in open gardens or in containers using a compost/soil mix. This later way is the easiest as there is no preparation of the soil and within next to no time, you can have a few plants growing nicely.
You can use any sort of container that is 20cm or more deep with ample room to support one or more plants. Polystyrene trays are a favourite of mine as they are cheap to obtain, secondhand from wholesale fish places and even supermarkets.
Measuring 40x60cm and 20cm deep they are ideal for growing half a dozen lettuce, miniature cabbage, cauli, silverbeet, several dwarf beans plants, 8 strawberries, numerous carrots, parsnips, spring onions and a good number of onions. Add to this 4 capsicum or egg plants, several parsley or basil plants and even a few flower plants if you so wish.
The same trays are ideal for growing wheat grass, when grown with all the natural minerals (Ocean solids, Simalith and Magic Botanic Liquid) and juiced it will provide the greatest boost to your health possible, taken daily on an empty stomach.
For potatoes we can grow them in the cheap buckets that are readily available. For tomatoes we need a container that is about 40 litres or bigger but dwarf tomatoes will do well in a larger bucket size container. I have a feijoa ‘Unique’, growing well, and giving fruit in a 45 litre container. Another 45 litre container has a tamarillo that gives a nice crop each year.
Shall I keep going? Berry fruit, citrus and other fruit trees into 45 to 100 litre containers all produce nice crops each year. Using plastic rubbish tins, recycled drums, etc, it is only your imagination and some compost to get started. One of the great things about growing in containers is that you can move them around and if you shift homes you can take them with you. Generally fairly weed free to boot.
Bags of compost can be obtained cheaply from garden centres or bulk suppliers and even if the quality of the compost is not great it is only an initial growing medium and you can add more goodness.
Here is how I go about growing 6 lettuces in a polystyrene tray; a trip down to the garden centre to obtain a 40 litre bag of compost, a bag of sheep manure pellets and a bag of blood and bone. Pick out a punnet of lettuce and my preferred one would be Buttercrunch as you can harvest the outer leaves for a long period before it goes to seed. Look for nice young plants in a punnet that are a bit on the small size.
The reason for this is that large vegetable plants may have been in the punnet too long and become stressed. If that is the case they may, once transplanted into your tray and obtaining good growing conditions you are going to provide, go to seed or as we say, ‘bolt’. Which is a waste of time.
Being on the smaller size you take them home and grow them on in the punnet till they are of a nice size to transplant. Place the punnet in a spot where it is seen by you every day so you remember to water it everyday. Likely by the backdoor raised on a upside down pot or similar. In the mean time you can prepare your polystyrene tray for planting up later. Drill some hole either in the base of the tray or even better in the sides about 2-3 cm from the base.
The side holes means that drainage will be above a couple of centimeters of compost mix which gives you a natural water reservoir for when the plants are mature and their water needs increase. Tip out your bag of compost into a wheelbarrow (If you don't have one then place a plastic tarp on the ground)
Take a couple of handfuls of soil from a garden, minus any weeds and sprinkle this over the compost along with a handful of blood and bone and a couple of handfuls of sheep manure pellets. Now mix this all up so that we have the added products nicely mixed through the compost. Fill your polystyrene container with the mix to a level 2 cm below the top rim.
The reason for this is to make watering easier later on. When your punnet of lettuce plants are ready to transplant, take the punnet and submerge it in a bucket of water and let it bubble away. When it stops bubbling lift it out and let the surplus water run out. The reason for this is to ensure that the mix that the seedlings are growing in is saturated with water, making it easier to separate the individual plants with less root damage.
Don't pull the plants out of the punnet instead tear off the section that they are growing in like you would remove a stamp from a sheet of stamps.
Make six holes in the polystyrene tray mix with your fingers, the holes should be near the edges (about 6-8cm out) at each corner and two in the centre same distance from the sides. The plants will grow over the edge of the container when mature and likely be about touching in the middle.
If you have available any chook poo, place about a tablespoon full in the base of each hole and cover it lightly with a bit of compost. (Chook poo is great for growing big lettuces quickly)
If you don't have chook poo then place a few sheep manure pellets in the base of each hole. Now place your lettuce seedling into the hole area with its roots dangling down, the base of the lettuce even with the top of the mix and back fill the hole with more compost.
Lightly press the compost mix so that the plant is standing up nice and straight. If it flops over don't worry as it will pick itself up as it establishes.
Move the tray to a shady spot and with a rose hose attachment or watering can, water the seedlings in.
Cover the tray with a old net curtain to prevent birds or snails from damaging the seedlings.
Lift the curtain each day and lightly water. When the lettuce are standing up nicely you can then move the tray to a spot where they will obtain more sun for apart of the day. Keep the curtain over them till well established.
Water daily. If possible use filtered water or fill your watering can with water again after each use and stand till the next day to water again. This removes the chlorine from the water and makes for better results.
More next week.

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I remember one time, that a novice gardener asked a gardening guru how do you grow a great tomato? The reply was, ‘get a tomato plant!’
So far this season it is shaping up to be a great one for growing tomatoes so lets have a look at a few of the aspects related to the successful growing of tomatoes.
You are likely to be in one of the following categories at this time;
1/ Started plants off in a glasshouse before winter and now are enjoying ripe fruit.
2/ Started plants of in a glasshouse in winter and now have plants covered in fruit waiting to ripen. (thats me)
3/ Started plants off in the last couple of months and they are growing well and first fruit have formed.
4/ Started off plants recently and they are growing well.
5/ Yet to start off plants.
For this later group it is a good time to obtain a few plants from a garden centre and pot them up or plant them out. They should reward you with ripe tomatoes in a couple of months time.
I am going to buy a few plants later on today and get them cracking to further increase and extend my cropping period into next year. Also in January and February I will be either sowing seeds of more tomato plants or taking cuttings from my existing ones so that I will have tomatoes right into winter.
Often we find that these later tomato plants do better than the very early ones.
The tomato plants that have done best for me so far are the cold loving Russian ones called ‘Silvery Fir Tree’ which are available only from seeds on the Niche seed stands in some garden centres.
A strong growing bush tomato, only up to a metre tall with lots of average to smaller size tomatoes.
I prefer these dwarf or bush type tomatoes as they are just allowed to grow without having to remove any laterals (side shoots). Russian Red is a popular one along with Scoresby Dwarf. Besides not having to remove laterals they are tomatoes that will produce pollen in cooler temperatures and thus set fruit when other types will not. (These are the types to start off next year to have fruiting in unheated glasshouses over winter)
Talking about laterals or the side shoots that grow out between the trunk and leaf; on tall growing tomato plants, these are usually removed so the plant is more manageable and bigger fruit are obtained.
(The growth goes into the fruit rather than creating more plant) If you don't remove the laterals you tend to need to use a number of stakes to support all the growth.
You get lots of smaller tomatoes rather than fewer, larger tomatoes. If you want really big tomatoes, from tomato plants that will produce the monster fruit such as the Beefsteak types (One slice covers the sandwidge) then you remove all laterals allowing only the fruit trusses to form from the main and only trunk.
A problem can arise when removing laterals or leaves from a tomato plant and that is a disease can enter the wound and kill your plant. Only remove laterals or leaves on a sunny day when the air is dry, not humid, also make up some Liquid Copper in a trigger sprayer at double the normal rate (7ml per litre) and immediately on removing a lateral spray the wound. The copper solution will keep ok in the trigger sprayer, just shake well before using.
If Botrytis enters a wound it will form a rot on the trunk which initially appears as a darker area, as this rot develops the plant starts to have the top foliage cut off from the root system and the eventual collapse of the plant and death. One gardener last season told me that he painted undiluted Liquid Copper on the dark area when first noticed and was able to save the plant. (Worth a go as you have nothing more to lose once it happens)
Blight and Botrytis are the two greatest disease problems for tomatoes and you can protect them with a monthly spray of Perkfection.
You may find that tomato plants growing in full all day sun tend to curl their leaf surfaces away from the sun. Where tomatoes growing in morning or later afternoon sun do not show this tendency. I believe that it is the UV causing the problem and tomatoes are one plant that dislikes too much UV.
It does not harm the plant but the amount of energy gained from the sun is reduced which will slightly diminish the size and number of fruit. As the ozone hole mends in the new year this problem also disappears.
Another aspect that worries some gardeners is the lower large leaves become distorted as the plants mature. As far as I am aware this is a virus that has infected a number of varieties of tomatoes and other than the distorted result no other harm comes to the plant. Later I usually remove these leaves.
Tomato plants need ample food and moisture to fare best. There are several special tomato foods available including my own one called ‘Wally’s Secret Tomato Food’ which has added potash and magnesium, both which are vital to having a healthy plant and good flavoured taste.
Regular applications of this food should be applied to the root zone and ideally watered in with Magic Botanic Liquid.(MBL) The same product can be sprayed over the foliage every couple of weeks for better results.
Growing tomato plants in containers is a neat and easy way to obtain a good crop of fruit.
The larger the container the better and the minimum should be about 20 litres size for dwarf type plants, 45 odd litres for average plants such as Moneymaker and closer to 100 litres for the big Beefsteak types.
Use a good friable compost with a little top soil added, don't waste your time and money using potting mixes. Add a few worms to the mix along with goodies such as sheep manure pellets and blood and bone. Do not overwater while the plants are establishing but once their roots have filled the pot, water well at least once a day.
Blossom end rot happens when the fruit is setting and there is insufficient moisture to move the calcium to the setting fruit. This means a black patch forms under the fruit making it just about useless.
If you find that one watering a day is not adequate then place a tray under the container so there is an extra volume of water to soak up as the plant uses the moisture out of the compost mix.
There are two pests that can cause you problems, whitefly and caterpillars.
Placing Neem Tree Granules on the soil in the root zone tends to reduce both these pest problems.
Sprays of Neem Tree Oil can also be useful.
A number of gardeners in the past have used special sprays to aid the setting of fruit. I do not think that these sprays are available anymore and they are not needed anyway.
If the plants are outside the air movement is sufficient to move the pollen and set the fruit. If in a glasshouse then on a sunny day simply go into the house and tap the stake or plant to cause a vibration, this will set the fruit.
Often the reason that plants do not set fruit even though they are flowering, is because the temperatures are not high enough for certain varieties to create pollen. Growing cold types will help overcome this.
Birds can attack ripe or even green fruit and the use of Bird Repeller Ribbon will assist in this.
Fruit starting to colour up can be picked and ripened indoors as an alternative.
There are ample natural products you can obtain to supplement the diet of your plants from liquid seaweeds though to making your own liquid manures from any animal manure or sheep pellets.
Diluted and watered into the root zone can assist in obtaining a bigger and better crop.
Hopefully your biggest problem will be what to do with all the ripe tomatoes you collect.
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We only have to open a newspaper or watch/listen to the news on TV/radio these days to hear about global warming. It has become a great concern to the planet and a worry for us, industry, agriculture and Governments. Many of us have difficulties getting our heads around what is actually happening but we do see the effects of global warming with our unseasonal weather patterns, horrendous storms, flooding, forest fires, droughts etc.
So what is it really all about and can we as gardeners do anything more than plant a few trees to assist in capturing carbon?
Firstly what is carbon dioxide?
“Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state. It is currently at a globally averaged concentration of approximately 375 ppm by volume in the Earth's atmosphere, although this varies both by location and time. Carbon dioxide's chemical formula is CO2.
In general, it is exhaled by animals and utilized by plants during photosynthesis.
Additional carbon dioxide is created by the combustion of fossil fuels or vegetable matter, among other chemical processes. Carbon dioxide is an important greenhouse gas because it absorbs in the infrared, and because of its atmospheric lifetime. Due to this, and the role it plays in the respiration of plants, it is a major component of the carbon cycle. In its solid state, carbon dioxide is commonly called dry ice.”

“The greenhouse effect is caused by heat from the sun that is trapped in the atmosphere by gases, much like the glass of a greenhouse traps the sun's warmth. Trapping the sun’s heat allows fairly hospitable global temperatures and is essential to life. Without this natural greenhouse effect, Earth's average temperature would be below freezing and most life would be impossible.
But if the greenhouse effect becomes too intense, temperatures rise and have important environmental consequences.
This is popularly known as “global warming,” which scientists have stated is a leading global concern. Global warming is an increase in the earth’s temperature caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. As these gases increase, the ‘greenhouse effect’ intensifies, trapping more of the sun's heat.”
It is obvious we need a bit of global warming to survive on the planet but too much upsets the natural balance and we have a major problem. Mankind has obviously influenced global warming with the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and pollution in more recent times but our history of carbon releasing goes back many thousands of years through tilling of land to grow crops and grass.

“From time immemorial when world agriculture began, we have lost roughly 140 billion tons of carbon from trees and soil. Over half of that, almost 80 billions tons, is from the soil alone. In fact, up until the late 1950s, plowing had released more carbon dioxide into the air than all the burning of coal and oil in history.”

When we till the soil or dig our gardens we release CO2 into the atmosphere but when we mulch green matter onto the surface of the soil we trap CO2 in the soil.
This means that ‘no dig gardens’ are better for the planet and the soil. I remember an old saying, ‘When we breathe out we make a plant happy.’
The plant takes the carbon dioxide in with energy from the sun and stores the carbon. The plant dies and the carbon is trapped in the soil food web by the microbes that break down the plant material. Their populations multiply from this food source and their trillions of dead bodies create the humus in the soil. Humus is carbon rich, blackish in colour and fantastic as a medium for growing plants.
Here again is where we have erred in agriculture, we have applied chemical fertilisers to our soils and gardens which kill the microbes in the soil that break down organic matter and store carbon. Humus is lost rather than created and there is more CO2 released into the atmosphere.
“With too little carbon in the soil, crop production is inefficient. Right now, the world's agricultural soils are alarmingly depleted of carbon!”
Governments on the planet are starting to wake up to this fact and as the penny drops we are likely to find in the future, that the days of chemical fertiliser companies are numbered. (The sooner the better as they are a large contributor to global warming as well as the health of us and life stock)
Once we get back to the natural way of gardening and farming we will find the need for most of the chemical spray rescue remedies no longer needed.
The health of our nation will improve as we will then have a food chain with a substantially higher nutritional value, healthy stock, crops and planet.
Sustainable agriculture can produce not only better nutritional value crops but also a greater abundance, as to this article I have recently come across:

“An 18-year experiment in Kenya: Farm fields managed by regular farming practices tilling the land, using no fertilizer, leaving fields bare in the non-growing season produced about 1 ton of maize and beans per hectare (a hectare is about the size of two football fields). But fields treated with manure, planted with cover crops and covered with mulch yielded six times that amount.”

So what can you and your home gardens do to offset the carbon problem that your household creates in their daily activities?
As mentioned at the beginning of the article planting trees, shrubs and plants is one step but creating more soil biology will not only make your plantings better and will trap more carbon where it is needed.
First step is to disturb the soil as little as possible. Apply animal manures in solid and liquid form to the soil. Apply calcium in the forms of lime, dolomite and gypsum (the later also applies magnesium and sulphur) Grow cover crops or even better use the weeds that abound in the garden by cutting them off at ground level and using them as a natural mulch.
Weeds have their use as a natural cover crop, they grow well in your gardens, they collect CO2 and when cut and left on the surface they feed the soil food web which stores the carbon in the humus.
The use of natural products such as Magic Botanic Liquid and Mycorrcin as soil drenches and sprays enhance the microbial activity making for healthy plants and soil.
Encourage family and friends to do likewise.
The things not to do are simply; no chemical weed killers or rescue sprays, avoid chemical fertilisers or only use sparingly for a boost of growth when required. Do not use chlorinated water on the gardens as it harms the soil life and worms leading to the demise of the health of your plants.
Your gardens could make your family near carbon neutral and maybe even carbon negative by following these simple suggestions. Now all we have to do is convince farmers and agriculturalists to do likewise on a much bigger scale.
(Note Some aspects of this article are “quotes/statements” off the Internet.)

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With Xmas quickly looming up one’s mind turns to sorting out what tokens and gifts we will give to family and friends. Most readers of these columns are gardeners or budding gardeners so we tend to look for suitable gifts that would bring us pleasure and hopefully the same for the recepicant.
For a long time I have firmly believed that it is the thought and effort that goes into a gift that makes it memorable. For instance if you pop down to your local garden centre and pick out a nice container, a feature plant such as a bush rose, a couple of punnets of cascading lobelia or similar and a bag of compost; you have the makings of a gift that you have thought about and made a nice effort to achieve.
When you get your goodies home you simply place some of the compost into the container to right height for planting the specimen plant, ensuring that there will be a gap of about 2-3cm between the top of the mix and the rim of the container. (This allows ease of watering)
You can add about a hand full of clean top soil to the mix at the base of the container which brings to the mix the soil bacteria.
After removing the specimen plant from its pot or bag check to see if the roots have spiraled around the bottom of the old container.
The more roots means the longer it has been growing in the old pot. If there is a mass of roots then with a pair of secateurs cut a 2cm slash into the bottom roots in the four cardinal points. This allows for quicker root establishment.
If the plant has been for a long time in the old pot it will have a massive root system and be what we call pot bound. If this is the case then you take a cross cut saw and cut off the bottom one quarter of the roots which will remove all those spiral roots. This method is applied to all perennial potted plants every 2-3 years and allows the plant to be repotted back into its original container, with some fresh compost at the base, to replace the area where the roots have been cut off.
Back to our Xmas present, you can place a few sheep manure pellets on top of the compost and soil mix before placing the plant in the container. Sit the plant on the bottom mix and fill the space between the plant’s mix and the side of the container with more compost. It is in this area of back fill that you will plant your lobelia seedlings. The reason that I have not suggested to use potting mix or shrub and tub mix is because they are inferior to using a good friable compost and a bit of soil mix.
Potting mixes are great for indoor plants where the extra expense is justified, they are also good for seed raising and cutting propagation. For container plants outdoors you want a growing medium that has some guts and a friable compost has animal manure and green waste combined with bark fines or similar. Potting mix is only bark fines or peat moss with some slow release fertiliser added, it dries out too quickly, can be difficult to re-water and lacks goodness that healthy plants need, outdoors.
Once you have your Xmas gift all potted up, place it in a sheltered spot where it only has early morning sun or late afternoon sun. Water to keep moist but do not over water. If you wish to give the plant a real boost so it is looking its best before you give it at Xmas, then once a week water some Matrix Reloaded into the mix. This is a super powerful plant food that is often used for hydroponic growing and as a plant food for pots or gardens. It makes a noticeable difference.
N:P:K is 53.9:11.0:86.8 (g/L) with Ca 43: Mg 10: S 16.8: plus Fe, Mn Cu & B. Powerful stuff used at 10 ml per litre of water, which you stand for 30 minutes and apply every 7 to 14 days when plants are actively growing.
You can grow a number of plants as above for friends and family to show your appreciation of them at the festive time.

A lady gardener I was talking to the other day told me that she purchased a small tree for her young grandson as a gift a few years back. He was told that it was his tree and he helped in the planting of it in her garden. Every time he comes to visits he runs down to see how his tree is and tells all that it is his tree.
What a great idea for a young person and this could be extended by giving and planting a fruit tree so not only does the child get to watch the progress of their tree but they will, in years to come, enjoy the fruits as well. We need to get our children and grand children involved in nature and gardening plus this is a simple and interesting way to do so.
Gardening Gift Vouchers are a very acceptable gift for novice and seasoned gardeners alike. Gift Vouchers give the receiver two lots of pleasure, the initial receiving of the voucher and then the pleasure of shopping for a garden product or specimen. As the Gardening Gift vouchers come in several nominations you can slip a $5 or $10 voucher in with a Xmas card as a neat inexpensive gift.
Last Xmas, my book ‘Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide’ proved very popular with a number of gardeners that received a copy as a gift. Copies are available through a number of garden centres as well as Whitcoulls, Paper Plus, Touchwood Books and by Mail Order, at $27.95 it is informative and a good read to boot. (so I am told) Another gift suggestion that comes to mind is bags of compost, gardeners always need and use compost for planting, mulching and conditioning soil so a few bags dropped off for a family member or friend that loves gardening will always be appreciated. Another good one for children that would like to give a gift to their young friends is to take them down to your garden centre and let them pick out a few ‘Colour Spots’ (flowering annuals in pots or bags) these can be potted into inexpensive larger plastic pots and gift wrapped for their friends.
The key to giving any gift, is the thought that goes behind the gift.
The one thing that really annoys me is people that give a Xmas present without any thought.
I knew a chap who at Xmas time would buy Xmas hampers for all his staff and the first year these were greatly received in a nice basket with a selection of food and drinks. The following year the same but after a few years the baskets disappeared and polystyrene boxes were used and the same bits plonked in with a bit of tinsel to make them look like Xmas.
The hampers became a bit of a joke amongst the staff and the initial goodwill was lost with thoughtless repetition. You have ample time to think about what to give family and friends this Xmas, think of what they need and want then work to fill those aspects.
One final suggestion, why not drop off a bag of Dog or Cat Biscuits to your local SPCA to assist with their looking after all those unwanted pets at this time of the year.
There is great pleasure in giving.
Happy Xmas shopping.

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There are many ways to control those unwanted plants that grow in our gardens and lawns from hand weeding to chemical weed killers. The definition of a weed is any plant growing where you do not want it to grow and is not necessarily the plants we commonly call weeds. It maybe that you have grown some flowering plant for its virtues to find over the years that the original plant self-seeded and now pops up all over the place. You either live with it or you go hell bent on eradicating every trace of it.
The best way of controlling any weed is to cut it off just below soil surface, before it seeds, and leave it on the bare soil to be absorbed back into the soil food web. You have by doing this, provided two soil enriching aspects, the roots left undisturbed, rot in the soil feeding millions of soil organisms without disrupting the beneficial fungi chains in the earth. The green top provides food for the surface feeders who quickly break down the weed and enriching your gardens.
For gardeners that know about this natural system, they cherish the appearance of weeds as each type provides elements and minerals that will make for better gardens.
The trick is of course, not to let the weeds get too big or produce seeds.
In my book “Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide’ I pointed out that no weed or plant can survive if it is denied foliage for an extended period of time. All plants gain their energy from the sun through their leaves. Stop them from obtaining energy and they have to fail and die.
Take oxalis for instance, it is a bulb that throws up a set of leaves, gains energy from the sun and produces hundreds of bulblets or baby bulbs. If you take a heaped tablespoon of baking soda and add it to a litre of warm water, stir to dissolve, then add one mil of Raingard, you have made a potent dehydrator of oxalis foliage which does not harm other types of plants. If you spray this formula over the oxalis foliage on a sunny day when the ground is on the dry side the leaves of the oxalis will shrivel and die.
It has not killed the bulb which will then produce another set of leaves. As soon as these appear you either apply the same solution or cut them off at ground level. If done quickly enough at the emergence of the new leaves the bulb has not gained energy but has weakened instead. Again it will try to produce leaves which should be quickly removed. At some point of time the bulb does not have any more energy left to produce foliage and it rots in the soil. Goodbye oxalis.
There is a further aspect to the oxalis problem and that is all the baby bulbs attached to the now dead parent, if you disturb the soil you will bring these babies nearer to the surface where they will also produce leaves to start the cycle over again. What you do instead is cover the soil with a layer of compost and plant any new seedlings into this layer. This action further buries your oxalis problem.
Do not disturb the soil and when you flowers or vegetables are finished or harvested, just cut them off at ground level and cover the area with more compost. Simple and effective.
Chemical weed killers should be avoided at much as possible as they do a lot of damage to the health of the soil, environment and ourselves. There is also another good reason to avoid them as the price of many of them has become very expensive. Glyphosate, the most common weed killer these days sold under various trade names such as Roundup does not dissipate when it hits the soil and has a half soil life of 6 months or more dependant on the soil type.
It kills soil life and worms hate it. It gets into your food crops and ends up as another chemical poison in your food chain. I believe that one day we will come to realise that Glyphosate is as bad if not worse than many of the banned chemicals such as DDT.
Lets face it, it has only been over the last 50 odd years that we have had chemical weed killers to use in our gardens and farms and before this more natural things were used, many of which can be far more effective than the chemical and less damaging to the environment or our health.
For instance gorse, black berry and other woody similar plants can be eradicated with garden lime. Change the pH making the soil more alkaline and the offending weeds fail. Ideally you cut the gorse or black berry down to near ground level and dose the surrounding area with a good amount of lime. You can also treat the stump with diesel.
The lime will prevent regeneration of the gorse etc. Simple, cheap and effective. Diesel, sump oil etc, once were used to mark the lines of rugby fields in days gone by. The line would be painted with sump oil and no grass or weeds would grow in that line for a long time.
If you have a waste area where you want nothing to grow for a long time it could be a good cheaper solution.
A lady gardener rang me during the week and gave me a tip about that horrible weed, wandering jew.
She has used the following solution and told others with a wandering jew problem about it, all of whom have cleaned up the problem in a short period of time.
Go to a grocery wholesaler such as Toops and buy a 25 kilo bag of table salt, which will cost you between $10 to $15.00. Broadcast the salt over the area where the wandering jew is growing, its cheap so throw it on. You will find that the weed dies off leaving bare ground. Some new emergence will then occur and you spot treat these with a handful of salt. Later rake the area to remove the stubble and then you can lime the area and apply Magic Botanic Liquid to bring the soil back for planting up in a preferred plant.
If you have other plants growing in the area they will likely die also but well established trees and shrubs should not be unduly affected. Now $15.00 worth of salt goes a long way and is cheaper than a little bottle of chemical weedkiller for $30 which does not go far.
If you have pavers and weeds grow in the cracks just sprinkle some of your salt.
Another one is sulphate of ammonia which also burns out weeds. I tried this out the other week on low weeds growing in a gravel drive. Sprinkled the sulphate of ammonia over them and now they are all brown and dead. Ideally you should lightly water the weeds about half an hour prior to applying the sulphate of ammonia so there is a little moisture to start the burning action. The advantage of sulphate of ammonia is a short residue period, unlike table salt which is much longer.
In your kitchen you already have a couple of neat, environmently friendly weed killers, vinegar and cooking oil. These can be sprayed over the foliage of weeds on a sunny day when the ground is on the dry side to burn off the weeds.
Dependant on the type of weed you can dilute the two products with water to make them go further and be more economical. You need to experiment a bit to find out what dilution rate works best for each type of weed and to assist mixing with water you are best to add some Raingard.
Once again buying either a cheap cooking oil or vinegar in bulk, works out very economically on the purse and you are doing far less damage to the environment or your own personal health.
Tall weeds should be cut low with a weed eater before applying any of the more natural products suggested above. This reduces the amount of product you need to use and gives a quicker result.
One thing to remember is that these methods are non-selective and whatever you treat, preferred plants or weeds will be affected. Well established trees and shrubs should be fine.
If you want the dead weeds to disappear faster spray them with Thatch Busta.
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I am writing this on the 27th of October and this morning as usual, I was up early, taking my five Shar Pei dogs for a walk in the paddock across the road. Overcast day with a chilling wind and as I looked into my glasshouse where I have several tomato plants in containers growing, I thought how happy and snug they were, and how they would sulk if outside with me and the dogs.
It maybe sometime before they get to have a bit more room outside of the glasshouse, in the mean time tomatoes are forming nicely and even though my ‘Russian’ tomatoes did not produce ripe fruit for me by Labour weekend they did produce green fruit. By the way if you have tomatoes in a glasshouse then to ensure a fruit set you should tap the plants or stake to cause a bit of vibration occasionally.
Do this on a sunny day and the movement will set the fruit. I used to have problems with whitefly in the glasshouse but once I started applying Neem Tree Granules to the top of the compost where the tomatoes are growing, the whitefly problems disappeared. I still see a few adult whitefly winging around, but no population buildup.
Unless you are living where the weather is warmer than Palmerston North, I would suggest you protect or avoid planting out ‘warm loving plants’ such as tomatoes and cucumbers till the weather improves.
They will just sulk and do very little till the conditions are better.
Outdoors you can solve the problem by placing 4 bamboo stakes in the ground in a square about 30cm or more apart with your tomato or cucumber inside the square with its own stake support.
Around the square near the base run plastic food wrap, in this manner, which is the same as freight pellets are wrapped. Squash the end of the food wrap to make a rope like end and tie this to the bottom of one of the stakes and then run the open wrap three times around the lower part of the stakes.
Once you have your three runs over the stakes then work the plastic upwards over lapping the existing plastic till you have an enclosure a metre or so high. This plastic protection will aid the plant to grow better and faster having removed much of the wind chill. If it looks like a late frost then simply place a sack over the tops of the stakes. Later if need be, you can add more food wrap to increase the height of the enclosure.
I answered an email problem this morning which is one that may concern other dog owners.
Here is the query; “Hello, you wouldn't know of a magical solution to stop our female dogs pee from killing off our lawn. We have tried dog rocks, a pet shop solution that did nothing but leave us broke!!! People have suggested both yeast and vinegar, I am not sure the dog would approve!!! But will try anything if you think it would work. Thanks, Gillie Watson.”
My suggestion was this; There is no magic solution that is not detrimental to the dog's health.
It is usually the first pee in the morning that is the worst.
Bearing this in mind and if the dogs live indoors with you then you could construct an small area of bark which is enclosed and is the only place the dogs can go to when first let out. You may find that the girls will tend to use this area during the day also, once they have the morning habit established.
Another aspect is if they feel their territory is threatened, such as knowing there are dogs next door, they will mark out their territory with their pee rather than use the place where you want them to pee.
From my own experience marking pee is much stronger than ordinary pee.
Where damage is noticed try sprinkling some Rapid Lime and watering in with Magic Botanic Liquid.
This should assist in the quicker recovery of the grasses.
Another problem that I am often asked is in regards to club root. Club root is a disease that affects the roots of brassicas such as cabbages etc. In some cases it will also attack radishes. Club root is a soil borne disease and is usually introduced into the garden by bringing in contaminated soil on tools or plant’s roots such as bundles of plants that have been grown in contaminated soil.
Once you have the disease in your soil it can take many years of not growing the host plants to overcome the problem. As most gardeners want to grow a range of brassicas then you need to sterilize the planting hole with the following; dissolve a quarter teaspoon of potassium permanganate (Condy’s Crystals) with 3 desert spoons of salt into one litre of warm water then add this to 9 litres of water. Place one litre of the mix into each planting hole.
This sterilizes the planting area and in most cases allows the brassica to mature with little or no root damage. Planting quick maturing brassicas such as the miniature types will ensure greater success than plants that take more months to mature. A number of garden centres stock Potassium Permanganate with the above recipe on the container.
Another reader contacted me this week and asked about spittle bug. This is an insect that forms a froth around itself to protect it, while sucking on your lavenders and other plants.
The lady concerned did not want to use a chemical spray (It is amazing how many gardeners now days are avoiding chemical sprays where possible) and was looking for a safe alternative.
My suggestion was to firstly, with the hose, rinse the the spit away to expose the pest and then about half an hour later spray the affected plants with Neem Tree Oil.
Fortunately spittle bugs are a short term problem and it is only about this time of the year they are active and once they have done their thing disappear till next season.
Other pest insects such as leaf hoppers, whitefly, mites and thrips become worse problems as their populations build up and the temperatures rise. The first of these pests emerge and start breeding when the conditions permit and often they go unnoticed by gardeners. If they are seen, there are so few of them, one tends not to do anything.
This quickly changes over the following weeks, when their populations really multiply.
Often by the time we come to realise there is a problem it is already getting out of hand and much more difficult to control. The answer is one of two things, if you have good eyesight and are very observant, then at the first sign of a few pests spray with Neem Tree Oil. If you are not sure, then a 2 weekly spray of the same oil should be applied.
Past experience is a great advantage and if you remember what plants were affected last season then you can start a preventive spray program now.
The preventative spray program works well except for one thing, a neighbour that does not spray and allows a big build up of a pest insect on their property. These next door pests will keep invading your garden till winter comes and knocks their populations back.
Gardeners that live in rural situations and have problems with possums or rabbits eating their roses or other garden plants have told me that the preventative spray program, every 2 weeks with Neem tree Oil not only keeps the pests insects populations down but also reduces damage from the possums etc.
I believe this works because the Neem tree Oil tastes foul and possums etc seek their food with their noses. If they eat a bit of your roses that has the Neem Tree Oil on it they relate to the smell of the oil in the future and leave the foliage alone.
Aphids on roses at this time should be sprayed with Key Pyrethrum late in the day just before dusk as pyrethrum is de-activate very quickly by UV. The ‘late in the day spray’ will be active all night so you really get your moneys worth. Add Neem Tree Oil to the spray to give longer term control.

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It has been a little while since we looked at the subject of lawns and their care, so lets go over the main aspects of having a great lawn.
The best lawns are a combination of fescue and the new fine rye grasses with no brown top.
Brown top is a throw back to the days when there were only course rye grasses available. A lawn with brown top in it, will have on going thatch problems. Thatch is the debris that builds up on the surface of the soil and creates a number of problems if left to build into a thick layer.
This layer captures moisture and reduces the moisture level in the soil. The feeder roots of the grasses tend to grow into the thatch for both moisture and nutrients.
Problem being is that thatch dries out quickly in sun or wind leaving the feeder roots to perish and likely a browning off of the grasses.
Lawns need to be de-thatched twice a year, spring and autumn and in some cases more frequently.
This can be done by using a special rake, a scarifier machine or by spraying the lawn with Thatch Busta.
The later is the easiest and what the Thatch Busta actually does is feed the microbes that will break down the thatch.
By feeding them their populations increase incredibly and an inch of thatch can be cleaned up in a month.
Weeds are a problem in lawns that do not have a thick mat of grasses. When, by over sowing a lawn several times with good quality lawn seed, you create a thick mat of grasses that make it very difficult for weeds to establish and grow. The few that do grow can easily be cut off below ground level with a sharp knife.
When we think of weeding the lawn we automatically think of lawn weed killer sprays.
This is not good for two basic reasons, the recent increased prices of most lawn weed sprays are now about $30.00 a bottle which makes it an expensive job. The weed killers are dangerous to our garden plants, they cause health problems to our pets, wild life, our children, (if allowed to play on a treated lawn), the clippings are dangerous to compost and the soil life is also affected by these poisons.
Result is you pay a lot of money and create a number of problems. (hopefully you do kill the weeds)
Recently I had an interesting conversation with a fellow gardener whom told me how she controlled and made good, a very weedy lawn without the use of the chemical sprays.
What she did was to use nitrogen in the form of sulphate of ammonia over the lawn.
This was applied when the lawn was dry and the product was broadcast by hand in the same way as one would sow lawn seed by hand. North/South and then East/West.
A lawn spreader could be used instead if preferred. Now the nitrogen when it gets a little moisture from dew activates and burns.
It burns off both weeds and grasses so for a time you will have a brown lawn. The grasses come back and most of the weeds don't.
Interestingly it can also kill off inferior grasses, leaving the better grasses to colonise the lawn. A month after application she would give the lawn a good dose of garden lime to overcome any damage done by the sulphate of ammonia.
Sulphate of ammonia is fairly cheap to buy especially in the bulk 25Kg bags and one bag will do a lot of lawn.
My gardening friend told me that within several weeks her grasses had recovered to make for the best lawn ever. Sulphate of ammonia can also be used to spot treat those odd weeds that appear in lawns by pouring a little into the centre of the weed or in the spot where it is growing.
If you are to use this relatively safe method of weeding your lawn then after every thing has browned off spray the lawn with Thatch Busta as well as spreading the lime. This would speed up recovery.
It would likely be a good idea to also oversow the lawn with some fresh lawn seed. (No brown top in the mix)
Moss growing in the lawn is another problem but this can easily be solved by spraying the lawn with Moss and Liverwort Control. It kills the moss and often prevents the re-appearance of it for sometime.
Sulphate of Iron is sometimes recommended, but the iron only burns off the top of the moss which often re-appears again soon after, dependant on conditions.
For feeding the lawn I would recommend Bio Boost. It is a natural slow release food and can cost only about $1.00 a kilo in the 25 Kg bags. (at this stage only available from PGG-Wrightson or Fruit Fed outlets.) The same can be used to great advantage on all gardens.
Now we come to the lawn pests of which there are three, grass grubs, porina and root nematodes.
At this time of the year most of the grass grubs will be pupating deep in the soil to emerge as beetles in the next month or so. Controlling the grubs in the soil can be difficult whether you are using a chemical or natural method so it is easier to control the adults by means of water and lights when they are on the wing. (I have the full explanation of this method in my book Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide)
If you wish to treat the lawn for grass grubs it pays to lift turf and check for the number of grubs near the surface and if there is not a good number in a square foot then don't waste your time and money.
Normally the best treatment time is about April to June.
Porina caterpillars are a native moth that live in the soil in burrows, and in the early evening emerge and eat at the base of the grasses often causing bare patches. They can be detected by the hole that is the entrance to their burrow or by the bird activity trying to rip open the soil for a nice feast.
Easy to control by a spray of Neem tree Oil applied late in the day to the lawn, which has recently been mowed.
Root nematodes is not something that is easy to detect as they are small pests that attach themselves to the roots of the grasses and suck. They do not kill the grasses normally but will take away the luster of the growth.
To determine if you have the problem mark off about 5 to 10 square metres of your best lawn and sprinkle Neem tree Granules over the area. If after a month or so you notice that the grasses in the treated area look lusher and better than the rest then you do have the problem.
Treat then, the rest of the lawn. At the same time you are likely to clean up any grass grubs near the surface and porina in the treated area.
There are a number of things you can apply to your lawns to make them healthier and better looking.
Firstly never cut more than one third off the height of the grasses in one mowing and never mow lower than about 25 to 30 mm. (Talking about millimeters and centimeters a recent article about straw potatoes should have read mm not cm) Applications of lime, gypsum and dolomite every so often is great value for your lawns.
Occasional sprays of Magic Botanic Liquid and Perkfection will also build up the health of the grasses.
Ocean Solids can be also mixed and dissolved in water and sprayed over the lawns for the advantage of the minerals it contains.
Grasses are another plant, just like your flowers and vegetables and when they are cared for they will reward you with their natural beauty.
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Earthworms are a very important aspect in gardening, when you have lots of worms in your gardens you will have healthy plants and soil. If you have good worm populations you can bet your bottom dollar that the soil food web is active and healthy also. On the other hand when you have few or no earthworms then your soil and plants have a problem.
We can gauge the health of our soil by the number of earthworms per square foot which can be 50 or more in that given area.
There are basically two types of worms, surface feeders (tiger worms) which only operate in the organic matter near the surface of the soil. Then there is the bigger, deep dweller worms, which operate in the area from near the surface and down to several feet under ground.
The later one maybe the only one you come across when digging the gardens if you are not supplying ample organic material to the surface of the soil on a regular bases.
The deep dwellers do a lot of good bringing up minerals from the lower depths and taking organic matter down, but it is the surface dwellers that achieve the best gardens for us, breaking up organic matter as their contribution to the soil food web.
Plant disease spores are in the soil near the surface waiting for the right conditions to activate and cause the common health problems we see in our plants such as rust and blackspot.
When you have good populations of surface feeding worms they take the spores into their bodies as they are feeding and get rid of the spores.
Some years back I read an interesting account of the comparison between two orchards, one had sheep and geese to keep the grasses and weeds down where the other used Roundup.
When the scientists investigated the orchards they found good worm populations in the one with sheep grazing but sparse worm populations where the Roundup was used. The instance of diseases in the trees of the Roundup weed controlled orchard, was high and frequent chemical spray needed to be applied.
Where in the more natural, earthworm populated orchard diseases were minimal and only required occasional control methods. The scientists concluded it was the surface feeding worms that were responsible for the low disease rates, killing millions of spores while they foraged.
The other aspect would be a far healthier soil food web and thus, healthier fruit trees to boot.
To obtain good worm populations they are a few do’s and dont’s. You have to supply ample organic material to feed the worms which means animal manures and organic waste such as foliage of weeds or plants.
They need a sweet or alkaline soil so a spreading of Rapid Lime every 3 months will be to advantage. The surface of the soil needs to be kept moist and moisture retained by a good layer of compost or mulch.
The liberal use of all man made fertilisers must be avoided as these create an acidic condition which kills the soil life and makes the worms move away to better conditions. Likewise the avoidance of chemical spray and chemical weed killers.
A little man made fertiliser at the base of a plant can be used if needed, but that is all and a little Rapid Lime applied to remove the acid effect.
The problem arises in the summer when the soil starts to dry out and we have to water the garden to keep the plants happy and the soil life working. If our water is one which contains chlorine from the town’s supply, the chlorine is going to kill the soil food web and really upset the worms.
Last week I was contacted by a lady in Palmerston North who breeds Tiger Worms for sale to home gardeners.
During the conversation I asked her if she knew what effect chlorinated water had on earthworms. She told me that they had, some years back, while living at Bulls, the need to moisten up their worm pits as the summer had become very hot and dry. (Normally worm pits require no extra moisture as they are covered and ample moisture is available most of the year)
But this particular summer the tops of the beds became too dry and the worms would not work in these conditions so they applied light sprinklings of the town’s water which contained chlorine.
What transpired was the young, immature worms suddenly went into panic mode and reached maturity rapidly so they could reproduce themselves but they were incapable of laying eggs.
The mature worms became very inactive only eating sufficient to keep themselves alive and for 6 months would not reproduce. This meant for that period of time these worm farmers had no stock to sell. I did not realise that chlorinated water could affect worms so much.
To overcome the problem if you can stand your chlorinated tap water in vessels for a day or so then the chlorine will dissipate and can be used safely on your gardens. The alternative is to spend about $120 on a filter housing and filter to connect your outside tap to. The replacement filters are about $35.00 and one filter should last about a season dependant on how much water you are needing to use.
They make the world of difference to your gardens, keeping the plants growing and healthy.
You can obtain a worm farm such as the Worm-a-Round where you can breed your own worms with your kitchen scraps. Not expensive and a big savings in the longer term. You gain the worm pee which is a fantastic food for your soil and plants plus the vermicast (worm casts) for potting up and soil conditioning.
Alternatively you can make a worm pit in a garden by digging a hole about 16cm deep and 30cm wide, into the hole place some shredded, wet newspaper along with kitchen scraps. Place a sack or cover over the hole and leave for a week or so and then from a worm farmer obtain a bag of Tiger worms.
Put the worms into pit and cover. Add more kitchen scraps over the ensuring weeks and your starter pack of worms will multiply.
By placing wet newspaper, animal manure and compost over the surrounding soil the worms will spread out over the garden. Keep the area moist with non-chlorinated water and avoid chemical fertilisers and sprays. Overtime you will find that your humus level will build up and you can speed up this process by watering Mycorrcin and Magic Botanic Liquid into the compost layer every month or two.
Sprinkle Rapid Lime about every 3 months but avoid areas where acid loving plants are growing.
The only disadvantage of having a worm pit, compared to a worm farm, is not being able to collect and use the worm pee.
A lady told me a story a couple of years back about how she started a Worm-a-Round farm off but instead of collecting the worm pee she just left the tap turned on, to drip out.
The spot where she placed the Worm-a-Round was rough ground as hard as the hobs of hell where nothing but a few weeds grew.
After several months she discovered that soil area around the worm farm, where the worm pee had being dripping, was far better soil than in her gardens. Thats nature at work for you.
If you have good worm populations you are fortunate so look after them, they are the greatest asset you have in your gardens. If not, you should look at buying a worm farm or bags of worms and making worm pits. I tell you what, you will thank me in a year or two’s time if you do so, and don't forget to look after the worms.

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We are now close to Labour Weekend and the traditional time for gardeners to plant out their more tender plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers and Impatiens.
Keen gardeners will have already planted out many tender varieties and several of them have complained to me that the recent, unexpected frost, damaged or wiped out a number of plants.
Even planting out on Labour Weekend can often be too soon if a late frost happens as a result of a change in the weather. So what can one do to reduce the damage and be able to plant out?
What I do is spray the plants three days before planting out with Vaporgard. This does give frost protection down to minus 3 for up to 3 months on the foliage sprayed.
It also does another important thing in so much as it shields the foliage from UV which means the plant grows more vigorously as it is able to capture more energy from the sun. The film over the foliage also means the plant requires less watering, reduces transplant shock and gives a degree of protection from pests and diseases.
Ideally with tomatoes you should not plant out all the plants you wish to grow in one hit. Plant a few now, wait a month and plant a few more. I keep doing this right up till February which means a constant supply of fresh tomatoes right into winter.
If you find that by the end of November you cant buy any more tomato plants, no problem, just strike the laterals (side shoots) off your existing plants as cuttings. The best way to do this is to spray the side shoot, a few days before removing, with Vaporgard and then strike as a cutting in moist sand.
Many gardeners lose their tomato plants during the season to a stem rot. What happens is that the plants get up to about a metre tall, looking really great with flowers and fruit forming and next thing the plant starts to droop. The collapse quickens over the next few days and bye, bye tomato plant.
A disease has entered the plant, likely when you removed laterals, leaves or was damaged in the wind. The disease attacks on one part of the trunk where the area becomes darker as the rot sets in, cutting off the transfer of moisture from the roots and energy from the sun back down.
Aerial roots will often form as little bumps above the affected area where the plant is desperately trying to produce new roots to save its life.
The solution to the problem is to only remove laterals on a sunny day when the air is dry, not humid.
Spray the wound immediately with Liquid Copper to protect. Interestingly I had a gardener last season that told me that as soon as he noticed the darker patch on the trunk he painted undiluted Liquid Copper on the area and was able to arrest the disease. Worth a try if it happens to you and the disease has not got too far advanced.
Spraying the tomato plants once a month with Perkfection can also assist in prevention. If blights start to occur spray the plants with the Perkfection (monthly) and also spray Liquid Copper with Raingard every 10 to 14 days till the disease period is past.
If growing tomato plants in a glasshouse or indoors (must be in full sun) you may need to, on a nice sunny day, tap the plants to cause a little vibration so that the pollen will move to set the tomatoes.
To overcome whitefly problems sprinkle Neem Tree Granules around near the base of the plants and repeat every 6-8 weeks with a little more. I have found by doing this, that I have no whitefly problems on my tomatoes in the glasshouse or outside. Start as soon as you plant.
Another important thing is to keep the soil or growing medium moist but not wet. If growing in containers and the mix dries out too much you will get a problem called blossom end rot where the base of the tomato is black coming towards maturity. It is caused by a lack of calcium at the time the fruit was setting, as a result of insufficient moisture to move the calcium to the fruit set.
There are several different tomato foods available, some better than others and there is my own, ‘Wally’s Secret Tomato Food with Neem Granules’ which a number of gardeners have high praise for.
The important aspect is that tomatoes need adequate potash and magnesium and often these are lacking or insufficient in some foods. Apply Fruit and Flower Power once a month if using other tomato foods to make up the required amounts needed by the plants. (You obtain far better flavour.)
This also applies to citrus fertilisers as you will note with the yellowing leaves, lack of juice in the fruit and thicker skins. The last thing in the world I would give my citrus trees would be citrus fertiliser.
Instead I just give mine adequate chicken manure, a yearly dose of Ocean Solids and a monthly sprinkle of Fruit and Flower Power. Alternative to the chicken manure would be a good dose of Blood & bone, sheep manure pellets and cover these with a layer of compost. You can also place wet sheets of newspaper down before the compost to assist in worm activity.
A friend of mine that sells seeds tells me that sweet peas are a very big line and that many gardeners grow sweet peas for their fragrance and beauty.
If I was to grow a line of sweet peas I would soak the peas in a solution of Magic Botanic Liquid over night to swell up the pea seeds. Next make a swallow trench in a sunny spot with a frame to support the vines and sprinkle Rapid Lime, sheep manure pellets or Bio Boost (Break Through) along the row with the pea seeds. Cover and keep moist. These same products and method can be used also for garden peas and beans to great success.
If you want faster results make a trench about 100 mm deep and place fresh grass clippings into the trench to 80mm full, cover with a little soil and then place the products and seeds onto this soil and cover. The heat from the decomposing grass below will warm the soil and speed up growth.
A gardener also recently told me he used the same trick to grow kumera. Digging a pit about 200 mm deep and filling it with grass clippings with a 50mm layer of soil on top into which he planted the kumera plants. According to the gardener it was the best crop he has ever grown.
Roses, not matter how healthy they are, will attract some aphids about now so a spray of Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum added, applied late in the day just before sunset will take care of these pests.
Another interesting aspect with Neem tree Oil is if you spray the foliage of the roses every couple of weeks it tends to prevent diseases such as black spot, rust and mildews. Possums and rabbits will also leave the plants alone if you live in the country and have problems with these animals.
Two things will assist in giving you better crops and flowers and that is, an annual dose of Ocean Solids which provides all the minerals and elements from the sea. A three monthly soil drench (Spring, Summer and Autumn) of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and a two to four weekly spray over the foliage of the same.
The key to great gardens is the use of natural products and the total avoidance of chemical foods and sprays. The last thing plants want in their food chain is chemicals and this also applies to ourselves.
It is not actually being organic, it is being sensible and healthy.
Start planing now for Labour Weekend and visit your local garden centre this week to beat the Labour Weekend rush.

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What is the Value of Phosphate for plants?

Phosphorus is the third most limiting nutrient with respect to macro nutrient uptake. Nitrogen and potassium are the only other two essential plant food nutrients taken up in greater quantities than all other minerals and elements. The potential and occurrence of phosphorus deficiency is second only to nitrogen.
Phosphorus plays a vital role in energy transfer, photosynthesis, nutrient transport, sugar metabolism, plant genetics, cell division and as a structural component of plants.
Crops with adequate phosphorus show steady vigorous growth and earlier maturity. Earlier maturing crops are less susceptible to summer drought, disease infection, frost and harvest damage.
Plants absorb soil solution phosphorus in both the H2PO4-1 and HPO4-2 forms.
Phosphate has an interesting history and in the distant past this vital plant nutrient was obtained by collecting bat or bird dung (gunga) from large deposits on Islands around the planet, and moved in the good old sailing ships of the time.
Towards the end of the 1800’s in England it was found that phosphorus could be obtained by treating bones with sulphuric acid.
The other natural source of phosphorus is obtained from RPR (reactive phosphate rock) but if we take RPR and grind it down to a fine powder and apply it to our soil it can take many years of microbial activity to release the phosphorus to make it available to the plants. (Similarly with limestone which takes 3 to 10 years to become available, where a soft lime such as Rapid Lime is readily available.)
Thus RPR is a waste of time when applied to the soil in its pure form. A mechanism had to be devised to make the phosphorus immediately available. It was soon realised that if sulphuric acid was able to make phosphorus readily available from bones then the same acid should work on RPR.
It did and a new word came into our agriculture, namely superphosphate.
There are two basic types of super; To make 0-20-0, rock phosphate is treated with sulphuric acid to make calcium phosphate (0-20-0) and calcium sulphate (gypsum).
To make 0-46-0, rock phosphate is treated with phosphoric acid. With this, much higher phosphate content, much higher N-P-K fertilizer formulas can be made. Less needs to be used. And it sells for a higher price with much better profits for the manufactures.
A retired fertiliser manufacture once explained that, when used, superphosphate is laying naked in the soil and looking for something to marry up with. It bonds up with zinc, iron and manganese, then the plants can’t assimilate them. It is a truth that the fertiliser companies like to keep secret.
The conversion process of making super phosphate (Super) is a very dirty, polluting industry which has contaminated vast areas of land where super is made. Fluoride gasses are created during the manufacture of chemical fertilisers and to prevent the pollution of these chemical gasses to the surrounding country side ‘scrubbers’ are used.
After being captured in the scrubbers, the fluoride acid (hydrofluorosilicic acid), which is a classified hazardous waste, is barreled up and sold, unrefined, to communities across the country.
Communities add hydrofluorosilicic acid to their water supplies as the primary fluoride chemical for water fluoridation.
As one environmentalist said: '"If this stuff gets out into the air, it's a pollutant; if it gets into the river, it's a pollutant; if it gets into the lake it's a pollutant; but if it goes right into your drinking water system, it's not a pollutant. That's amazing... There's got to be a better way to manage this stuff" (Hirzy 2000).
Super harms the soil life and locks up other plant nutrients which overall results in both pest and diseases problems in our gardens and food chain.
Some years back a company in New Zealand developed a method of using microbes to break down RPR naturally so when applied to the soil it would be readily available to the plants.
The product is called BioPhos and is organically certified. Recently the fertiliser company ‘Balance’ purchased the production rights of BioPhos and are marketing the product to farmers and horticulturists as a natural alternative to super.
This is very interesting as a number of farmers/horticulturists are becoming aware of the harm conventional fertilisers are doing to their land, stock and crops. They are looking for better alternatives, this is great for the environment and our food chain. (Slowly people are starting to wake up to the damage that has been happening over the last 50 plus years)
BioPhos is available through garden centres for your use as an alternative to super.
BioPhos contains phosphate, potassium, sulphur and calcium at the rates of P10:K8:S7:Ca28.
The lumps or granules actually contain 4,888,000 fungal colonies to aid the breakdown and enhance your garden soils. Thus you not only are adding the needed phosphorus to you garden soils but also additional microbes which are going to work for you, making for better soils and plants.
BioPhos is pH neutral and is used at the following rates; New beds work in 100 grams per square metre, the same with lawns but water in to settle.
Side dressing plants; seedlings 8 grams (a teaspoon full) around base of the plant or in the planting hole. Same for potatoes (which do well with phosphorus) Sowing beans peas etc sprinkle down row with seeds. Roses and similar sized plants 18 grams or a tablespoon full around plant or in planting hole.
Established fruit trees etc, spread at the rate of 100 grams per square metre around drip line or where feeder roots are. Apply to vegetable gardens in spring and a further application in autumn if growing winter crops. Can be applied to container plants also. Apply to tomatoes when planting or side dress existing plants.
BioPhos need only be applied once a year or a little with each new planting whether it be vegetables or flowering plants/ornamentals.
When you apply natural products to your soils you are gardening the soil, building up the soil food web which is the key to healthy plants and food crops.
When you apply harmful chemical fertilisers and sprays you are creating the problems that are so commonly seen in many gardens today.
Beneficial natural products include, Mycorrcin (feeds the soil life) Magic Botanic Liquid MBL (which releases the nutrients that have been locked up in the soil, along with many other benefits)
Ocean Solids (provides all the natural minerals and elements from the blue waters of the ocean)
Simalith (Basalt rock dust also providing minerals along with silica to aid the natural electricity in the soil) Then we have the goodies such as animal manures, sheep pellets, blood & bone, sea weed formulations, compost, Rapid Lime, Dolomite, Gypsum, etc.
Every week I have gardeners that contact me to say that they have read these columns and followed my suggestions. They thank me, as their gardens and plants have never been healthier and better.
It is only common sense.
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A wealth of knowledge and interesting tips on gardening are gathered by gardeners over the years and passed onto gardening friends over a talk around the garden, or over a cuppa.
I am in the fortunate position, as a result of my availability to gardeners through my 0800 phone or the Internet to be a catalyst to receive interesting gardening tips, having both the press and my book to pass many of these valuable hints to a vast number of interested gardeners.
Now and then some real pearls of information come to hand, recently an elderly lady gardener from the South Island and the writer spent some telephone time, chatting together.
After sorting out a couple of problems, the lady concerned said, ‘now I will give you a couple of tips’.
The first was in regards to growing potatoes and it is basically similar to the ‘Straw Potato’ information in my book, Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide, with a neat new twist.
For many years this gardener has being growing potatoes by covering them with Pea Straw but prior to this she not only sprouts them up but also roots them up as well.
The process goes like this, and I am certainly going to do the same this season.
You obtain your seed potatoes and place them in a warm situation such as the hot water cupboard or indoors to get the sprouts to form. Once formed the potatoes are taken outside to ‘green up’ and harden the shoots prior to planting.
When that is done you then obtain a bag of untreated sawdust and put a layer of that into a tray. The sprouted seed potatoes are laid in the tray with their sprouts facing upwards and covered with more sawdust.
You then drench the sawdust with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) mixed with water at the rate of 20 mls of MBL to one litre of water.
Leave the potatoes in the tray for a week or more keeping the sawdust moist. The potatoes will form young roots in the moist sawdust and once this has happened they are now ready to plant. (I was told that this pre-sprouting and rooting up can cut up to 3 weeks off the time it takes to harvest and you can also increase the crop potential.)
Next an area of ground is selected to plant the potatoes and the top crust of the soil is broken only by means of a rake or hoe. Place your favorite potato recipe food straight on the ground in the spots where each potato is to grow.
My food selection is; a tablespoon of Gypsum, a small handful of sheep manure pellets, a teaspoon of potash and about half a teaspoon of BioPhos (The natural alternative to super phosphate)
This little pile of goodies is covered with a little soil and the sprouted/ rooted potato sat on top of the soil.
Next take your pea straw or ordinary straw, tease it out and cover the potatoes with it. As the new shoots come through the straw, add more teased out straw. You keep doing this each time the potato’s shoots break through till you have a layer of straw 200 to 300 mm tall then you let the tops grow free to the sun.
The new potatoes will form in the layers of straw, completely clean, free of soil. Later as the plants are reaching maturity you can put your hand into the straw layers and pull out a few of the larger potatoes if you wish, prior to harvesting the crop.
On harvesting try to pick the new potatoes out without disturbing the straw too much, also just cut the tops off the potatoes to lay back on the straw after harvesting.
Once harvested you now cover the straw and potato foliage with a layer of compost and plant up a crop of greens such as cabbage etc. A side dressing of Rapid Lime should be applied to the cabbages, etc at this time. While the potatoes are growing a spray over the foliage every couple of weeks or so of MBL will also increase the size of the crop and the size of the tubers.
A neat system and one worth trying.
Another excellent use for ordinary straw or hay (Not pea straw) can be used by gardeners with ponds.
After cleaning out your pond for the new season, take a plastic bag, place a rock in the bag and then stuff the bag full of straw or hay. Tie the bag off and then punch a lot of small holes in the bag with a nail or similar.
Toss the bag into the middle of the pond and you should find that it will prevent algae forming in the pond for one season. If you have a large pond in a rural setting then just toss a couple of bales of straw into the pond to do the same. Simple and effective.
Now here is a really interesting one in regards to codlin moth which attacks apples, pears and walnuts.
Before I divulge the tip lets look at the pest and how it operates. At this time the moths will be in their cocoons waiting for the right conditions to emerge, mate, and then for the females to lay their eggs on the leaves of your apple tree. This will not happen till young immature apples have started to form.
If you have an apple or pear tree like I have, well away from any other trees infested with the pest you are unlikely to have any problems for years or maybe never. The pests are very territorial and spend each generation in or near your infected tree.
They can infect from next door, but unlikely if the closest infected tree is some good distance away, that is unless a fertilised female is blown by the wind into your garden. This means if you can clean up your neck of the woods you will be clean of the problems for years. There have been numerous ways of reducing the codlin moth problems such as sticky grease bands around the trunk of the trees at this time of the year to catch the moths climbing up the tree.
Corrugated cardboard around the trunk in summer to catch the grubs crawling down the tree. (hard to get the corrugated cardboard these days as the new types are not suitable). Planting lots of highly aromatic plants under the tree to confuse the moths. Placing pheromone traps to catch the male moths and determine the best times to spray.
In the past, the chemical Carbaryl was the spray mostly used but this is not longer readily available. (Thank goodness) Neem Tree Oil is the best natural control with several sprays used over the period of time when the eggs are hatching. The spray is applied to cover and protect the young apples.
It works in this manner, the grub hatches out of its egg and heads off to the nearest apple where it starts eating its way in.
If there is a film of the Neem Tree Oil over the skin of the apple then the grub only gets to take one bite and eats no more. (Anti-feeding properties of the Neem) On maturity all that is noticed is a tiny pin prick scar where the first bite was made.
Now back to our lady gardener in the South Island who told me of a method that she came across 25 years ago and has used it ever since. Over that time she has little or no damage to her crops of apples.
What you do is partly fill a tin or similar container with treacle and hang that in the tree. Apparently the treacle has a similar smell to the female codlin moth’s pheromone and the males race to the tin where they come to a sticky end. (Obviously not the sticky end they had hoped for) The tin will need to have a little more treacle added from time to time during the season and according to our gardening friend, the weather does not effect the results.
She usually hangs the tin by placing it in an onion bag, but last season did not have one of these holey bags, so just hung the tin with cord. Later she noticed that the wax eyes were feeding on the treacle so there is another excellent predator that you maybe able to entice into your garden with a little treacle.
Wax eyes and Fan tails are excellent hunters of pest insects and should be encouraged as much as possible.
My suggestion would be to hang your treacle tins up now, check them every few days, when a number of moths are found then spray the young apples with Neem Tree Oil.
Repeat every 7 days or when new batches of moths are noticed in the tin. With any luck within a season or two you should have eliminated the codlin moth from your section and will only have any further problems from neighbor's infected trees.
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We should ask ourselves the question, ‘Why do we garden’? Is it because it gives us an excuse to get outdoors away from the hustle and bustle of our day to day lives?
Is it because once outside we want to look like we are doing something constructive rather than just wandering around aimlessly? (Bit like owning a dog so you have an excuse to take walks.)
Is it just another chore that one needs to do to keep the outside tidy?
On the other hand there are people that love to get out amongst nature and enjoy the sight of plants growing and being partly responsible for their accomplishment.
To answer the question one needs to look back thousands of years, to a time when we were hunters and food gatherers.
One would get out of their cave in the morning and with a spear and club in hand, go out foraging for food.
If there were plenty of editable plants and game in your area all was well.
When your family and neighbours (tribe) grew in number then when the area you foraged in could not supply your food needs you would pack up your belongings and move to a new area.
A nomadic life style which changed when we learnt to plant seeds and farm animals.
The first reason then for us to garden was to obtain adequate food from the place where your cave was.
Neatness was not a priority and in many cases this even applies to a certain extent today, where the gardener that gardens for food, is not so concerned about how tidy things are, rather how good the crops are.
On the other hand we have those gardeners that love to have pretty gardens, filled with flowers and roses because the supermarket is where they do their hunting and gathering.
If you were fortunate enough to watch ‘Inside New Zealand’ (Wednesday 12th on TV3) You would have learnt some interesting facts in how our food industry and government, have sorely let us down in providing a healthy food chain.
Instead of wholesome, natural foods we have chemically saturated food stuffs packed with preservatives, colorings and chemical flavors, many of which are not good for our health and well being.
One of the experts on the program said that she would tell her patients that the area around the walls of the supermarket was the area to shop as it contained real food where down the isles was the chemical foods stuffs.
Another point caught my attention when it was stated that if you locked the doors on a fully packed supermarket and left it like that for a hundred years or more and then opened the doors you would find all the food around the outside gone, rotted away but the food stuffs in the aisles would still be there ready to eat!
The damage that the chemical foods do to our health and well being can be easily summed up with all the health problems that people have these days.
We are always hearing about increasing rates of cancers and other disabling health conditions.
Logics tells us that many of these problems are as a result, over time, from the food we eat. For thousands of years our bodies evolved to eat natural foods, but over the last 20 to 30 years we have being feeding our bodies chemical foods.
It would likely take a few thousand years to adapt to this new diet.
So lets get back to basics and grow as much of our own health giving fruit and vegetables as possible, which was the original prime reason to garden anyway.
It is you and your families health that is at stake so find the time and space for some simple vegetables. For those starting out, lets keep it simple; pick up a few bags of compost from the local garden centre along with a bag of sheep manure pellets and a bag of blood & bone.
Seedlings such as lettuce Buttercrunch, Silverbeet, spinach, spring onions and a packet of radish seed. Either make a space in the gardens where it is sunny or use containers.
Sprinkle the blood & bone on the soil, cover with a couple of inches of compost and plant the seedlings with a few sheep manure pellets in the planting hole.
Later scatter some more sheep pellets around by the plants.
In containers make a mix of the compost, sheep pellets, blood & bone along with a little soil from the garden. Use this mix to fill the containers and plant up.
For those that wish to add more nutritional value to their crops use Ocean Solids and Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) Then all you have to do is keep the growing medium moist by watering regularly.
In the past I have always favoured hearting lettuces such as Triumph and Great Lakes but a few months back I planted Buttercrunch instead and very pleased that I did.
They provide a continual supply of lettuce leaves by picking the big outside leaves until the plant eventually goes to seed.
Freshly picked and eaten in salads or sandwiches you are obtaining maximum nutritional value. Silverbeet is another perfect vegetable as you only harvest the outside leaves till it goes to seed.
For those gardeners that would like something different you will need to look at the Niche Seed Stands which are in many garden centres.
Here some examples, Carrot, Rainbow selection and Carrot Purple Haze, these coloured carrots taste just like ordinary carrots but have special health giving properties in each colour.
Onions; Heirloom Pearl Onion, Mini Onion Purplette and Onion Sweet Walla Walla.
Did you know that if you have high cholesterol problems that by eating a small raw onion everyday you will bring down your cholesterol levels to normal?
Growing these sweet type onions or red onions such as Mini Onion Purplette makes eating them raw a breeze. If the taste still bothers you chop up a small onion (about the size of a hen egg) and mix it with liquid honey to eat.
After having a onion daily for say about 6 weeks go and get your cholesterol levels checked. Much more natural than the medications.
Here is some more unusual vegetables to grow; Mini Pumpkin, Baby Bear produces small pumpkins ideal for a single serving.
Radish Japanese Diakon for those that are on diets, shred and use in salads.
Salsify, Black Vegetable Oyster, grown like parsnips but black in colour with an oyster flavor.
For wonderful tasty, leafy vegetables try, Heirloom Spinach, Bloomsdale Long Standing with glossy dark green crinkled leaves, Spinach New Zealand for all year round harvesting, Swiss Chard Bright Lights, coloured silverbeet, or Swiss Chard, Envy, juicy, mild flavored leaves on short plants.
Tomato fanciers might like to try; Tomato Jack Cider, large yellow fruits with great flavor, Heirloom Cherokee Purple, unusual variety, rich full flavour or Heirloom Black from Tula, huge fruits with a great spicy taste and cold tolerant.
Zucchini are another easy plant to grow and the Niche Seeds have a packet with 6 different individual types in the one packet.
For those with little gardening space, does not preclude you from growing some fresh greens by using a Bio Set sprouter and selecting the Niche organic seed mixes for sprouting.
Far superior to the sprouts you can buy as yours will be fresh from the sprouter not days old.
One thing that I strongly recommend to growing is wheat grass and juicing it through a manual juicer.
For just on two years now I have been growing wheat grass and having a little toddy of the fresh juice first thing every morning. Do you want to know something? I have not had a cold or the flu since I started it. I often feel a cold coming on, but next day its gone. Having a strong immune system must be the reason.
Our health is the most important asset we will ever own and we should do all we can to ensure that we stay healthy for as long as possible.
A simple bit of gardening and sprouting will go along way to achieving great health. That is of course, if you avoid as much as possible those harmful chemical found in our conventional food chain.

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I remember as a young man reading a garden book which explained how to build and operate a compost bin/s. It was back then, in the 60’s to 70’s, the standard way of composting on the quarter acre.
I have even built a few of them myself at different places that I lived. In fact one of the first jobs on moving to a new home was to construct a two bin compost unit. This was done by constructing a double bin out of wood, the easy way to explain this is the construction of one bin.
Four square posts, 100 x 100 mm would be placed about a metre apart to form a square. These would either be dug into the soil or left free standing, with wooden slats, 100 to 150mm nailed to the outsides of the posts leaving a little gap of about 10mm between each slat.
These would cover three sides of the square leaving the front open at this stage. The second bin would use one side of the first bin and be constructed likewise along side the original using another two posts.
We now have a rectangle structure with two open sides in the front. The front posts would have two 20mm wide strips of wood nailed to the length of the posts which would be the guides so that loose slats of wood could be slid down the posts and later removed by sliding upwards.
A couple of these slats would be slid down the first bin and then one would start to fill the bin with green material such as grass clippings, weeds, leaves, animal manures, sweepings of the floor, kitchen scraps and the family potty. (Remember a lot of us still had outdoor toilets called long drops back then, especially in more rural areas.)
More slats would be slid down the front till the first bin was full. Then slats would be progressively removed as one forked the contents into the second bin. The moving of the material in this manner allowed air through the composting material, thus re-heating the pile and breaking it down faster.
This procedure could be repeated, backwards and forwards a few times until one was happy with the compost which then was applied to the garden.
In the meantime most of us had to build a third bin onto the structure to take the fresh material that keeps coming available. Just about every home had their compost bin along with a chicken run and a big vegetable plot.
Another method was also used back then in which one would dig a trench the width of the vegetable garden about two spade deep and 2-3 spades wide.
Into this trench at one end, would go all the kitchen scraps, family potty and other organic waste. When the bit at the end reached soil level it would be covered with earth and more waste would be placed in front of this till the trench was full of waste and covered in soil.
Another trench would then be dug along side, a couple of feet apart and progressively filled in the same manner. Over time the whole of the vegetable plot would have received a good dosing of material.
Once a trench was covered, a crop such as silverbeet or leeks would be planted on top.
Little ground was left bare except for the trench area as one had to produce sufficient vegetables all year round to keep the family fed. Thus we have looked at two ways of composting organic waste the later is much more beneficial to the soil and garden.
But let us now look at what actually happens in nature. The best place to observe this is to walk through a forest or bushed area and note all the litter that is on the forest floor.
If we scratch down under the litter of leaves and things we find an abundance of worms and creatures along with a good layer of humus that has been created by the action of the soil life from past litter.
So which method is best? Obviously the world has been naturally recycling waste material for millions of years and the creatures of the soil have evolved to preform this function. Not necessarily because they want to, but that is the way they live and survive.
When we use the old compost bin method or one of the new fangled plastic bins to make compost what actually happens. Green waste has two basic components, nutrients and energy.
Nutrients make tissues and energy powers the process but in our compost heap energy is lost in the composting cycles and nutrients such as carbon and nitrogen are lost.
But if take say our grass clippings and spread them across the bare soil of the garden, the soil life including the worms will take the decaying material down into the soil and there is minimal losses and lots of gains.
Composting creates greenhouse gasses where mulching traps carbon dioxide in the soil to the benefit of our plants and planet.
Now days I seldom use my two modern plastic compost makers except when I have a lot of green waste. I just stuff it into them and forget about it for months.
What comes out later on is good for the garden to a point (well anything is better than nothing) Instead I have adopted the methods of cutting weeds off just below ground level with a sharp knife or Dutch hoe and leaving the green material on the surface to break down naturally.
If I wish to speed up this breakdown I just spray the dying weeds with Thatch Busta which provides extra food for the microbes to increase their populations. The more of them there are, the faster the job is done.
There is also a school of thought that goes like this; you mow your lawn and take the clippings away.
You have taken away nutrients and energy which the grasses have produced and the grasses need more nutrients and energy to grow more grass. So then you have to at some point of time feed the grass so it stays healthy and looks good. Now if say a sheep was used instead of the lawn mower, then as the animal wandered along eating at one end it would be fertilising at the other end. Neat recycling and happy grasses which incidently love to be chewed or mowed.
If we did not use the catcher then the clippings would be recycled naturally back to feed the grasses, a bit cannibalistic when one thinks about it, but effective especially when the grasses have produced seed, as the seed will grow new grasses and thicken up your lawn. At other times when the lawn does not have seeds then the clippings can be used to great advantage, fresh over your gardens.
You will also notice if you leave the clippings on the lawn it does not take long for them to break down and disappear, in fact they are often fairly well gone before the next mowing. Using this method can cause a thatch problem in the lawn so regular sprays of Thatch Busta should be applied to speed up the breakdown and covert all the material to lawn food.
It is such as waste and cost both to yourself and the environment to take lawn clippings to a land fill.
Because of the problems of the world, global warming, water shortage and pollution it is dumb to have one of those things in your sink that gets rid of kitchen scraps. They cost a lot of money to buy and install plus use up water needlessly. Compare the cost of a unit to the price of a worm farm at about $160.00.
The worm farm will take your kitchen scraps and covert them to vermicast and worm pee both of which are excellent for your garden.
Even take this newspaper you are reading (after cutting out this article, of course) lay the paper on the soil, wet it down and cover with soil or compost. It is rich in carbon and you will improve your garden soils by doing so.
It is not everyones cup of tea but having a few chickens running around part of the backyard is another excellent way of recycling your weeds and kitchen scraps. Because I have chooks, the local birds have come to know that morning and night the chooks are going to be fed grain and mash, out in the backyard. Now if I am not feeding a population of one to two hundred birds, I will go he.
In the evening their bird song is so loud at fed time one cant hear themselves think. My advantage is that I have very few insect pests to worry about.
The key is to work with Nature not against it.
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September is the first calendar month of spring and even with the changed weather patterns of these days, it is still often a good month to start gardening in earnest. Day light hours are increasing and it will not be long before we start our new daylight saving time, being the 30th of September.
Plants and weeds respond to the increased hours of sunlight as plants obtain their energy from the sun, the more hours of sun, the more hours of growth. I remember some years back talking to a nurseryman from Alaska where in their summer months they have 24 hours of sunlight and plants that would normally take 6 months to mature in our part of the world, do so in less than 3 months with 24 hours of light every day, for several months.
Deciduous plants are now coming out of their winter sleep, producing new foliage to sustain themselves for another season. New leaves appear on our fruit trees and roses, to gather energy from the sun and start their flowering and fruiting cycle for another season.
On some plants such as nectarines and peaches, the new foliage is attractive to a horrible disease called curly leaf. The leaves become blistered and distorted then eventually fall off. Later in the spring, when the time of the disease is past, the future leaves form perfectly. During the time of the disease the trees are unable to generate the full amount of energy they require and thus the season’s crop is affected. Less fruit and in some cases none at all.
The standard control of the disease is every 7 to 10 days to spray with Liquid Copper with Raingard added. The reason for the 7-10 day spray frequency is because you need to have a coverage of the copper over the leaf as it is growing to full size and then protected till the disease time is past.
The Raingard helps as it protects the copper particles from washing off in rain for up to 14 days.
No spraying oils should ever be used with the copper sprays as they reduce the effectiveness of the copper protection.
Some gardeners have also found better results by adding DE (Diatomaceous Earth) to the copper spray and the reason for this is likely to be the silica aspect of DE.
Another approach that I have taken to this and a number of other plant disease problems has been to introduce all the minerals and elements possible to the soil in the root zone of the plants.
This is done by sprinkling Ocean Solids and Simalith once a year, in the spring and drenching the soil with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL).
Later the foliage and soil can be sprayed with the MBL either two weekly or once a month. Giving all these elements to plants for their use builds the plant’s immune system and as a result many disease problems just disappear. Plants are not dissimilar to ourselves, we also require a healthy diet, rich in minerals to have a healthy body and a great immune system.
Thus we have another advantage in adding the three products mentioned to our food crops in so much as our bodies will also benefit when we eat the fruit and vegetables.
It really does work but with plants with low immune systems in may take a couple of seasons to appreciate the benefits. The next aspect to this is to garden the soil instead of the plants.
This means looking after all the beneficial soil life that make for healthy soils and result in healthy plants. By not using anything that can harm the soil life is the key. This includes ALL man made chemical fertilisers, chemical sprays including chemical weed killers and tap water that has had chlorine added to it by our wonderful local councils.
Place filters on the taps, feed the soil with all natural products including all types of animal manures, Gypsum, Dolomite, Rapid Lime (where applicable with lime) blood and bone, straw, sheep manure pellets and compost. The gauge of a healthy soil can be determined by the number of worms per square foot.
As one gardener said to me this week, he has over 50 earthworms per square foot.
Now that is a healthy soil and it is what you need to aspire to.
If you have few or no worms you have a problem and your roses and other plants will not be healthy.
To keep the worms working along with all the other members of the soil life you have to keep the soil moist right through the summer. When the soil dries out too much then the worms go deep and dormant and most of the soil life shuts down.
Watering with chlorinated water only adds to the problem as many of you will have noticed in the summer months.
Plants are attacked by diseases and growth is minimal but when it rains everything comes away with a great flush of healthy growth. The filtered water is not quite as good as rain water straight out of the sky, but it does keep the soil life working without killing them.
I had an interesting but sad telephone call from a lady gardener this week where she explained to me that 18 months ago she had planted up a sloping bank with Leucospermums and Leucadendrons.
These shrubs made a wonderful display from her home looking down the sloping bank.
Prior to winter she laid old carpet over the soil and covered it with bark thinking this would keep the area free of weeds and tidy. These shrubs come from South Africa where they live happily in dry sandy soil that is extremely free draining. The layer of carpet with bark meant that the winter rains soaked the soil and the water could not get away, all the roots of the shrubs rotted and the shrubs died.
A similar story also a couple of months back from a gardener in Blenheim that placed a staple manure/sawdust mix under all his citrus trees going into winter. The winter rains came and next thing the citrus trees started dropping their leaves. He rang at that time to say what was happening.
On my advise the sawdust/manure mix was raked off and last week he phoned to say the trees had recovered and growing well again.
The lesson for us all here is not to apply mulches around plants prior to wet seasons as this will retain too much water in the soil.
Mulches should be applied after the rainy season when the ground has started to dry and then the mulch can be a great advantage in moisture retention during the dry times.
Also plastic film and materials such as carpet are not to be used as they can prevent the soil from breathing and without oxygen the soil becomes anaerobic and plants will die.
But if you have a waste area where you do not want to grow anything then a sheet of black plastic over the area covered with bark or stone chips will certainly keep it clear of weeds.
If you have any plants that have suffered in winter and lost leaves etc then spray the remaining foliage with Perkfection as it helps overcome the wet weather diseases.
It is also a good cure for plants affected with Silverleaf disease and will control the problem as long as the rose or tree has not gone beyond the point of no return.
Remove the affected branches back to clean wood, seal the wounds with a spray of Liquid copper at double strength and then spray the remaining foliage with Perkfection for 3 applications and again 3 times in the autumn. Never prune a plant that is prone to silver leaf disease during cool moist times.
Another tip a gardener gave me a while back was painting full strength Liquid Copper onto the trunk of a tomato plant in the area affected with collar rot. If the disease has not spread too far and part of the trunk is still functioning he reckoned it would save the plant’s life.
Worth a shot as you have nothing to lose with the plant being on the way out anyway.
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This week I thought it would be a good idea to pass on a number of gardening tips which are topical at this time of the year. The idea came about when a reader emailed me this week to get some inside information on growing potatoes.
His family have an annual competition on growing spuds, to see who can grow the biggest potato, the biggest crop off one plant etc. All members of the family grows the same variety of potatoes for the competition and the type each year, is chosen by a non-family person, making all things equal at the start.
Here is my reply to him; ‘First it depends on the soil you are growing in..Generally you should deep cultivate and incorporate a good amount of compost into the soil making a friable loam.
Make a trench about 20cm deep and ensuring the soil underneath is friable and mixed with the compost (Daltons or Oderings Compost is good)
Place about a handful of Sheep manure pellets, a tablespoon of gypsum, and a teaspoon of BioPhos and a teaspoon of potash, cover lightly with a little soil and sit the potato on it with the eyes pointing upwards. Cover with soil/compost mix about 3 cm over seed and water in with Magic Botanic Liquid.
As the shoots come through the soil, lightly cover with more mix. Keep doing this until you have a mound about 12cm tall then allow the tops to grow. Spray the tops two weekly with Magic Botanic Liquid and Mycorrcin. Sprinkle a few of the Neem Pellets or Granules on the mound, by the shoots, in case of soil insects eating into the tubers. The soil should be kept moist at all times but not wet.’
That maybe help to others also and if growing potatoes in buckets I am told the one most suited to this is Moonlight. Here is a tip a gardener told me to reduce codlin moth damage in apples, he reckoned he is able to greatly reduce damage by sprinkling Epsom Salts under the apple trees at this time of the year and watering it in. I don't know how effective it is but certainly worth a shot and the magnesium from Epsom salts would be good for the trees.
Oxalis is a problem for many and the easy way to knock it back is with Baking Soda. Mix a heaped table spoon of baking soda into one litre of warm water, stir to dissolve and add one mil of Raingard.
Spray the foliage of the oxalis on a sunny day when the ground is a bit on the dry side. It burns the oxalis foliage without harming any other plants.
New foliage will appear and this should be also treated in the same manner as soon as it shows. If you stop the bulbs from having leaves they will run out of energy and die.
DO NOT work the soil as this only brings fresh bulbs to the surface and extends the problem. Instead cover the soil with fresh compost and plant into this.
The same solution of baking soda and Raingard is the best spray to prevent and control powdery mildew on any plants affected with this disease. The Raingard spreads and sticks the baking soda and prevents it from washing off in the rain for up to 14 days. This also applies to all contact type sprays such as copper.
If you add Raingard to any chemical weed killers your kill effective rate will be increased by 50% according to trials I have read.
About this time every year I have gardeners complaining about their broad beans flowering but no fruit setting.
(Beans are fruit technically as they have seeds inside which we eat)
The reason for no beans forming, after the flowers fall is due to no pollination, which is due to there not being any bumble bees around early in the season to do the job. Bumble bees have to emerge as queens out of their winter Hibernation and start forming a colony, till this happens and numbers increase not many beans set. Later on the plants produce well.
Some gardeners make bumble bee boxes for the insects to nest in and have these scattered around their gardens.
This is a good idea these days especially in the North Island where there is a much lower population of honey bees in the cities.
Another thing that you can do to encourage any native bees or bumble bees to pollinate the broad beans is to spray them with sugar and water. Dissolve a couple of table spoons of raw sugar into a litre of warm water and spray the plants. The same can be applied to any fruiting plant or tree that requires pollination.
Why raw sugar? Because it is natural and more appealing to the insects, it is also far better for you to take than white, refined sugar.
A lot of us will be germinating and growing seedlings for pots and gardens and every time we transplant, the young plants suffer. This can be simply overcome by spraying the plants a couple of days beforehand with Vaporgard which greatly reduces transplant shock and is ideal to spray onto foliage you are going to cut for cuttings. (For cuttings dip the end in a bit of honey or spit on them, either helps)
If planting out in a windy area or near the sea you can give the plants a far better start by spraying them with the Vaporgard.
Increase the yield, size of the fruit and flavour, of strawberries by spraying them every 2 weeks with Mycorrcin. Trials showed an increase of 200 to 400% and thats a fact.
For best overall results in the garden apply sheep manure pellets or Bio Boost (both are good) instead of any chemical fertilisers.
Spray the preferred plants (roses etc) and food plants with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) every two weeks. Spray the soil around the plants at the same time. Gardeners that have been using this natural spray have reported that they have never had such great gardens and crops before.
MBL makes a really big difference to the health of the plants and soil and you will be impressed.
Many gardeners will be spraying with copper sprays at this time and here is a big one, DO NOT mix any spraying oils with the copper. Sure you have been told in the past to mix the two together and many do so through force of habit. The fact is the oil greatly reduces the effectiveness of the copper and helps wash the copper particles off faster in rain when compared to not having the oil.
Then ask yourself why is the oil used? The simple answer is, it is used to smoother scale or thrip insects. If you have no scale or thrips present, why waste your money? If the pests appear at anytime you can use an oil then, to control them.
Liquid Coppers are more user friendly than powdered ones as they do not block your jets like the powders do.
Soon aphids will appear on the new shoots of roses and other plants; if you have any of those yellow cakes of Sunlight soap, simply lather some up in warm water and spray the aphids. Best done when the sun is off the plants, later in the day. The fatty acids from the soap break down the aphid’s bodies.
If you do not have any of those yellow cakes then use Neem Tree Oil with Key Pyrethrum added.
Whitefly on tomatoes is a great problem for many gardeners and by simply placing some Neem Tree Granules around near the base of the plants, will help prevent their populations from building up without the need to spray much if at all. The granules need to be repeated about every 6-8 weeks.
If you have worms in your lawn causing worm casts that you do not like, then add some Cold Water Surf to warm water and throw that over the lawn. The worms will come to the surface where you should then pick them up and bury these valuable creatures back into your gardens. Someone said recently that it will also bring grass grubs to the surface where the birds will eat them. Not sure if this is correct or not but worth a shot. Do early in the morning as that is when the sparrows etc are looking for breakfast.
There are hundreds of gardening tips but space has run out again, more can be found in my book, Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide. Happy Gardening.
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For many gardeners the lawn area is the biggest garden on their property and being the biggest or nearly so, it should be the best feature on the whole of the section. If the lawn is shabby looking then it will detract ones attention from the most beautiful garden that it borders on. A great lawn makes a shabby garden look good. You will have noticed the immediate improvement, of all the gardens, after you have finished mowing the lawn, its a fact of gardening.
By mowing the lawn to a reasonable height you have cut all the grasses and weeds even, making a belt of green that will look great for a few days.
The trick is to make it look great right up till the next mowing.
Weeds grow faster than the grasses and they are the first problem to be corrected but before we start manicuring our lawn we should take a wander over the lawns and note what is what.
Weeds maybe a problem and the reason that they are is simple, the lawn is not thick enough with fine grasses thus weeds are allowed to establish. Two things are needed, firstly remove the existing weeds and then oversow with new lawn seed to thicken up the existing grasses.
There are chemical weed killers available that can do the job quickly for you such as Turfix, Woodyweed Killer and Hydrocotyle Killer as well as commercial ones. I am not an advocate of using these harmful chemicals but common sense and a busy life will dictate whether you use them or get down on the hands and knees and cut every weed out.
With some weeds such as hydrocotyle and creeping oxalis this would be a near impossible task. There are also granulated chemical lawn weedkillers that can be used as an alternative.
The main points are; keep children and pets off a chemically treated lawn for several days afterwards if possible. Use Raingard with the liquid weedkillers as it will give you better results enhancing the effectiveness of the chemical. Do not use any weedkillers on a young lawn under 6 months old as some types will damage the young grasses.
The following day give the treated lawn a good watering if it does not rain. Two days after treatment mix Magic Botanic Liquid at 20 mls per litre and with the aid of a Lawn Boy spread the mix over the treated lawn. This helps clean up the harmful chemicals used.
If you have grass weeds growing in the lawn such as paspalum then firstly mow your lawn and then wait a few days and you will notice that the grass weeds grow taller than the preferred grasses so you can use a wand to wipe the tops of the offending weeds with Roundup.
Another trick when using weedkillers on lawns is to add Thatch Busta to the spray, this also increases the effectiveness of the spray and helps break down the dying weeds faster as well as clearing the thatch that has built up on the soil’s surface. (Thatch is debris and lawns with brown top in them have a ongoing thatch problem greater than normal)
In choosing a lawn seed mix for patching, over sowing or a new lawn avoid all mixes that have brown top.
Choose instead a fine rye and fescue mix of uncoated seed, Superstrike is one brand that comes to mind.
To thicken up the grasses you need to oversow the lawn and this should be done every spring and autumn until you have the lawn you desire. To do this hire a motorised Scarifier and run it north/south and east/west across the whole lawn. It cuts grooves in the lawn which are great for the new seeds to fall into. After spreading the new seed, lightly water the lawn to wash the seed on to the soil and then roll the lawn.
Rollers can be hired from hire shops that you fill with water to give the weight needed.
On your inspection of the lawn you may find areas of moss growing and this also, like the weeds, needs to be cleaned up. The way to do this is with Moss and Liverwort Control which is jet sprayed into the moss with a pressurised sprayer. A couple of weeks later spray the area with Thatch Busta to clean up the dead moss. (Do not mix the two together as you can with Thatch Busta and a weedkiller)
You may also find on your inspection bare patches or areas where the lawn is browning off or even strips of grass that lift when mowing. This is the damage done by grass grubs that have over the last few months been eating the roots of your grasses. Some gardeners make the wasteful mistake of treating the lawn for the pests when it is the wrong time to do so. You should always lift some turf and examine the soil for the white grubs.
If good numbers are found then use a treatment, if not you are just wasting your time and money. At this time of the year most grass grubs will be pupating, down deep and no matter what you pour on the lawn you not going to kill them.
Between May and July the grass grubs were nibbling away at the grass’s roots and with the cold weather and short daylight hours the grasses were only slowly growing and damage often not noticed. Now when those grasses are trying to grow there is insufficient roots to sustain the growing grass and the grasses die. The horse has gone so why close the gate?
You need to resow the damaged areas and plan to use a treatment for the pests when it is going to be most effective. Treatments can be chemical such as Pyrifos G or the safer more natural control of Neem Tree Granules. (Pyifos G is more effective and less expensive than diazinon.)
Grasses are plants and they do need feeding and once again what you feed will determine how good your lawn is going to be. Common lawn fertiliser does more damage that good, it is a flash in the pan food that can burn the lawn if not applied correctly and it also harms the soil life.
Slow release lawn foods are better even if they are chemical as they give a prolonged feeding time for the grasses.
The best is an organic slow release called Bio Boost which at this time is only available through a few garden centres or PGGWrightson outlets in 25 Kg bags.
Inexpensive at under a dollar a kilo it is ideal for both gardens and lawns.
Slow release lawn foods should be applied twice yearly, spring and autumn though some with faster release times require a 3 monthly application; spring, summer and autumn.
Another thing that really annoys me is gardeners that are advised to use sulphate of iron for moss control. Sure it makes the tops of the moss go black but it does not kill the moss, which within a few weeks is back with vengeance.
Don't waste you time and money of this treatment, instead use a propriety moss killer such as Moss and liverwort Control.
On the other hand if you do not like worm casts in your lawn then use the sulphate of iron as a drench to acidify the top layer of soil and the worms will not come to the surface.
Sulphate of iron will also darken up the green of your grasses which makes them look good. All that is needed for this is a light solution spray of the iron.
Another treatment some gardeners find effective is Cold Water Surf watered into the lawn brings the worms to the surface where you can pick them up and put them into your gardens where you want them.
Some say it will bring grass grubs to the surface also, where the birds can eat them. I await your reports as to this.
Mowing height makes the difference between a great lawn and a poor lawn, the height should be between 25 to 50 mm and never more than one third of the height mowed off in one mowing.
Did you know that your perennial grasses love to be mowed or browsed by animals?
It is true, the grasses gain strength from correct mowing's and over millions of years have evolved to this purpose. When the tops of the grass is cut or eaten, part of the root system dies (as above so below)
the dead roots go to feeding the soil life and thus recycled to feed the grasses. As the tops grow new roots are formed below and this cycle is repeated with every mowing.
For much more information on lawn care you may like to read my recent book, Wally”s Down to Earth Gardening Guide where two chapters are dedicated to lawn care.
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Cherry trees in blossom herald the beginning of spring, not only in New Zealand but in many parts of the world. In Japan there is a believable legend that each spring a fairy maiden hovers low in the warm sky, wakening the sleeping Cherry trees to life with her delicate breath.
We can divide the cherry family ‘Prunus’ into cherry trees grown for their fruit and those that are grown for their ornamental value, especially the spring flowering. The later is often referred to as flowering cherries and it is these that make the really spectacular displays in spring.
For instance in Japan the cherry blossom (sakura) is noted as Japan's unofficial national flower. It has been celebrated for many centuries and takes a very prominent position in Japanese culture.
There are many dozens of different cherry tree varieties in Japan, most of which bloom for just a couple of days in spring. The Japanese celebrate that time of the year with hanami (cherry blossom viewing) with parties under the blooming trees.
Many gardeners love to have a flowering cherry tree as a focal point in their gardens and now is an excellent time to purchase a new season’s specimen from your local garden centre.
Flowering cherry trees are available in several forms, upright columns, spreaders, weepers, etc as well as the fruiting varieties.
The key to successful growing of a cherry tree is a good free draining situation as they cannot handle wet feet. Many a cherry tree has been lost in a wet winter when the roots have been submerged in wet soil, for too long a period.
Interestingly the tree actually dies in winter while dormant, with much of the roots rotting away, but in spring there is a sufficient sap store to rise and produce one last display of blossoms. Some leaves will then form but having too little root left they fall and the tree is no more than firewood.
Because of our climate change it is more important than ever to ensure that your cherry tree will be able to survive a wet winter. The easy way to achieve this when planting out is to make a mound 30 to 40 cm tall and plant your new tree into this mound with suitable staking.
The mound should comprise of friable soil and sand mix with a little compost added.
Cherry trees are not great feeders and a few handfuls of sheep manure pellets a couple of times a year along with a scoop or two of Fruit and Flower Power should do just nicely.
For those that have an existing cherry tree and are concerned about losing it to wet feet, can do two things to reduce this possibility. Just beyond the drip line dig a trench about a spade’s depth, this allows the water from the wet soil to drain into the trench, which will evaporate quicker with sun and wind, making for a drier area around the roots.
A couple of sprays over the foliage in autumn and repeated when the foliage is out in the spring, with Perkfection, will assist the cherry tree to overcome those wet weather diseases such as root rot.
Cherry slugs are likely to damage the foliage in the summer time as they feed on the leaves. Simple to control with one or two sprays of Liquid Copper, as the pest, like ordinary slugs cannot handle copper.
Follow the above and you will have a wonderful display of cherry blossoms for many springs to come.
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The first tomato plants for the season are arriving in garden centres at this time. These include the normal tomatoes as well as the grafted ones which are called Supertoms. Supertoms have a dual rooting system which means they have more roots than a non-grafted tomato.
The extra roots means that they will grow bigger, faster and can give about three times the crop compared to a straight tomato plant.
That is if they are cared for correctly and given ample tomato food for their needs.
Many years ago I developed a special tomato food called Wally’s Secret Tomato Food which is a high powered, quick slow release food with additional magnesium and potash added.
It is available in two forms, straight and with Neem Tree Granules added.
The Neem Tree Granules are interesting, as many gardeners have discovered, that by applying this special mix to the soil near the base of the tomato plant, keeps the whitefly populations from building up.
Whitefly are the enemy of the tomato gardener especially in a glasshouse when it takes no time at all before thousands of these pests are populating your tomato plants.
By having the Neem Tree Granules at the base of the plants right from the start of the season and giving repeat applications every 6 to 8 weeks should keep the plants fairly clean of the pests.
With the aid of the granules I now can grow tomatoes in my glasshouse through the season without ever having to spray for whitefly.
Last season I received many complaints from gardeners that the tomatoes they were growing, grew well but did not set any fruit till much later in the season. If fact many varieties did not set fruit till after Xmas even though the plants were tall and flowering well.
The reason for this was that the temperatures during last spring and early summer were mild and lacking in heat, the flowers of these varieties did not produce the needed pollen to set the fruit.
The same problem could easily occur again this year and to overcome the difficulty you need to choose cold setting types such as Russian Red, Early Girl and Taupo. The small fruiting types with the bite size, cherry tomatoes did not seem to be affected by the cooler temperatures and produced good crops early also.
When you buy your first tomato plants they should be potted up into a 10 cm wide pot using a good compost mix plus sprinkle a little of the tomato food mentioned, on top of the mix.
The plant is then placed into the glasshouse or in a nice sunny sheltered spot.
Some gardeners will place the plants in their pots or into the soil on a northern facing aspect, sheltered from the wind and elements by constructing a plastic frame around the plants.
This can be simply done by inserting 4 strong stakes into the ground making a square that is about 40cm wide on each of the four sides. Plastic food wrap is wrapped around one stake and then run around the four stakes twice to secure and then progressively wrapped higher and higher till you reach the top of the stakes.
This creates a plastic house for your tomato plant to grow inside, well protected from the elements and a heat trap for the sun. If it looks like a frost at night an old sack can be placed across the top of the four stakes to give overhead protection from frost.
During cool times you need to be careful not to overwater your tomato plants as wet feet makes the cold more intense and losses can occur. Keep the growing medium between moist to dry, just giving the young plants sufficient water for their needs. Later when things warm up and the plants are bigger, then progressively greater amounts of water can be applied.
Stem rot or collar rot is one of the great disasters of the tomato gardener.
Plants are normally well developed with a good setting of fruit on them when the disease strikes. The plant starts to wilt during the day, coming right late in the day, but as the disease progresses the wilting becomes worse till the plant dies.
You will notice a dark area around part of the trunk and aerial roots forming above this area as the plant tries to produce roots to save itself.
The disease enters any wound on the plant during moist or humid conditions and once in is usually fatal. Removing laterals during humid times without applying a protective spray of Liquid Copper is dangerous.
Added protection can be applied with a monthly spray of Perkfection starting off as soon as you pot up the plants. One gardener told me that he saved a plant by painting undiluted Liquid Copper onto the area where the rot was happening, before it progressed to far. Worth a try.
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Next month is the first month of spring, according to our yearly calendar, but often the weather dictates an earlier or later time. One fact that remains constant is the number of hours of light between dawn and dusk as each day a few more minutes are added, till we reach the peak around about the 21st of December.
My dear old mum (since passed on) often said that once years ago, it was definitely the longest day for her as she gave birth to me on that day.
Relatively mild temperatures and the increasing hours of light each day mean that plants and weeds are growing steadily in our gardens at this time.
The weeds we do not want and the best way to deal with them is with a sharp knife or Dutch hoe cutting the tops off just below the soil surface. The cut weeds should be gathered and along with some lime and animal manure layered in the compost bin. Weeding in this manner does a very important thing, it leaves the roots intact in the soil which means the beneficial fungi, that attaches itself to the roots of plants, is not disturbed and the soil life will find a great food source from the decaying roots.
This is the ultimate recycling of plant and weed roots that gives your garden soils the most benefits.
A light application of Rapid Lime or Dolomite after weeding will benefit the soil life also.
All your gardening activities should be focused on looking after your garden soils, do this and your soil will look after whatever plants you wish to grow.
Too often gardeners make the mistake of looking after their plants instead of the soil and that is why these gardeners are always having to spray and feed, trying to keep their plants healthy and looking good. If you change your way of thinking and instead of being a plant gardener become a soil gardener, then you will achieve successes you never dreamed of.
Getting ready for spring means for many of us, the germination of seed. Seeds need a certain amount of heat along with adequate moisture to germinate and then the young seedlings need ample overhead light to grow sturdy.
A heat pad is a great boon for the germination of seeds at this time. These should be available from most garden centres, if not go to a farm supply place for a piggy pad. Some will use a hot water cupboard to germinate, but a twice daily check needs to be done to ensure the mix does not become dry.
A bench in the shed or a table in a spare room are ideal to locate your heat pad. Obtain a suitable sized bit of polystyrene sheet to sit the heat pad on. This directs all the heat upwards so you get the maximum benefit of the power you are using. Seedling trays, plug trays can be purchased but any suitable plastic container will do including all those used punnets you likely have stacked away in the shed.
What to use as a seedling mix? From all my years of nursery experience I have found that a good potting mix is best. Seed raising mixes are too expensive in comparison and most of the time give poor results.
There are two basic materials used to make potting mixes, bark fines and peat moss, both are sterile and sometimes combined for some potting mixes. I prefer the bark fines as they give less problems when compared to peat moss mixes.
A combination is ok. Added to the potting mix when it is made is things like lime, dolomite, slow release fertilisers, wetting agents and water retention agents.
What is in the mix will vary from one to another brand, with the more expensive ones having a greater amount of additives. There are some excellent mixes and some very poor ones available and even some of the more expensive are not very good.
The mix should be friable and varying in particle size. Fill the seedling container two thirds full of the straight potting mix and place the container on a tray of water to allow the mix to wet down. Then with the aid of a kitchen strainer, sieve some potting mix to place a layer of fine material a couple of millimeters deep over the original potting mix.
Next space out or scatter (which ever is best for the seed you are sowing) onto this layer.
Then in a trigger sprayer, make up a solution of Magic Botanical Liquid at 20 mils per litre rate and mist the seeds so they are nice and moist. Next sieve a little more mix to barely cover the seeds and then mist again. Onto the heat pad and twice a day moisten the mix with your mister.
With many types of seeds it only takes a few day or up to a week or so before you start to see germination taking place. The first two leaves are embryo leaves and not true leaves and as soon as there is a reasonable show of these, you must move the seedling tray to a full natural light situation such as a glasshouse. A window sill is no good as the light only comes from one direction and the seedlings will stretch to that light and losses can easily occur.
If you do not have a glasshouse take an old drawer and place a couple of sheets of glass over it.
The seedling trays can be placed inside the drawer, which will be placed in a sheltered spot outside.
A table by the back door would be good. The seedlings will not require as much watering as when they were on the heat pad and likely a light misting once a day will be all that is needed.
If you fear a frost at night simply place a few sheets of newspaper over the glass with stones to hold in place.
Remove the paper next morning. As the seedlings grow taller then remove the glass off the drawer on nice sunny days to place back in the evening.
Beware of damage from birds during the day and a bit of bird netting stretched over the drawer can be used when the glass is removed.
The glass will prevent snails from getting the seedlings at night.
When the seedlings are big enough to handle, they are ready to be pricked out and placed ideally into cell packs or small pots. Before pricking out, place the tray into a container of water to ensure the mix is very wet. This allows you to lift the seedlings out with the minimum of root damage.
(Now you will see why a fine bark mix is best as the roots come away easily from the particles)
A tool should be used to separate and lift the individual seedlings. I used to have a miniature spade from a set of tools for use on container plants until it wore out after transplanting millions of seedlings over the years.
I replaced it with a teaspoon that I flattened and ground to a blunt point. Not as comfortable to use as my old spade but then I don't do anywhere the number of seedlings as when I had a nursery.
Once into their new pots or cell pack they can go back into the drawer or glasshouse to grow on where they can stay till ready to either plant out or pot up. You can also save yourself a lot of trouble and time by spraying the seedlings, a few days before transplanting, with Vaporgard.
The film protects them against the elements, removing the need to harden off. It also makes a big difference in the re-establishing time.
Gardeners that like to grow kumera plants should now be selecting a few kumera from the green grocery for shooting or sprouting. A few days in a hot water cupboard maybe needed to break dormancy and once the eyes start to move place the tubers in trays of potting mix buried about 2-3 cm deep.
Keep moist but do not over water. Ideally place the trays in the glasshouse or a sunny spot with frost protection. The kumera shoots will break the surface over time and grow on till they are about 18 cm tall.
About that height they are ready to harvest as plants. Wet down the tray and then lift the kumera tubers. With a small sharp knife cut each shoot off the tuber taking a little bit of the tuber and being careful not to damage any roots that have formed on the shoot. They are now ready to plant out.
A spray of Vaporgard over the foliage a few days before you remove the shoots will make the world of difference in success and time to establish in their bed.
Happy Gardening.
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Last week I popped into a local garden centre and was taken back on all the new season’s stocks of things that we should be getting organised to do. Spring vegetables and flower seedlings, seed potatoes, asparagus crowns, liliums, strawberry plants, fruit trees and ornamentals to name some of the main lines.
The weather has been mild (except for the cold or wet blasts that have passed through) and more importantly the daylight hours are increasing very quickly. The growth is happening and so it is time to get gardening.
Keen gardeners like an early start and by providing any necessary protection for the more tender plants it is time to get cracking. Lets look at a few of the jobs we should be doing.
Seed potatoes can be purchased now to sprout and green up for planting out in a few weeks time.
I strongly recommend gardeners to grow a few spuds as home grown taste so much better than any that I have purchased (the exception would be a few commercial growers such in Southland who do still produce good tasting spuds)
Recently I came across a few self sown potatoes when clearing a small garden plot, nice big firm tubers that I cooked for tea that night. I can still taste the lovely flavour and made the comment at the meal table, ‘this is what spuds used to taste like’.
The first thing to do once you get your new seed potatoes home is to lay them out in wooden trays, not quite touching.
To break dormancy they need to be in a warm situation and if you have a hot water cupboard that is an ideal place to put them, to get the ‘eyes’ moving.
As soon as this happens, take them outside and place in a protective spot such as under a carport or shrubs. They need good light to ‘green up’ and harden the new shoots.
The area where you are going to plant them should be forked over to loosen the soil, a trench dug about a spade depth and the sub soil forked to loosen.
Place a small hand full of sheep manure pellets and a table spoon of gypsum under each seed potato with a little potash and BioPhos. The new sprouts should be facing upwards and then covered with a little soil.
As the new growths come through cover with more soil.
This protects the foliage from frosts and on days that a frost is likely that evening, you need to ensure that the foliage is protected with a layer of soil.
The continual covering with soil forces the stems to grow tall and it is along these stems that the new potatoes will form. The longer the stem the more new potatoes.
Once the danger of frosts has passed, or by using Vaporgard (the spray on frost protection) after the mounds have reached the desired height should prevent frost damage.
Early types will be ready in 60 to 90 days and late types taking 120 days.
Protection against blight can be obtained with a monthly spray of Perkfection and if blights appear then a two weekly spray of Liquid Copper should also be applied.
Asparagus crowns are planted at this time of the year also and the secret of a successful bed that will produce ample asparagus for many years starts with forming a deep, rich bed.
A sunny situation is needed but choose one where the tall summer foliage will not shade other vegetables. In other words at the back of a sunny garden. Dig out the soil to a depth of 30 cm for the size of the bed required and fill the bed with a mix of mostly animal manure and a little soil.
Then cover with a couple of centimeters of compost. The crowns are laid out on the compost with their roots spread out like a star fish. Then cover with another 75mm of compost. The first year you just allow the plants to grow their ferns and when mature in the autumn they are cut down, being careful not to drop seeds into the bed. In early winter apply 100mm of rotten manure over the bed and if available a layer of seaweed.
If you do not have access to seaweed then apply Ocean Solids at the rate of 35 grams per square metre.
The frosts of winter will do the breaking down of the manure and spring will herald the appearance of new shoots.
A light harvesting of some shoots maybe made in year two and this is done by cutting through the shoot 1 cm under the soil. A longer harvest period in year 3 and by year 4 the bed will give you a full harvest for about a month.
Peas can be sown this month if you like to grow a few for those really freshly shelled peas.
The only problem is to get the peas to germinate in cold soil.
To overcome this make a shallow trench and place fresh grass clippings in the trench with animal manure and Rapid Lime, cover with a layer of compost and lay the pea seeds on the compost at the right spacing.
Cover the seed with more compost and then water in with Mycorrcin.
The grass clippings, manure and Mycorrcin heat the soil and your peas germinate quickly and grow fast with all that goodness. Peas are not frost tender but can be damaged by powdery mildew.
If the mildew appears spray immediately with a solution of one heaped tablespoon of baking soda to one litre of warm water with one mil of Raingard added. This is the best control and prevention for powdery mildew that I am aware of and can be used over any plants safely except for oxalis where it kills the foliage. (Pity about that)
A two weekly spray program using Liquid Copper and Raingard should be commenced over fruit trees and roses to protect the new growths from a range of diseases. The advantage of the Liquid Copper over the powdered forms is there is little chance of blocked jets which is the curse of any powder type sprays.
I have a plum tree that each year has two problems, bladder plum and brown rot.
Now that Ocean Solids and Simalith are available I gave the tree a dose of these two mineral rich products last August, before the tree started moving for the new season. I decided not to spray the tree at all except for an occasional spray of Magic Botanic Liquid. The result was interesting as I only found a couple of fruit that had the bladder plum disease and about 5 with brown rot later in the summer.
A very good result and so again I have applied these two mineral products to not only the plum but all my fruit trees and roses.
These two products are only applied once a year for the likes of fruit trees and roses and the theory behind this is if a plant has every possible mineral available then it builds a strong immune system making it difficult for disease to establish. Then it is only a matter of keeping the soil moisture level up and avoid the use of chemical fertilisers and sprays, applying animal manures and compost instead.
Placing a filter on your garden hose tap to remove the harmful chlorine is also desirable in maintaining a healthy soil.
Minerals such as calcium, sulphur and magnesium are very important for your gardens and these are obtained by mixing dolomite and gypsum together 50/50 and applying it to all gardens including cared for lawns. In the vegetable plot where tomatoes and potatoes are not going to be grown Rapid Lime can also be added to the mix. Calcium is the fuel that feeds the soil life along with animal manures and compost.
A recent phone call from an elderly gardening couple in Christchurch confirmed once again the fact that chemicals only cause problems in the garden. They told me that they have started using my suggestions in regards to their roses, avoiding rose fertiliser and chemical sprays as they are sick of always having diseased roses. They told me that they have a sister in law who has fantastic roses, feeds them sheep manure and never sprays at all.

It is very true; Work with Nature, feed the soil and everything will come out rosy.
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It is about that time of the year when gardeners oil up their secateurs, put on their gloves and go out to do battle with their thorning but well loved roses. To give a guide to this annual event I have taken some extracts from my recent book, Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide. (in italics)

Just how you go about pruning your roses is really up to you, but the most popular cut is to prune somewhere above the third or fourth outgoing buds. This will create a champagne-glass shape which means that the inner part of the rose will receive adequate light. Some in growing buds can be rubbed out to prevent the centre of the bush becoming too congested.
If you prune the low to second outgoing buds, you will end up with strong new growths which will bear fewer flowers, but better blooms. If you prune high, say to the fifth or sixth outgoing buds, you'll end up with a denser bush with a lot of flowers.
Here's an interesting story which adds a twist to pruning.
Owners of a large rose garden invited several Rose Society members to come along and each prune a rose bed in their preferred way. One bed was then left untouched for a council worker to prune the following day when no-one else was around.
The council worker used - wait for it - a chainsaw with which he lobbed off all the canes to just a few inches above ground level.
In early summer, another Rose Society's members was invited to the rose garden to judge which of the rose beds had the best display. The judge's number one choice was the bed pruned with a chainsaw!

Pruning climbing roses is a somewhat different affair.
Assuming you don't want a rambling rose which grows where and how it wants, you need to shape your climbing rose to form a framework of main branches along a wall, a fence, or over an archway.
The aim is to have the new season's growth sprouting from this framework and producing the much-wanted floral display, but to get to that stage requires careful training and selective pruning.
After planting your climber, let the branches grow and tie them to the support over which the rose is growing to cover the desired area.
A reader recently asked me how many plants he should buy, and how far apart he should plant them, when putting in Dublin Bay climbing roses to create a solid "wall" along his fence line.
I replied that the normal distance apart would be one metre, but it would be his subsequent pruning and control which would determine how thickly the lower part of the floral structure would grow.
For example, I explained, take the lowest buds and train them sideways to fill in the space between the rose plants.
Take the next buds at about 30 degrees, then 60 degrees, then 90 degrees until each rose has a fan-like structure from which each year's new shoots will grow. Once the wall is nicely covered, it is simply a matter of cutting back or tying in those growths extending too far from the wall.
Once you've established the basic framework of the climber, the only pruning needed is to remove any branches which have grown outwards and detract from the desired effect, and remove any dead wood, spindly growth or dead branches.
Over time, replace the old branches with new ones which you have trained during the season to become part of the framework. Your work during the growing season of a climber consists more of training and tying back than anything else, as the branches will grow quickly from new shoots in the spring and summer period.
The chances are, they will initially grow away from where you want them, but all you need do is tie them back to the framework. Then comes winter, you can remove them if you want to prevent the framework from becoming too congested, or you can leave them in the framework and remove older branches instead.
It is really important to remember to never cut a climber down as low as you would a bush rose. Climbers treated in this fashion often revert back to bush roses. Always leave a few branches of a metre or more in length, even when doing a hard cut-back such as might be the case when you're repairing or painting the wall or fence.

I remember some years back a prominent rose grower criticised an article that I wrote about using hygienic practices when pruning roses or other plants. His retort was you did not need to take any special care when pruning several roses, one after another.
My answer to this is common sense and logic. If an aphid can travel from one rose to another and transfer a virus or disease then the jaws of a pair of a pair of secateurs are a lot bigger than the jaws of an aphid! Anyway lets read on a bit more;

Whatever rose you are pruning, and whatever technique you use, there are some invaluable tips you should adopt for the post-prune process. First, you must spray each rose with Liquid Copper immediately after pruning to protect the wounds.
Don't, however, prune on a cool moist day - remember our earlier warning about silver leaf disease. It is also crucial to keep in mind that viruses can be transferred from rose to rose, so make sure you spray copper onto the secateurs after pruning each rose.
Alternatively, use methylated spirits. The latter is even better than the copper in providing protection.
Simply fill a cup almost full of the meths, and dip the partly open blades into the cup, making sure all the cutting edges are well soaked.
In a nutshell then, pruning consists of cutting back the rose, spraying the remaining canes with Liquid Copper, and then dipping the secateurs blades into methylated spirits. Then move on to the next rose and repeat the procedure.

Thats all fairly simple isn't it? But lets give a few extra tips.

Take your bottle of Liquid Copper, (it has the great advantage of already being liquid so there is little risk of blocked jets in the middle of a job) and double the normal amount (which is 3.5 mils to a litre of water) to 7 mils per litre, add in one ml of Raingard so the spray stays on, rain or shine for up to 14 days.
Mix up and place in a trigger sprayer and use this spray after pruning each rose to cover the wounds.
Once made up the spray will keep for sometime but you need shake the sprayer well as the copper will settle. When using Raingard or its spray on frost protection cousin, Vaporgard, you must remember that these are films which set on the areas sprayed, to obtain their benefits.
This means that after you have finished spraying with these aids, that you flush and spray some clean water through your sprayer otherwise the residues left will set and block up the jets.
Hot water is best to use for this purpose and spray the water till it runs clean.
If on the other hand you forget to do this simple task, then when you come to use the same sprayer again and find that the jets are blocked, you need to dismantle and clear the jets with a bit of fine wire and soak them in methylated spirits.
Choose your day to prune carefully, it should be after a few days without rain with sun and wind to dry the soil and air.
This is very important as the deadly silver leaf disease favours entering fresh wounds when the air is moist and cool. In areas where silver leaf disease is a major problem extra care should be taken.
It is also a very good practise in the spring, after a reasonable amount of new foliage appears, to give the roses a couple of sprays, a month apart, with Perkfection.
This builds up the immune system of the rose and can allow a rose to recover from the disease if it is not too far advanced.
It also protects against a number of other diseases as well, though the fortified immune system.
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Raised beds for gardening is a great way to make gardening easy and at the same time produce a good range of vegetables or flowers.
The advantages as I see them are; less bending, tidy gardens, attractive gardens, less weeding, no digging, superior produce or plants, ease of watering, great drainage, ease of harvesting and a pleasure to garden even if you are not really into gardening.
I have viewed some excellent raised gardens over the years and have always been very impressed with the lay out and thought that the owners have put into their work.
To obtain really good crops you need about 30cm of good humus based soil to allow plants to root deep.
Deep rooting plants will produce greater amounts of foliage when compared to shallow rooting ones.
When this is applied to brassicas, lettuce, silverbeet and similar foliage crops the more tops the better harvest. Plants that can root deep require less spacing giving you greater production on each square metre. With root crops such as potatoes, carrots, parsnips, beetroot etc they fair better and bigger when they can easily penetrate deeper into the soil.
A raised garden can be of any height over 30cm tall built on top of the ground in a fairly sunny situation. An ideal height would likely be 70cm tall and at that height a person in a wheel chair is able to garden still. The width of the raised garden should not be too wide with one metre being ideal as long as you have access from both sides.
A metre wide allows three rows of potatoes or brassicas, two of which are planted near the sides with one in the middle.
The length of the raised garden will depend on your needs and the amount of room available.
As with anything new it is better to start in a small way and extend over time as your enthusiasm for this way of gardening increases.
A starting raised garden would likely be a metre wide, 70cm tall and between 1 metre to 2 metres long.
Timber is likely to be the best material to use for the structure but a combination of timber and corrugated iron for the sides is another alternative and one that has the advantage of collecting heat from the sun to warm the growing medium. The added heat will greatly reduce maturity times.
For this structure you simply need 2 sheets of corrugated iron 1.8 metres long and another sheet cut into two, 1 metre lengths for the ends and 6 lengths of wood 100x100mm 70cm long.
The wood used should be ground treated tanalised to ensure the structure has a long life.
We do not want the chemicals from the tanalising process leaching into our garden so the first step is to paint them all over with a couple of coats of acrylic paint. If you prefer not even to use tanalised timber then obtain non treated wood and treat it yourself with a solution of borax to preserve the wood.
The formula is 150 grams of borax dissolved in 1 litre of water and painted on the wood including the ends. Allow to dry and then give it another coat or two. The borax would soon wash off if you did not seal the wood so once again a couple of coats of acrylic paint.
You will note that I have suggested that the wood is only 70mm long which is the same width of the corrugated iron, this will make the raised garden free standing and a structure that could be dis-assembled if need be in the future. This also avoids the need to dig holes and cement posts into the ground. The structure will be very stable once it is filled with our growing medium.
Rather than nail the iron to the wooden uprights (posts) drill holes through the iron and screw it to the posts. How to construct: Lay the posts on the ground and place a sheet of iron over them so that there is a post at each end flush with the iron and one dead centre in the middle. Now drill your holes for the screws and screw it up. There should be one screw at every place where the iron touches the post.
Repeat the same with the other 3 posts and the one remaining 1.8 metre length of iron.
Now move these two sheets and their posts to the spot where you are going to have your raised garden. The spot should be in a sunny area with either the end or one side facing towards the north. One side facing north will be best for maximum heat to the growing medium.
Now on the remaining sheet of iron mark off one metre and cut the iron with tin snips. Repeat for a second one metre length being the two ends.
Lay one of the sides on the ground with the iron on the ground and the posts exposed, drill and screw the two ends to the outside of the exposed posts. Once done stand this side where you want the structure to be and raise the other side to match keeping it squarely in shape.
Drill and screw the remaining side to the iron ends. We now have an oblong box 1.8 metres long and a metre wide with two posts in the middle.
If we were to leave it at that, when filled the iron would likely bend outwards so a central support is needed.
This is done simply by taking a couple of one metre lengths of 50x100 timber (painted as described previously) and screwing these half way up the centre posts on either side of the posts. Now we have a stable structure that has been very easy to build.
To fill this structure firstly place a layer of twigs and thin branches over the bottom. This will aid in initial drainage and provide carbon. Next cover this with a inch or two of untreated saw dust or wood shavings to further increase the carbon content. Next a couple of inches of top soil.
From this point up wards a number of materials maybe used in layers such as straw, animal manures, kitchen scraps, wet newspaper, grass clippings, green waste, top soil and compost. You need not fill the raised garden to the top at this stage in fact with the materials just mentioned take it to about 40cm deep and the finish off with5 to 10 cm of compost with a little top soil added.
Now sprinkle Ocean Solids and Simalith, for the extra minerals they provide, at the recommended rates on the jars.
Then make a mix of one part Rapid lime, one part Gypsum and one part Dolomite and also sprinkle this over the area at the rate of 100 grams per square metre. Lightly water and you are ready to start planting or sowing seeds. If you have a worm farm or worms in the garden collect some and add them to the raised garden as you are putting the initial layers, in but do not put them directly onto lawn clippings or green waste.
When you harvest crops, disturb the growing medium as little as possible and with foliage crops and weeds just cut them off with a sharp knife just below soil level. Root crops should be carefully lifted with disturbance. To plant seed potatoes take a round pole 100mm wide with a sharped point and press this into the mix to a depth of about 20 to 30 cm. Drop the seed potato into this hole and push some mix in to just cover the potato.
When the new shoots appear in the bottom of the hole sprinkle a little compost to just cover. Repeat till the foliage breaks free of the top of the mix. A little mounding maybe done as required after this. When you harvest use your hands, so once again the medium has minimum disturbance. The reason for non disturbance of the soil is to not upset the soil life and beneficial fungi.
When a crop is harvested you simply cover the area with some fresh compost and plant up again.
If you do not want to plant vegetables straight away, plant a cover crop such as lupin, oats, wheat, peas, mustard etc. (A mix of several is great) If you wish to grow tall crops such as corn or tomatoes place them on the southern side of the raised garden so the lower crops are closer to the north for sun and do not get shaded by the taller plants.
You can grow runner beans up the stalks of the corn, once the corn is up 20cm tall plant the bean seeds. To keep the area around the raised garden tidy lay a strip of weedmat and cover with pebbles or bark chips or lay some paving slabs. Later on you may wish to construct more raised gardens after you have so much success with the first one. A nice project this time of the year so that it is ready for spring planting.
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Winter might be a bit of a hard time for us with the wet and cold but at least we can get warm & dry by putting on dry clothing or lighting a fire. If you were a plant stuck in a pot or in a garden there is nothing you could do to combat the wet and cold. This is silly you may say, as plants are plants and whatever Nature throws at them is a problem of Nature not yours.
Wrong, the plants you place in your garden or pots are your problem as those plants did not have any choice in the matter. Too often we place a plant where we would like it to grow, whether it is a suitable place for that particular plant or not. If the conditions are not ideal for the plant (soil/drainage/sun/shade etc) the plant will not thrive, be poorly and maybe even die. We are then likely to say that we don't have green fingers and that is the problem. The problem is our lack of understanding the needs of each type of plant and then providing for those needs to the best of our ability.
I will give you two classic examples of right plant: wrong place;
Citrus trees resent wet feet which means that they must be grown in an area that is free draining and sunny. Many areas have heavy clay soils with a bit of top soil on top of the clay. Clay holds water in wet times and goes like concrete in dry times. Place a citrus tree into that situation and you would be lucky if it faired well.
Alternatively if you created a good sized raised bed in the same area and planted the same tree in the bed it would thrive, or if you planted the same tree into a 100 litre container with a good mix of compost and top soil and then buried the container half into that spot it would also thrive. This means in some cases you can grow something successfully, in the spot you want to grow it, if you create a better environment for it.
Another example is the very popular winter flowering plant, cyclamen, which are available from garden centres at this time. I remember some years back an elderly lady sending me a photograph of a Cyclamen plant she had purchased that had over 50 flowers on it.
She had placed the cyclamen on a coffee table in the middle of her lounge and even though it did have a mass of flowers it was a pitiful sight. Being some distance from the window in a room that would go from very warm to very cold quickly (dependant on the heating being on or off) the poor plant was stretching for needed light and suffering badly from rapid temperature fluctuations.
Added to this was likely overwatering. I believe her pride and joy would have passed into Cyclamen heaven shortly after the photo was taken.
Pop down to your garden centre and have a look at the cyclamen that have freshly arrived from a nursery. They look beautiful, lots of flowers and many buds, standing proud and very tempting to purchase. If you do buy one and take it home make sure you give it the right treatment so it will look just as good over the weeks ahead. Cyclamen love the cold and require ample bright light. They hate it too warm and detest wet feet.
Indoors they need to ideally sit on a windowsill getting as much light as possible and every few days they should be turned around 180 degrees so that the side facing away from the window gets its share of good light for a while. If you don't do this then it will become unbalanced as the side away from the window struggles to get to the light.
Wait till the foliage or flowers droop a bit through lack of moisture then give it a reasonable drink of cold water or even better plunge it into a bucket of water, wait till it stops bubbling and then place it outside on a full light porch for a couple of days before returning it to the windowsill. A bit of a liquid plant food in the water would also be an advantage to the bulb.
When you draw the blinds at night in your then heated room the cyclamen will be in the cool area between the window and the blind and not suffer from too much heat.
If you have visitors coming by all means bring the cyclamen down and put it on the coffee table so it can be admired but after they go put it back on the windowsill or onto the porch outdoors.
I remember reading years ago about the Victorian homes which would have excellent displays of ferns, palms and many other plants living in rooms with curtains that would be drawn much of the time.
These plants received very little natural light but to the visitor they appear to be thriving.
The reason for this was that every few days the servants would take all the plants out into the conservatory and bring in identical plants, fresh from the conservatory, to spend their few days before being swapped around again.
Indoors house plants need to be near to windows and even more so in the winter when day light hours are short.
Over watering of indoor plants in winter is fatal as wet mix makes for much colder roots when the heating goes off and this spell root rots. Ideally one should wait till the mix is just about bone dry and the plant’s leaves start to droop then give a small drink to just moisten up the mix a little.
In winter pot plants do not need much water. Another problem arises that in heated rooms the air becomes dry and thus moisture is sucked out of the plant’s foliage (and your skin also)
This drying can cause the tips of leaves to dry and go brown and sometimes extends over the whole leaf. To overcome this problem you need to get moisture into the air for the sake of the plants and your own skin. A shallow dish of water above or near the heat source was what I used to recommend but a better way is to string a line of nylon cord about 30mm below the ceiling between two walls, at one end of the room.
Throw your damp washing over the line to dry. Costs nothing extra for dry washing and your plants enjoy the moisture, in fact since doing this in my lounge, I need only actually water the plants about once a month.
Plants growing outdoors can be assisted in winter by supplying them with a little Fruit and Flower Power every month. It contains potassium and magnesium which keeps the foliage from yellowing in winter and hardens up the growth making them more cold resistant.
Wet feet hurt a lot of plants and if you make a trench around existing gardens, about a spade deep, then surplus water runs into the trench where it will more quickly evaporate with wind and sun helping drain the bed. This can also be done just out from citrus tree’s drip line to aid them.
Also a monthly spray of Perkfection helps prevent plants succumbing to wet root diseases as it builds up their immune systems.
I am sometimes asked why a plant or citrus tree has lost its leaves during a wet period where the same plant has been in that spot for several years. This can happen due to concrete paths been laid or construction happening where the natural water course for surplus water has been changed.
A concrete driveway for instance will collect a lot of rain water which cant soak in, so the water runs off into surrounding areas. Another example can be a evergreen tree as it gets bigger the foliage deflects a lot of rain into the drip line (thats why its called a drip line) and creates a water course further and further out, over time, while the soil under the tree is much drier. This new course of water maybe then running through where the old citrus tree is growing and the extra water becomes a problem for it.
It is all fairly logical; for instance the neighbours might put in a BBQ area near the dividing fence and the following wet period your citrus tree suffers.
Frost tender plants should be protected with the spray on frost protection Vaporgard, or covered with frost cloth. Look after your plants now and you should still have them with you later in the year.
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Last weeks article on pure sulphur derived from plants (methylsulfonylmethane or MSM) appeared to create a lot of interest as I received a lot of emails and phone calls in regards to it.
Many of the callers where gardeners in my own age group or a bit older and most commented on how the nutritional value of our food chain has dropped in the last 50 or so years.
They can remember their parents and their own early gardens being only fertilised with blood & bone along with animal or chook manures and how great the gardens were.
Chemicals whether they were fertilisers or sprays were never used (or needed) and the general health of New Zealanders was far better off than it is today. It is all common sense really.
The recent case of the chemical aspartame in diet chewing gum is only the tip of the chemical poison iceberg. The food industry has so much money tied up in using this chemical in your food (about 5000 products in the supermarket use or have it) that they will resist any attempt to have it banned.
I had to smile at the chewing gum spokes person that stated that aspartame is the most tested food additive in history. If it was so safe, why did it have to be tested so many times by institutions that were in the pay of the manufacturers or companies that use it?
The most recent independently financed study in Italy shows a definite link between aspartame and cancer in rats. Monsanto{the producer of aspartame} could have a good use for the chemical, as a rat poison. If a chemical has health effects on rats then it has also health problems for us.
Our health is very dependant on what we eat and if we are buying food stuffs from the supermarket which are laced with various chemicals, many of which from studies overseas have proved to be harmful to our health, and if we do not have any really good, nutritional high, chemical free food, we have health problems either short or long term...
If we want better health, we have to grow at least some of our own home grown vegetables and fruit without using any chemicals. This is easy even if you do not have much in the way of garden space for growing healthy vegetables in. Containers and especially polystrene boxes with a depth of 180mm or more are ideal to grow in.
Bung a few holes in the base for drainage and fill the tray to near full with any good compost available from a centre. Mix into the compost a couple of handfuls of clean top soil (chemical free if possible) or even better a similar amount of worm casts.
The reason for adding either the clean soil or worm casts is to introduce all the microbes that naturally live in the soil to aid the health of your plants.
These microbes, of which there can be up to 500,000 in the space of a full stop at the end of this sentence, will aid in the breakdown of the organic matter converting it to inorganic food for your crops.
If you are not sure if the soil you are going to add to the compost is clean of chemicals and full of soil life, then look for a spot in the garden where there are plenty of worms.
Worms are a good indicator of healthy soil and you can also add a number of the worms you find, to the compost mix where they will do a lot of great work keeping the mix open and creating nitrogen for your plants.
To ensure that the produce you grow has the maximum amount of goodness (nutritional value) you simply incorporate a little Ocean Solids and Simalith Rock dust into the medium and spray the plants with Magic Botanic liquid once or twice a month. These products supply all the extra elements that plants need for their health and yours. You can grow a great range of vegetables in these trays such as lettuce, brassicas, (miniatures) carrots, onions, beetroot, silverbeet, spinach etc.
If you wish to take improving your health to a higher level then also grow and juice wheat grass with the added minerals.
I received an interesting news letter this week about what is happening with corn in the USA. The USA has over a number of years gone crazy, growing masses of corn/maize, so much so that it costs the farmers more to harvest a bushel of corn, than the price they receive for the same bushel, and if it was not for the Government’s subsidies they would have gone broke a long time ago.
Except for organic corn grown, all the corn is grown with agri-chemicals and fertilisers and is a mix of GE corn as well as conventional. The food industry latched onto this cheap source of food and have played with corn to such an extent that a large percentage of all food stuffs in a supermarket has some percentage of corn in its manufacture.
Cheap corn has kept the price of a lot of manufactured food at a reasonable price. This is all changing as the corn is now being converted to ethanol to run automobiles on.
The American corn growers are happy about this and many are gearing up to increase the amount of corn planted each year. The news letter pointed out the following facts: In the past 12 months, the global corn price has doubled.
Because corn is the most common animal feed, this affects the price of milk, cheese, eggs, meat, as well as corn-based sweeteners and cereals. In the U.S., milk prices have nearly doubled. Butter prices in Europe have spiked by 40%. Pork prices in China are up 20%.
In Mexico there have been riots in response to a 60% rise in the cost of tortillas.
In six of the past seven years, global grain consumption has exceeded production. As a result world grain reserves have dwindled to 57 days. This is the lowest level of grain reserves in 34 years.
While the UN lists 34 countries as needing food aid. Quote of the week is; "The stage is now set for direct competition for grain between the 800 million people who own automobiles, and the world's 2 billion poorest people."
The grain required to fill a 25 gallon gas tank with ethanol would feed one person for a year.
Next year, 30% of U.S. corn will be used for ethanol. Instead, the same amount of fuel could be saved by increasing average fuel efficiency by just three miles per gallon. (End of email)
Some commentators have worked out that the amount of fossil fuel used to grow/transport/convert a bushel of corn, is greater than the amount of ethanol that can be obtained from the bushel.
The fossil fuels are used in transporting, harvesting, cultivating, sowing, spraying, manufacture of the agri-fertilisers and chemicals along with the energy require in the conversion. If this is the case the whole exercise seems very pointless.
I read that China has declined using grain crops to produce ethanol as the increased cost of food for their millions of people would create not only expensive foods but would lead to famines.
We in New Zealand are effected by what happens overseas and a good portion of our supermarket food chain is also obtained or has a corn base which means our cost of living will increase.
Another good reason to grow as much of your own food as possible and to purchase locally grown food whenever you can. As the Chinese say; ‘Interesting Times.’
Now is the time to sow indoors hardy vegetable seeds for planting out in early spring.ooooo
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Sulphur is a basic element of nature and is one of the most abundant elements in the earth's crust. Like nitrogen, sulphur is an essential component in the growth of all living things.
Sulfur or sulphur (American spelling and English spelling) is the chemical element that has the symbol S and atomic number 16.
It is an abundant, tasteless, multivalent non-metal. Sulphur, in its native form, is a yellow crystalline solid.
In nature, it can be found as the pure element or as sulfide and sulfate minerals. It is an essential element for life and is found in two amino acids, cysteine and methionine.
Its commercial uses are primarily in fertilizers, but it is also widely used in gunpowder, matches, insecticides and fungicides.
The recognition of the importance of sulphate for plant growth and vigour and hence crop yield, as well as the nutritional importance of sulphur for human and animal diets, has led to an increased emphasis on research on the processes of sulphate uptake, transport and assimilation.
After entry into the plant, sulphate is the major form of transported as well as stored sulphur. The delivery of sulphate into plastids for assimilation, sulphate storage within the vacuoles, and the long-distance transport between organs in order to fulfil the source/sink demands during plant growth require specific sulphate transporter proteins.
Sulphur is a building block of proteins, enzymes and vitamins and is a key ingredient in the formation of chlorophyll. Crops which are sulphur deficient typically show stunted or tall spindly growth, general yellowing of younger leaves and reduced seed set.
Recently I received an email from a reader that contained an article by Patrick McGean, Director of Live Blood and Cellular Matrix Study, Body Human Project; in the United States.
The study was inspired by a fatal type of breast cancer. This type of germ cell reproductive cancer had been reported to respond to organic sulfur. While researching this cancer it appeared that the sulfur cycle plays an important role in the regeneration of our cells. The Study also discovered that it appeared that the use of chemical fertilizers had effectively broken the sulfur cycle in those countries which use these fertilizers.
The article states; ‘Diseases we hadn't even heard of have become typical, cancer has grown at an unprecedented rate, and the quality of our food has been greatly diminished. Is there a correlation?
Since 1954 all disease rates in the US have gone up approximately 4,000%.
In 1954 chemical fertilizers were mandated by our government.
Fertilizers such as ammonium nitrates and sulfates, which lack bio available appear to have broken the sulfur cycle.
This appears to have contributed to the decline of our health, wealth, mental acuity, and our quality of life.
We believe when the Study has completed is work that this will clearly demonstrates the connection of the lack of sulfur and the inability of cells to regenerate in a healthy manner.
Sulfur is known to bond with almost every other mineral. Sulfur has demonstrated its ability to detoxify heavy metals in conjunction with the transport of oxygen across the cell membrane, thus allowing regeneration. Sulfur is also the key player as a precursor for the utilization of amino acids, which are the body's building blocks. Of all of the amino acids some 70% are sulfur based.’
There are two types of sulphur; elemental sulphur which we use in various forms for gardening and organic sulphur (methylsulfonylmethane or MSM) which is the sulphur derived from plants.
MSM is found in some health type shops but the study has found that these MSM’s packaged with anti-caking ingredients, block the bio availability of sulfur to the cells.
The same thing happens when organic sulfur is released into the sea or evaporates and falls with rain, that sulfur is bound up by the chemical fertilizers as sulfites and sulfates. This meant that early studies with participants showed no change in their health.
The study then found a pure source of MSM and results started to happen to the participants.
Organic sulfur by comparison to commercially available MSM is a remarkable mineral for arthritis, and produces the effects which have been reported.
Those who had been taking Organic Sulfur reported much less pain and increased motility.
Many reported the straightening of finger joints along with the resolution of internal scar tissue around the joints.
Gastrointestinal disorders including acid indigestion, GERD, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut, and chronic constipation have been addressed with a dosage of organic sulfur at 4grams for a person up to 200 pounds in weight, twice daily.
Skin conditions including acne, psoriasis, rosacea, toe nail fungus, burns, liver spots, and disorders associated with Lupus Erythematosus have been eliminated. Sulfur can be used both internally and externally but the cells which demonstrate the problem originate from the endothelial layer of the skin.
The results which were the most startling was the number of open heart procedures which had been scheduled and were cancelled when the individual's EKG returned to normal.
This happened in as little as 6 weeks of ingesting Organic Sulfur. 54 cases have been reported.
Our blood vessels also regenerate and we believe that these cancelled surgical procedures could be an example of such regeneration.
The group has also seen the reduction of scar tissue, high blood pressure and the breakdown of calcium plaque in the arteries.
Organic sulfur would therefore benefit Alzheimer’s’ sufferers.
The trial is taking place over many years as it takes seven years for all our body’s cells to regenerate.
In a nut shell we should be getting our organic sulphur from the vegetables and fruit we eat but due to the extensive use of chemical fertilisers this is not happening.
But us home gardeners can easily rectify this by firstly not using the chemical fertilisers and ensuring that there is sufficient sulphur available to food plants in our gardens.
Gypsum is an excellent source of both Calcium and Sulphur - essential for both yield and grain quality - but its benefits go much further. It also helps improve soil structure and balance the soil by both adding Calcium and displacing harmful Sodium.
I have always been a strong advocate for Gypsum especially in the way it breaks up clay type soils, making them workable for gardening. Two or three applications a year to your vegetable and fruit gardens will assist in obtaining a natural plant source of sulphur in your food chain.
For those readers that are interested in reading the full article mentioned and have email access, send me an email and I will forward the article to you.
You can also participate in the study if you would like to and the contact details will be made available with the article.
I have already done so and have imported a shipment of pure MSM from the States for my personal use.
Note that pure MSM is a food not a drug.
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Ooooo

About now is the time that sees the arrival of this seasons deciduous fruit trees, into garden centres and according to reports they are currently starting to arrive.
There is a very good reason for deciduous trees to become available in winter because in the cold months, the trees are dormant and better to lift from their nursery plots and relocated to your gardens and containers.
The trees are normally bagged or held bare rooted in bins of wet sawdust to keep their roots moist.
It can be fatal if one allows the roots of bare rooted trees and roses to dry out.
There are several good reasons to grow as many different types of fruit trees as possible; the fruit gained each year is virtually free (allow for initial outlay and care), grown without harmful chemical sprays and fertilisers in your garden means you are not eating contaminated fruit such as most of the non-organic fruit purchased.
Fruit trees grown with natural products such as animal manure, compost etc will be freer of disease and pests.
Add to the soil or growing medium minerals from Ocean Solids and Simalith as a yearly dressing, will ensure your fruit has the maximum amount of nutritional value and provide further protection against diseases for both the trees and the fortunate people who consume the fruit.
Often gardeners say to me that they would love to grow a few more fruit trees but do not have the room in the gardens for any more.
There is a very simple way around this problem and that is to grow your fruit trees in larger type containers.
To prove this point I currently have 7 citrus trees, 1 apple, 1 dual plum, 2 avocados, 2 cherimoya, 1 feijoa, 2 grapes, 2 loquats, 1 passion fruit, 1 persimmon, 1 guava, 1 cranberry, 1 blueberry, 1 goji berry, 1 tornless raspberry, 1 pineapple and 1 tamarillo growing in 45 to 100 litre containers.
My section is small and if the above trees were not in containers I would likely need the old quarter acre to bring them to maturity.
(I also have growing in the gardens 1 citrus, 2 stone fruit, 1 plum, 1 pear, 1 persimmon, 1 tamarillo, 1 grape and a feijoa.)
These are all 5 to 10 times the size of my container specimens.
The big advantage with container grown fruit is you can move them around, take them with you if you move house and they do not get too big as the container restricts their root size.
The disadvantages are they take a bit longer to produce when compared to open grown specimens and you do need to root prune them every few years.
Plastic rubbish tins come in various sizes and these are ideal and reasonably priced; with a few drainage holes drilled in the sides just up from the base. Some of my potted fruit trees have 4cm holes drilled in the base so that some of their roots can venture into the soil or lawn that they are sitting on.
If you can find a place that has used 200 litre plastic drums for sale or free then these drums cut in half make excellent containers for growing fruit trees in.
I use the same drums cut into two halves lengthways for growing vegetables in.
If you are going to grow fruit trees or other plants in containers then don't use any kind of potting mix, instead make up a mix of compost with about 10% clean top soil or worm casts mixed through.
The reason for this is you are bringing the soil life into the mix making for a more natural growing medium. I always add a few worms to the mix as they will keep the soil/compost more open and prevent it from compacting over time.
For additional food I use old fowl manure placed on the top of the mix along with a sprinkling of Fruit and Flower Power (the later applied once a month during the flowering to harvesting period)
A yearly application of Ocean Solids and Simalith Rock Dust for the extra minerals and a drench plus spray of Magic Botanic Liquid with Mycorrcin every so often.
If any of the trees get attacked from insect pests then a spray of Neem Tree Oil takes care of them safely. Liquid Copper is also another handy spray to control various disease problems such as citrus tree diseases, bladder plum and curly leaf. The same copper is also ideal for pear slug control.
The worst problem with fruit is the birds getting into a crop when the fruit is coming towards maturity.
A few lengths of Bird Repeller Ribbon takes care of this at that crucial time.
Last winter I purchased another Unique Feijoa tree and placed it into a 45 litre container.
During the ensuring months it grew quickly to about 3 times the original potted height and has produced over a dozen large fruit recently. That is excellent for the first year.
About the same time I had a tamarillo seedling so I potted it into a 45 litre container also and over the last 12 months it has quickly grown to just on 2 metres tall and by placing the container under the eaves along with a spray recently of Vaporgard Frost Protector, it should not be harmed this winter by frosts.
The first fruit should happen this coming season.
Interestingly I received an email the other day saying that a new form of Tamarillo called Tango are becoming available from garden centres this spring. This form which was developed by Hort Research NZ has fruit that is sweet rather than the more acidic taste of the common tamarillo.
I will be obtaining a specimen to add to my collection and seeing how well they do in containers, that will be the way to grow one. You can put your name down at your local garden centre to obtaining one when they become available.
Existing fruit trees can be pruned at this time but do not prune on a cool moist day as this can allow Silverleaf disease to enter the wounds. (Do not prune passion fruit vines in the winter, they should only be pruned when they are actively growing in the spring.)
A spray of Liquid Copper and Raingard over any of your fruiting trees or vines would not go astray at this time.
Deciduous trees do not need any feeding while dormant but when the buds start to swell in the spring a good layer of rich compost can be applied along with Fruit and Flower Power.
If you have existing container planted fruit trees that have been in their pots for 2 or more years, then winter is a good time to lift them and cut the bottom one third of the roots off with a cross saw.
Place fresh compost in the base of the pot to the depth of the amount of roots removed and simply pop the tree back into its pot.
This action should be taken about every two years but in some cases an annual root prune will help produce a bigger and better crop.
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I was in the supermarket the other day and saw that tomatoes are currently up around the $10.00 a kilo price.
Well I suppose it is winter and tomatoes are a lot more expensive to buy, even if they are fairly tasteless when compared to your own home grown ones.
A lot of the tomatoes sold in the off season are imported from overseas and in particular from Australia.
The tomatoes are picked green as they have a greater shelf life if they are not ripe before transporting (food miles) and then they are ripened with a chemical prior to display for sale.
When a tomato is picked green there is no further production of sugars hence the reason for the lack of flavour. These green tomatoes are gassed with ethylene which turns them red fairly quickly.
There are two good reasons to grow tomatoes out of our normal season, a savings in money plus better flavoured home grown tomatoes.
The problem with growing tomatoes through the winter is to find varieties that do not mind the cold and will set fruit in lower temperatures.
Many of the more common types will grow well in a glasshouse if protected from the cold, but when they reach flowering stage, there is not sufficient warmth to produce the pollen needed to set the fruit.
The flowers just fall off through lack of pollination.
I decided to see what tomato seeds I could find to start off at this time. A visit to a Niche Seed stand at a local garden centre came up with three types, all of which are Heritage type tomatoes from Russia.
(Also available at Mail Order)
Now if they originated in Russia then they must be able to withstand a good degree of cold and still set fruit.
The types are, Tomato Purple Russian described as a unique cool tolerant variety from the Ukraine, with wonderful sweet, fleshy medium sized fruits. (Looks like a tree tomato or tamarillo) Believed to be the best purple/black tomato on the world market.
It seldom splits, which is often a failing of the darker skinned types and is less susceptible to diseases. Matures in 100 days.
Heirloom Tomato Black from Tula, Many tomato connoisseurs call this tomato ‘the ugliest, most delicious tomato ever grown’. It is a robust beefsteak type and the largest of the black tomatoes.
The slightly flattened fruits grow up to 125mm in diameter, dark, greenish black in colour and the flesh is chocolate brown with a rich, spicy flavour. Matures quickly in 35 plus days.
Grows well in dry conditions and will crop outdoors till frosted.
Tomato Silvery Fir Tree, the plant has fine feather (carrot like) foliage, extremely decorative and eye catching especially in tubs. This tomato produces masses of 85mm red, slightly flattened fruits and is disease resistant. Matures in 100 days.
All three types are not tall growing and have an average height of just under a metre which makes them perfect for growing in containers.
After reading the informative descriptions of each and seeing the photographs of the fruit I decided to take a packet of each to see how they would preform for me.
Heres how I will germinate and grow these Russian fellows.
First, I found some small pots in the shed and filled them with a good compost and then placed two seeds on each pot with a label to tell me what type they are.
I covered the seed with a bit of fine pumice (sand would also do) and moistened them down using a trigger sprayer, containing dilute Magic Botanic Liquid. (MBL)
Next my 3 pots when onto a heat pad indoors to give the needed bottom heat for quick germination.
Twice a day I will mist the mix with the MBL solution and in about a week they should be germinated.
Once the first two leaves have started to appear they will be placed immediately out into my glasshouse.
(This is most important as they need full overhead natural light, otherwise they will stretch and likely fail)
To grow tomatoes at this time of the year you really need a sunny glasshouse or conservatory and you have to be very, very careful with your watering.
The growing medium needs to have a little moisture in it, but NOT be wet.
I will let the little plants grow up to about 6-10 cm tall before transferring them to a bigger container.
If both seeds germinated I will cut the lessor plant off at the base allowing the stronger one to fill the small pot with its roots. (Small pots means no damage to the roots when transplanting)
The mix to use at this time will be a good compost with a little soil or worm casts added.
Also it is time to give the plants a boost so a small amount of Wally’s Secret Tomato Food with Neem Granules will be applied to the top of the mix.
This will not only give the plants a boost but it will also protect them from possible whitefly problems building up.
Much care is needed in your watering as wet mix makes for cold roots and possible disease problems.
One disease that appears to be a greater problem especially in a glasshouse is botrytis (stem rot) so to give the plants protection from this I will apply a spray of Perkfection every month to the foliage.
The second pot which should be about 12 to 16 cm in diameter will allow the plants to grow to about 35 plus centimeters tall at which time they will be potted into their final container which will be a 45 litre plus type.
Same mix applied, compost and a handful of soil or worm casts mixed through.
The reason for the soil or worm casts is to obtain the microbes that they bring to the compost.
After potting into this large container they will each have a sprinkling of the tomato food mentioned along with a little Ocean Solids and Simalith Rock Dust. Misting the foliage with MBL and Mycorrcin every couple of weeks will also assist in keeping the plants healthy.
Now I have only used 2 seeds out of each of the three packets so the remaining seeds are resealed in their foil case and with the colorful packet are placed in the fridge for future use.
At the time when I pot into the second container I will use the original small pots to plant another two seeds of each variety. These can be grown on for planting outdoors later on if the spring weather is suitable, if not they will also live their productive lives in containers.
Likely this procedure will be repeated 3 or 4 times which should use up about half of the available seeds.
Once the fruit have matured and we have been able to establish which varieties of the three preformed best, plus had a flavor we liked most, then our own seeds will be kept of those preferred varieties.
If everything goes according to plan we should be eating ripe tomatoes before Labor Weekend and in the case of Tomato Black from Tula maybe one or two months earlier.
If so, for a relatively small outlay and a bit of fun growing these Russian Tomatoes we will save a good amount of money not having to buy expensive, tasteless tomatoes for around about $10.00 or more a kilo in spring.
Beside we will also have the peace of mind that our tomatoes will be full of nutritional value and not a lot of harmful pesticides.
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In my Book, ‘Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide’ the first chapter is dedicated to roses as they would appear to be the most favorite plant of gardeners, in New Zealand.
Roses as we all know are a deciduous plant and in winter they shed their leaves and have a nice rest till the advent of spring. With the weather being so mild to date, our friends the roses, are still in leaf with some flowers on a few plants. The longer this situation continues, reduces the rest period before next spring and can effect their possible potential in the coming season.
Wet, cold weather along with a few hard frosts does wonders in cleaning up problems of pests and diseases that the previous season saw. Plus we all need our rest to be able to preform at our best.
The question arises, ‘What should we do with our roses at this time?’
We could just leave them and hope that winter will do the job for us sometime before we need to prune in July/August period. Alternatively we can help force them into having a rest now by cutting all the canes of our bush and standard roses back to half. At the same time we might as well remove any dead, diseased or spindly canes.
Then we can do one of two things; spray the reduced canes with Lime Sulphur to burn off any remaining foliage and assist in wiping out any disease spores or pests harboring on the canes. (In other words we are doing what a few hard frosts would do.) This would be a good spray to use if you have had a fair bit of disease problems through the season.
The alternative for those that have not had too much in the way of problems, is to spray the canes with Liquid Copper.
We all want to have the best looking roses, free of diseases and pests and if we do the right thing by working with the natural forces of Nature it becomes a relatively simple task.
Insect pests such as aphids and scale prefer nitrogen rich sappy growth so avoid using rose fertilisers and Nitrophoska and your pest problems will lessen. Instead use natural products such as blood & bone, compost, dolomite and sheep manure pellets.
By not using these man made fertilisers will also greatly reduce your disease problems. Aphids will still appear on your roses in the spring but a simple natural spray of Key Pyrethrum and Neem Tree Oil will give you safe control.
Diseases that may have been on your roses this past season will have released spores which are harboring in the soil waiting for spring.
Here is a simple way to reduce their numbers in the soil. Place newspaper on the soil about 5-6 sheets thick and wet them down. Cover the paper with compost about 2 cm thick. What you have done is created a feeding ground for worms who just love wet newspaper. As worms move through the soil they take the soil into their bodies along with the disease spores and effectively kill the spores.
You have also created a environment for microbes to thrive in the soil along with beneficial fungi. The greater the populations of these tiny creatures and web strands, the healthier your soil and plants will be.
To aid the soil life action for can drench the soil/ compost/newspaper a couple of times over the next few months with a combination of Mycorrcin and Magic Botanical Liquid.(MBL) These two products feed the soil life and clean up harmful residues in the soil.
Now having achieved a healthier soil do not ruin it by applying Rose fertiliser or Nitrophoska as these products are acidic and harm both worms and soil life. Also avoid using any chemical weed killers near your roses including glyphosate ones.
If you have in the past season been using man made fertilisers then you need to apply Rapid Lime around your roses to sweeten the soil (otherwise the worms will not come near)
The more worms you have in your soil the healthier the soil and plants will be. If you have low or no worm populations you have a problem that needs to be rectified.
After your final pruning at winter’s end you can further enhance the health of your roses by applying all the minerals that they would like in their diet. The once a year application of Ocean Solids and Simalith will achieve this. In spring the new growths on our roses are very healthy and we should do all that we can to maintain this healthy aspect. A 2 to 4 weekly spray over the foliage and soil of MBL and Mycorrcin will greatly assist.
The reason that the foliage is so healthy is because the soil food web has been able to grow and expand and we need to protect this fragile life. The avoidance of chemicals is a must and also one needs to consider what is coming out of your tap. Chlorine is used to kill microbes in our drinking water and it will also knock back the beneficial soil life. During winter and spring with ample rainfall we have no need to water and everything is healthier as a result.
Once the soil moisture levels drop out comes the hose and everything changes. I came to realise this last season, so to overcome the problem I placed suitable filters on my outside taps to remove the chlorine. This made a big difference to all my plants and gardens in fact the water was just about as good as rain. (not quite as rain has other benefits lost to tap water)
New Season Roses are now starting to come into garden centres and many will pick out a few new specimens to add to their existing collection.
If you buy a rose that is potted up in a bag in a mix to keep the roots moist then you only have to ensure that the mix is kept moist till you plant out. Bare rooted roses should be ‘heeled in’ till you are ready to plant out. (Heeled in means digging a hole and temporarily planting them in a group)
The most important aspect in planting new roses is to place them in a spot where they are going to get plenty of sunlight. The less sun the poorer the flowering and the more scraggly the rose.
The first season should be devoted to obtaining as much foliage as possible without being concerned with the number or size of the flowers. The reason is, the more leaves, the quicker the establishment.
To obtain ample leaves make some liquid animal manure and give the roses a drink of this every 2-3 weeks diluted down 1:10. Chicken manure is best but any other manure will also do.
If you are planing a rose in a new bed or in a new spot away from existing roses here is another little tip.
Place half to a full spade of dirt, from an existing rose bed into the base of the planting hole.
The soil will have the right beneficial fungi that works in conjunction with roses to assist their ability to feed and gather moisture. You have, taken away the delay period that would happen for the beneficial fungi and the new rose to establish a relationship. Planting in an existing rose bed already has the right fungi in action. (If you haven't killed it with chemicals)
In the first season, two other points should be remembered. Roses need ample water to establish and the soil should never be allowed to dry out, but don't overwater.
Once established roses can handle a drought very well by going dormant. Secondly if cutting any flowers off a new rose do not take much or any of the stem that has leaves on it. Leaves means energy from the sun for faster and better establishment.
If you have any roses that you wish to move, wait till the soil moistens up with the winter rains then cut the canes back to half, then lift and move.
Then you treat the moved rose as if it was a new rose you are just planting.
One last tip do not cut or prune your roses on a cool/cold, moist day as silver leaf disease can enter the wounds.
Always wait for a sunny drier day.
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Strawberry plants have started to arrive in garden centres through out New Zealand, a little later than normal because of the mild, dry autumn.
Strawberries are a favourite vegetable of many gardeners, (did I say vegetable? Yes because they have their seeds on the outside rather on the inside where one eats the flesh; they are truly deemed a vegetable) How they obtained the name ‘Straw-berry’ is also interesting and one of the reasons for the name was they used to be packed in straw for sale, a couple of hundred years back.
They are a woodland plant from Europe and North America. One of the keys to their successful growing is to realise that they are woodland plants and should, if possible, be given those sorts of conditions. There is a great number of strawberry cultivars in New Zealand and only a few of these are generally available to the home gardener. You are likely to find the following types:
PAJARO Would likely be the most common type available now days, it is a ‘Short day’ type that has consistently very large berries with bright red skin and light red flesh. Exceptionally firm. Excellent flavour when picked fully ripe but can be insipid when picked under-ripe. Early if not deflowered. Average yields, but exceptional quality results in high export grade out. Produces well before Xmas and again in late summer/autumn. Suitable in northern and central areas.
Older types such as Tioga and Red Gauntlet are sometimes still available but have been superseded by new cultivars by most commercial growers.
APTOS is a Day neutral (Means it will fruit off and on from spring to autumn) Berries are bright, dark red. Goes very dark as it becomes over-ripe. Size medium to large.
Plants shows Potassium deficiency symptoms, especially late season, showing up as purple margins on leaves. Large fruit number per truss with last fruit tending to be very small. Flavour good but can be slightly astringent in some conditions. Slightly soft. Excellent yield.
Deficiencies: Softness. Small size on lower parts of trusses. Dark colour and occasional poor flavour. Ensure that the plants are given a sprinkling of potash each month through growing season. District suitability: Central and Southern New Zealand.
Ensure good plant size before allowing flowers to form fruit to minimise small size tendency. Maintain good potassium levels late in the season. Difficult to produce quality fruit on second year plants. Sensitive to mite attack.
CHANDLER, Short day type, medium red fruit but not as bright as Pajaro. Flesh light red. Size varies from very large to small. Firm but softer than Pajaro. Flavour very good. Produces a multi crowned plant quickly. More resistant to wet weather than Pajaro. More susceptible to botrytis than Pajaro. Yield is very good. Deficiencies: More inconsistent appearance compared with Pajaro. Tendency to produce large quantities of small fruit later in season. District Suitability: Northern and Central New Zealand.
SEASCAPE, Day neutral. Parentage: Selva x Douglas. Fruit is moderate-dark red, attractive and glossy. Size is moderate-large. Good flavour. Firm. Shape conic. Moderately strong, upright plant. Has some susceptibility to botrytis in wet seasons. Tendency to produce misshapen fruit in cool temperatures. Deficiencies: Susceptible to botrytis, misshapen fruit.
District Suitability: Appears suitable for all parts of New Zealand. Does not appear to need deflowering. Medium plant spacing.
If you have a choice when buying fresh plants go for some short day and some day neutral as this will give you a longer, consistent, picking period.
When preparing a new bed for strawberries incorporate an animal manure based compost and untreated sawdust into the soil. If you have leaf mold that should also be used. For the extra elements use potash, Ocean Solids and Simalith. If you like to grow on mounds do so and either use weedmat or straw to reduce weed competition.
There is one product that will increase your crop yield by 200 to 400% and that is Mycorrcin.
Drench the soil with the product after planting out and then spray the plants every 2 weeks with the same. Mycorrcin feeds the soil life and in doing so builds up the beneficial soil food web, increases the plant’s yield and reduces disease problems.
The number of gardeners that have used Mycorrcin on their strawberries and contacted the writer because of the great results they have had.
Last season, one gardener told me, that he placed two strawberry beds, side by side. Both beds had the same variety of strawberries and were treated exactly the same except one bed had a 2-weekly spray of Mycorrcin.
The gardener said the difference was truly amazing. The untreated bed produced a normal average crop of berries, where the treated bed yielded about 3 times the amount. Bigger berries, sweeter flavour and a longer harvest period. His final words were, ‘If I had not done the experiment I would not have believed the difference could be so great. From now on I will use the product on all my plantings.’
The Manufacturer of the product told me a story that a commercial grower used the product on his plots but misread the instructions and gave the plants double the recommended dosage each spray.
He complained that the berries were so much bigger than normal, he had to change the packaging for sale! Mycorrcin can be used to advantage on any other plants and the soil they grow in, to obtain better plants with less disease problems.
Strawberry varieties that are prone to botrytis should be given a monthly spray of Perkfection which can be mixed with the Mycorrcin.
Birds can be a problem when berries are ripening and you need to protect the bed with either bird netting or Bird Repeller Ribbon.
Gardeners with existing strawberry beds will likely have a number of runners that have now rooted into the surrounding soil. The runners can be cut and the rooted plants lifted to place in a new bed.
Minerals play a big part in obtaining healthy plants and the soil they grow in. This is extended to our own health by consuming home grown produce grown in mineral rich soil. The minerals are not in the soil unless you put them there by using the likes of yearly applications of Ocean Solids, Simalith Rock Dust and more frequent applications of Magic Botanic Liquid.(MBL)
I am convinced that those trace elements derived from these products make a big difference.
The main minerals must not be neglected either and the likes of calcium, sulphur, magnesium, potassium etc play their own vital roles.
How good are strawberries for your health? Eight medium strawberries contain only 45 calories and no fat, while providing an amazing 160 percent of the daily requirement of vitamin C.
A cup of whole fresh strawberries has about 55 calories. Nutrition Facts Serving Size: 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries (166 grams) Calories 50, Protein 1 gram, Carbohydrates 11.65 grams, Dietary Fiber 3.81 grams, Calcium 23.24 mg, Iron 0.63 mg, Magnesium 16.60 mg, Phosphorus 31.54 mg, Potassium 44.82 mg, Selenium 1.16 mg, Vitamin C 94.12 mg, Folate 29.38 mcg, Vitamin A 44.82 IU. Strawberries are easy to grow and great to eat, so visit your local garden centre for some plants soon.
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A question that I am often asked is about the need to sterilize soil in areas where a crop is grown each year, such as tomatoes or potatoes.
The reason that a number of gardeners wish to sterilize the soil in a given area is because they believe that the process will clean up pathogens (diseases) that have occurred while growing the previous season’s crop. Some gardeners go to great lengths to remove all the top soil from a plot or glasshouse and replace it with fresh top soil.(that is a lot of work and expense)
There are also other gardeners that have reported to me that they have grown their tomato plants in the same area, year after year (one said 30 odd years) with no problems.
Some gardeners will remove their tomato plants before they start to go off, at the end of the season and send all the material to a landfill to be safe.
Others let the plants die in place and even dig the decaying material into the soil where they are going to grow again next season. These gardeners feel that the dead material contains the elements that the next crop needs and the recycling of the material is of benefit. In most cases they have healthy plants year after year.
Another set of gardeners doing this, will find that they have diseases attacking the new establishing crop and will have many failures. Some gardeners do not want to take any risks and practice high hygiene standards.
If we take a situation of a tomato plant growing in the wild from a seed dropped in a bit of bird poo, that plant matures and produces fruit. The fruit rots on the ground and when conditions are right a bunch of seedlings will appear all in competition with each other.
Many of the plants will grow to maturity and repeat the cycle, year after year.
Maybe some years a disease will strike and wipe out the plants, but likely new seedlings will appear the following season and do well.
The question must be asked, how can some gardeners grow in the same area every year without problems where others must adhere to rotation cropping over a three year cycle to avoid losses?
I believe that two aspects come into play one of which is very interesting and is likely not to be considered a possibility by many. It is the power of the mind and influence your thoughts have over plants. If we have a gardener that is worried about planting his tomatoes in the same spot as last seasons crop he somehow conveys these thoughts to the new crop and maybe creates them to fail.
Another gardener may only think of the positive aspects and sees in his mind’s eye the seedlings growing strong and true and the delicious tomatoes that he will enjoy in days to come.
Do the plants pick up these thoughts at some level we do not understand and grow to fore fill them?
Is this the same power that we acknowledge when we say ‘that gardener has green thumbs’?
Do these green thumb gardeners have a very positive attitude about their gardening thoughts and have formed a link with their plants to the benefit of both?
I feel that there is some truth in this and the closer one feels to nature the better the results. On the more practical side of things, that can be measured scientifically, we can see two types of gardeners in their different methods.
One gardener will use chemical herbicides, fertilisers (without thought) and chemical sprays.
The damage done by these chemicals to the soil life is great and pathogens run rife having no beneficial soil life to balance them out or control them.
Common weed killers such as glyphosate linger in the soil for months and plants growing in those treated areas will not be as good as plants of the same type grown in non treated areas.
A fact of nature is if the soil life is diminished in an area then any ensuing crops are more likely to have more health problems.
Now take the gardener who avoids the use of chemicals and may only use very small amounts of man made fertilisers as a boost for a crop at the right time. The same gardener will be building up their populations of beneficials in the soil by applying natural products of animal manures, calcium, composts and other minerals. His soil teems with life, including good worm populations and the plants growing there will be strong and more able to overcome any diseases that may be floating around.
Many gardeners over the years have used a product called Jeyes Fluid or in more recent times the same but called Natures Mate. 80 mils of this product would be added to 10 litres of water to saturate the soil in one square metre.
Many gardeners swear by this but a problem has arisen that the product is no longer available to my knowledge.
Yates has a chemical sterilizing agent called Basamid which you need to be very careful in its use and it is not cheap either. One of its advantages is that it does kill most weed seeds as well as the good and bad things in the soil. After its use, plants seem to thrive in the first season from reports I have heard.
Many years ago a gardener from Invercargill gave me a solution to control the root disease of brassicas (Club Root) It is a simple recipe where you take a quarter teaspoon of potassium permanganate (Condy’s Crystals) and 3 desert spoons of table salt into one litre of warm water to dissolve, then added to a further 9 litres of water.
One litre of this solution is placed in each planting hole to reduce the damage of club root. It works well for this problem.
Potassium permanganate is a strong oxidizing agent of which the sodium chloride (table salt) complements its action in soil.
Taking the aspect of how well it controls club root disease (which most other chemicals do not) then it is a logical assumption that it can clean up other diseases or reduce their number in the soil.
I have suggested in the past to gardeners that wish to clean up areas in their glasshouse or soil where a crop of tomatoes is to be grown, to use the above recipe at double the rate (half teaspoon of potassium permanganate with 6 desert spoons of salt to drench 5-10 square metres of area. Leave for a couple of weeks then flood the area with water.
Once the soil has dried to moist then apply Simalith, Dolomite & Ocean Solids (for the minerals and calcium) Cover with a layer of animal manure based compost. Use Mycorrcin and Magic Botanic Liquid as a soil drench to feed and promote the beneficial soil life, after which you can plant up. Potassium permanganate from a chemist (if they have it) is expensive, selling a 25 grams amount for about $7.00 Where a number of garden centres have 150 grams for about the same price.
If you feel the need and peace of mind to sterilize a garden area and are unable to obtain Jeyes Fluid then this would be a good alternative.
On the other hand if you have the right frame of mind, looking after your soil and the soil food web then nature will work for you controlling the diseases giving you healthy plants with crops of nutritional density.
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Winter can be a tough time for plants that grow in containers either outside or indoors, unless you take some special care of them.
Before we look at the problems these plants face, let us consider the difference between plants growing in the garden and the ones in containers.
Garden plants have nature to look after them, sunlight, rain and the soil provide for their basic needs.
It is only during times of low rainfall that you need to assist in keeping them alive with regular waterings.
There are other functions that you provide such as preventing them from choking out each other with a bit of pruning, removal of competing plants (weeds), staking against damage from wind and providing extra nourishment as need be.
By in large most of the time plants in the garden can fend for themselves with what nature and the weather provides. When we take a plant and place it in a container, we become very responsible for its well being.
Outdoor container mixes dry out quickly during the summer and daily or even twice daily waterings maybe needed. During wet times we need to ensure that the outdoor container plants have free drainage if they are rained on. This means removing any saucers and raising the containers off the ground with a couple of slats of wood.
Over the next few months, without rain, you are likely to be only giving these containers an occasional light watering, maybe once or twice a week.
Indoor plants are much more dependant on your care as they have a harder life because many of them are living in a space where there is no natural overhead light.
In most homes, light comes only through windows and dependant on which direction a window faces will determine the amount of light the plant receives. Windows facing north obtain the most direct light where east and west facing windows are likely to receive only half as much direct light in a day.
South facing windows receive little if any direct light from the sun. These same rooms will be the coolest or coldest rooms in the house dependant on the time of the year.
A plant sitting in front of a window facing either west, north or east will receive very good light in summer and only a fraction of that in winter. If you have a sun screen curtain across the window, you have likely reduced the amount of light the plant receives by half. Move a plant a metre or more away from a window then the amount of direct light drops off. The futher away the less light which becomes then reflected light.
We all have seen plants that are stretching towards the window to gain more light, becoming ungainly and weak. There is a big selection of different types of house plants each with a different requirement for the amount of light it receives. A general rule of thumb is the plants with the largest leaves will survive better in lessor light situations compared to smaller leaf plants.
Most flowering plants require plenty of direct light to be able to produce buds and have those buds open. If you have an indoor flowering plant and it either does not produce flower buds or the buds fail to open, falling off after forming, then the plant is telling you it needs more light.
In winter the light situation becomes even worse for indoor plants. The hours of natural light are shorter and the sun is at a lower position in relation to the horizon. Plants need light to grow and as the amount of light decreases so their growth slows or stops. Indoor plants do receive a bit of extra light from us when we turn the light switch on after dusk. If we are using the new power saving lights then the type of light the plants receive is better suited to their requirements compared to the incandescent lights.
When indoor plants are receiving less light their needs for moisture greatly reduces.
This is a key point at this time of the year and one of the main causes of plants dying.
Wet potting mix in cool weather means root rots, which cause leaves to fall and likely a loss eventually of that plant.
So in winter you must be very careful with your watering of indoor plants.
You need to check every plant every few days and basically only give them a little drink when the foliage starts to droop through lack of moisture. (Beware also that plants that are too wet will also have drooping foliage and to give them more water is likely to be fatal.)
Plant food is not needed for house plants at this time of the year unless they are flowering or still actively growing. Wait till the plants start showing signs of new growth in the spring before you start to feed again.
Avoid repotting into larger containers in winter as this also can cause wet feet till the roots once again fill the container.
You are the care giver of your container plants both indoors and outside so be aware of their needs and look after them accordantly.
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Gardeners that have problems in the lawn with either of these two pests should take note that both are coming up towards maturity at this time and will do the maximum amount of damage.
With porina caterpillars, they live in the soil and come out after dusk to feed at the base of your grasses. They are fairly easy to control with a spray of Neem Tree Oil. This should be applied late in the day to the lawn after it has been recently mowed. Repeat again about 4 weeks later.
Grass grubs on the other hand are much more difficult to control and dependant on the size of your lawn a more expensive job. Likely there is little need to treat the whole lawn with a control as the biggest number of the grubs will be where there has been problems in the past. This is also true in areas where they are lite after dark, by street lights or security lighting. In my book, Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide I give an excellent way to control the pest in early summer when the adults are on the wing.
Before you start to spend your money to treat the lawn you should check to see how many grubs are in the lawn. This is done by cutting several small squares with the spade and lifting the turf. Examine both the hole and lifted section for the number of grubs. If there are none or only a few then it is not worth worrying about. (Use the summer control of the beetles) But if a good number is found then that area should be treated.
There are two treatments that you can use and the first of these is Neem Tree Granules sprinkled on the lawn and lightly watered in. The granules break down and release the Neem properties which are taken up by the roots. When a treated root is chewed on by a grub, that will be the last bite it ever takes.
Safe for pets and wildlife including birds as Neem only harms insect pests.
For those gardeners that like to use a strong chemical then use Pyrifos G. It too is a granule that is spread at the rate of 2 grams per square metre. (Needs to be applied with a spreader)
It is a strong poison and you need to take great care in handling and prevent pets and children from using the target area till it is well absorbed into the soil.
Diazinon is another chemical treatment but does not work well in all soil types (best used only in light, sandy or volcanic soils) otherwise it can be a costly exercise for no advantage.
The utmost care must be taken if using either of these two chemical products.
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Bryophytes and Embryophytes are the botanical names given to mosses, lichen, liverworts, hornworts, molds, algae and slimes. These are what one could label primate plant-like forms which were the first land type plants on the planet, millions of years ago. It was as a result of these primitive plant forms that began the process of building soils from rocks split and powdered by the action of water and ice.
Members of this diverse plant family are found all over the world, many growing in places where no other types of plants could grow, so in a sense they are still creating growing conditions for higher plant forms to grow.
Many bryophytes are very attractive with feather or fern like structures where others look more like something from a alien landscape.
When bryophytes grow in places we do not want them to grow they become a nuisance just like weeds.
Lichen and liverworts appear to be able to grow on most surfaces including glass, public footpaths, fences and roof tiles are favorite spots for them. Vertical glass is difficult for them but glass roofs of glasshouses are not.
Algae and mosses growing on paths make for a slippery condition when wet and dangerous to those that can occur serious injury if they slip and fall.
Lichens that colonise on the trunks and branches of plants and trees look unsightly and can lead to rots and losses. Mosses growing in lawns are another bug bare, not only making the lawn unsightly but also suffocating our preferred grasses.
More often than not, wherever bryophytes appear, it means a war to eradicate and control. When action is not taken they prolificate, spreading out to cause more harm.
Bryophytes cannot be controlled easily by scrapping off, as residues will be left that allow them to re-stablish. In lawns many resort to sulphate of iron to burn off mosses, which is only a very temporary fix as the acidity of the iron only burns off the top of the moss, allowing it to re-establish again fairly quickly.
There are various products advertised to clean up bryophytes such as ones that are sprayed on, then left for weathering to remove. Many of these are fairly expensive and bryophytes are like ants, you can never eradicate them as they will always come back .
Bryophytes multiply by spores of which they create vast numbers, carried by water and air they will always return.
Some years back a chemical called benzalkonium chloride, which was used in the medical industry for sterilizing instruments, was discovered to be a boon in the control of bryophytes without harming other plants.
Benzalkonium chloride is an interesting chemical been an aqueous solution and used as a detergent, fungicide, bactericide, and spermicide.
It is still widely used in mild solutions for eyewashes, hand and face washes, mouthwashes, spermicidal creams, and in various other cleaners, sanitizers, and disinfectants, though there are some concerns on its safety as it can be an irritant even in mild doses and very much so in stronger solutions.
The first product to use benzalkonium for the control of mosses etc was Surrender and the writer picked up on this many years ago and introduced its use to gardeners in Palmerston North though the garden centre I was operating at that time. It became very popular but was only available in the commercial pack of one litre.
I convinced Yates NZ to market the product for New Zealand gardeners, at which time it became available in 200 ml bottles. A ‘me-two’ product emerged with the same formulation called Yield and McGregors came out with McGregors Yield Moss Control also in a 200 ml bottle at a more competitive price.
These proved very popular and effective resulting in other chemical controls on the market, for the home garden to disappear.
Over the following years these brands of the chemical benzalkonium have become fairly expensive leading to complaints from gardeners as to their cost effectiveness.
The products are formulated at 500g / litre benzalkonium chloride in the form of a soluble concentrate and used at the rates of 25 to 50 mls per litres of water making the 200 ml bottle only able to produce between 4 to 8 litres of spray.
Not a lot if you have a big area to cover and the need to re-apply when the problems reappear.
Many mosses and liverworts need the 50 mls per litre dosage to have effective control where some other bryophytes such as lichen and algae can be controlled successfully at rates of 10 to 20 mls per litre.
Unfortunately the strength of only 10 to 20 mls for lichen and algae information is not always made available and gardeners can waste product using unnecessarily at the higher rates on these easier to control bryophytes.
A new product is now available from some garden centres using the same formulation and called Wally's Moss and Liverwort Control. Available in both 200 ml and 500 ml containers making it more affordable in comparison to the previous brands.
Another interesting aspect is that the chemical benzalkonium chloride is a track able chemical by ERMA which does not affect the home garden market in quantities of up to 1 litre.
But if a gardener has in storage over 1 litre of the concentrate then they must by law have a handler’s licence. This is obtained by sitting a one day agrichemical course and passing.
I congratulate ERMA in taking tighter controls on agricultural chemicals which is in the interest of us all and the environment.
The new regulations also means that more safety information must be on the labels of many chemicals, which should help users to be more careful while handling and using.
Wally's Moss and Liverwort Control’s labels has all the new requirements for safety which at first glance may give the user concerns about using the product. This is good in actual fact as more care is likely to be taken and a great advantage to the user as you would certainly not want to get a splash of the concentrate (or the diluted product) in your eyes.
The safety information for 500g / litre benzalkonium chloride is:

KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
May cause an allergic skin reaction. Causes severe skin burns and eye damage.
May cause allergy or asthma symptoms or breathing difficulties if inhaled.
Toxic to terrestrial vertebrates. Toxic if swallowed.
WARNING: PRECAUTIONS: IF SWALLOWED: Rinse mouth. DO NOT induce vomiting.
IF ON SKIN: Wash with plenty of soap and water.
IF IN EYES: Rinse cautiously with water for several minutes.
Store in original container, tightly closed, away from foodstuffs.
When mixing wear a face shield and protective waterproof gloves and clothing.
When spraying use protective clothing.
Do not eat, drink or smoke while using.
Wash hands and face before meals and after work.
Toxic to aquatic organisms. Do not contaminate streams, rivers or waterways with the product or empty container.
Disposal of Containers: Triple rinse empty container and add residue to spray tank.
Burn the empty container if circumstances, especially wind direction permit.
Otherwise bury in a landfill. Avoid contamination of any water supply with chemicals or empty container.

EMERGENCY RESPONSE (All Hours) 0800 243 622

By wearing rubber or latex gloves, gum boots, protective waterproof clothing, eye protection and a spraying mask while mixing with water and spraying should keep you nicely safe.
One of the great advantages of this product is that you can safely spray it over other plants without harming them but to be sure of this, it is advised that one should water the preferred plant’s foliage with the hose, 30 minutes after spraying.
It only takes 30 minutes for Moss and Liverwort Control to get into the target bryophyte and do its job. If it rains or you water after that time the product will not be deactivated.
When using the product adjust your spray nozzle away from a mist to more of a jet as it needs a bit of force to get into the bryophyte. The product has a similar action to glyphosate (Roundup etc) as it goes right through the bryophyte killing the all of it and often making the target area difficult for re-establishment for sometime.
The product must not be mixed with other sprays to avoid chemical reactions but other sprays can be applied to the target area later.
For instance if you have moss in a lawn; firstly spray with Wally's Moss and Liverwort Control and next day a lawn herbicide and Thatch Busta could be applied, mixed together. The Thatch Busta will also help clean up the material left behind by the dead moss.
Once sprayed and the area lightly watered 30 plus minutes later the re-entry of children, pets or wild life can be allowed.
The product can be used indoors in the weaker solutions to control molds in showers, on the backs of curtains etc.
With the right knowledge and precautions applied, makes this product very efficient and safe to use.
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May is the last month of autumn and a month to prepare for the three months of winter ahead.
Growth of plants are now noticeably slowing, partly because of the lower temperatures but more so because of the shorter number of hours of sunlight. In fact we are now only 7-8 weeks away from the shortest day.
Annual weeds become aware of the shorter hours and they strive to reach maturity and set seeds as quickly as possible.
These seeds will become the new generation of weeds that will require attention in the spring. If you strive to remove all weeds now before they set their seeds you will have less weeding to do come the spring. Talking about weeds, during the week I was talking with a gardener who gave me a tip about how to completely clean up an area of oxalis.
What you do is place a netting cage over the area with a small chicken house attached (for the chickens to roost at night) Then place 2 or more chickens in the structure and as they only have access to the soil in the cage part, they will go to work scratching up every single oxalis bulb and eating them, even the very smallest that we would miss. After a few weeks work from our feathered helpers the area should be free of oxalis.
You need to supply the chickens with adequate water, grain and mash, morning and afternoon plus any kitchen scraps along with greens (weeds) from other parts of the garden.
The frame or cage can be made out of 50 x 50 mm wood a metre wide and about a couple of metres long. Cover with wire netting over the sides and top leaving one end open. At the open end you place a hen shelter, which would be a box a metre square and 1.5 metres tall. Use the 50 x 50 mm wood to construct and cover all the sides with plywood leaving at this stage the bottom and roof open.
A suitable size hole is made on the cage side for the chicken’s access. Make a hinged roof so that you can open it to gain access to the eggs. Inside the house provide a couple of round poles or branches two thirds up for the chickens to roost at night. Do not use square perches as these cut into the chickens feet, the perches must be rounded with no sharp edges. Also about half way up inside the shelter place a couple of nesting boxes with straw in them for the chickens to lay their eggs. The hinged roof will allow access to the eggs.
A small sheet of roofing iron is secured to the hinged roof at an angle so that rain will run off, away from the cage. Also at the far end of the cage make another hinged part so you can place their food into the cage along with their water bowl. A dogs bowl is most suitable for this as it will not tip over easily. It is a good idea to place a bit of nova roof over this area to keep the rain off but don't cover the whole cage area without supplying a shaded area.
This chicken cage and house is very mobile and you can move it around your section to suit your needs and requirements. For instance in the winter months when areas of the vegetable garden are free of crops it is an ideal place to have your chickens as they will fertilise the area nicely for you while cleaning up all the weeds and weed seeds in that area. If you are worried about the chickens getting out when moving the cage and house simply do it at night by blocking their exit hole and lifting the house slightly off the ground (two persons) and moving it to the new spot while the chickens are roosting. Then move the cage and open the exit hole. Have a think about it as a few chickens are a great advantage.
With shorter day light hours deciduous plants, roses, fruit trees and ornamentals will start changing their leaf colour as the plants absorb what minerals they require from the leaves before they fall.
Diseases will also attack the foliage which is natural as nature works to break down the organic matter as it recycles, for future use. There is little point in trying to stop this natural process and if you have worked to build up healthy soil, the same diseases will not affect new season’s healthy growth.
On the other hand if you have been a user of chemical fertilisers and sprays, then these same clean up diseases will not have the natural balance of beneficials and your plants will be attacked in the new season.
To illustrate this point here is an excerpt from the recent Acres USA publication written by Graeme Sait of Nutri-Tech Solutions, Australia; ‘Plant production and protection are based upon nutrition, and nutrient density is a function of balance. Whether we speak of the ratio between calcium and magnesium, of fungi to bacteria, or the ratio of pest to predictor, the importance of this equilibrium is paramount. Disease and pest pressure are symptoms of an imbalance- the gardener’s role is to determine the nature of the imbalance and to address the root cause of the problem.
Conventional gardening is about treating symptoms, and it has proved a gravy train for the “leak pluggers”(Chemical spray manufactures) because we never really solve the problem, there is no end to our need for their remedial products.’ Supplying our gardens with key elements such as calcium (Rapid Lime) magnesium (Epsom salts or Dolomite) Sulphur (Gypsum) then all the natural minerals (Ocean Solids, Simalith and Magic Botanic Liquid) we are well on the way to healthy soil and plants. With the above in regular use we just apply compost, animal manures, blood & bone and other natural foods.
We all know nitrogen is needed for plant growth and there is in fact 74,000 tonnes of atmospheric nitrogen hovering over every hectare of land. Which means you have a ton or more hovering over your garden, totally free, you just need to do to use it, is by having a healthy soil-food-web which contains azotobacter bacteria, also by growing legumes (peas and lupin fodder crops) and having good worm populations as their slime is nitrogen rich.
This is the perfect form of nitrogen to enhance plant health, and the nitrogen is supplied to the plant as is required by the plant, rather than the common practice of force-feeding.
Shorter day light hours means slower growth and less moisture requirements by plants. In gardens that are free draining plants will be happy with average rain falls. In gardens that are of heavy soils and poor drainage many plants will have a problem with root rots. We can overcome this to an extent by applications of gypsum, dolomite and potash. Spraying the foliage with Perkfection also aids the plants in overcoming wet weather diseases. With container plants keep the mix a little on the dry side only watering sparingly as needed. Ensure containers are slightly raised off the ground and any saucers used during summer are removed.
Winter brings us damp cold air which makes it more difficult for soil and our washing to dry.
A trench dug to the depth of a spade around a garden plot will greatly assist it in drying out the surrounding soil. A tip for drying washing comes from when I was a young child and most houses had a coal range in the kitchen and a indoor clothes line high up near the ceiling. The same principal can be used these days by putting a couple of cup hooks in the wall about 30cm below the ceiling height. String a nylon cord tightly between the hooks and hang your damp clothes on this.
Done in the heated lounge at one end, out of the way, you will find that your clothes dry in no time at all. There are two other advantages to this as the air will be moist keeping any plants growing in the room happy and your skin will also benefit as dry air dries out skin speeding up the aging look. It has an off spin to global warming as you will not be using power to run a clothes drier and your indoor heating will serve an additional function saving you money. If visitors are coming you can just take down the line. Clothes horses are nowhere as good as they are low where it is cooler, not high near the ceiling where the real heat is.
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Everyday a number of gardeners through out New Zealand contact me by phone or email with the problems they have in their gardens. I am happy to assist in this manner as it is better to find a suitable solution, than to endure an ongoing problem.
Gardening is a learning curve and no matter how experienced we are, there is always new things to learn and often I am also given tips that are practical and useful to pass on to other gardeners through these weekly columns or in the book I wrote. (Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide)
A Doctor who is a keen gardener from the lower South Island gave me a tip last week which is very useful to prevent damage to wood from borer and rots. He phoned me in regards to obtaining a quantity of Borax, and as this is a more unusual request I asked what he required the borax for.
He explained that you make up a solution of borax at the rate of 150 grams to one litre of water, dissolving the powder in the water. This is then either sprayed or painted onto raw wood and allowed to dry. A second or third coating may later be applied. The ends of the wood should be especially treated and the borax is absorbed into the wood. Later the wood can be painted or vanished if required.
The borax will last for years inside the wood killing any borer that may attack it and the borax also helps stop wet and dry rots developing. This is a safe treatment when compared to the harmful chemicals that are used in treating wood. It is also an inexpensive treatment to apply.
Not suitable for wood that has already being painted or vanished as the borax would not penetrate the coating. However if you squirted the solution into borer holes it might do the trick.
Also not suitable for outdoors where the wood would be subjected to rain as the borax would be washed away unless the wood had been painted. Obtaining a supply of Borax, is not easy like it used to be back in the good old days when hardware shops etc would have supplies of it for sale.
I was however able to assist the Doctor in obtaining the product.
This brings me to a question often asked by gardeners about using treated timber to build raised gardens or for garden edging and the poison that may leach into their food crops.
The simple solution to this is to give the wood a couple of coats of acrylic paint to seal the wood before building. If you use untreated wood then treat the wood yourself with the borax solution and then paint the wood to seal the borax in. Untreated pine is cheaper than treated but I prefer to use macrocarpa untreated as it will last longer with or without treatment.
Talking about wood leads us to trees and a regular complaint that I get is trees growing on a neighbor's property that affects the quality of life, through the tree’s shading of adjacent properties.
Once when there were big sections, big trees were never a problem if planted well away from boundary lines. With infills of these larger sections, often these big trees are not removed and the new home owners can find views and shading affected. Deciduous trees are not so bad as they shed their leaves in winter allowing more sunlight through and they can be an advantage in summer for the shade they offer.
Keen gardening neighbours also reap a harvest of leaves for composting or leaf mold each year. Not so happy are the non gardening neighbours whom see fallen leaves as rubbish and a chore to dispose off.
What to do if a neighbor's tree affects your quality of life? The first step is to have a chat with the neighbour and explain your problem and often the consented removal of a few branches every few years keeps everyone happy.
By the way branches that are growing over your fence line can be cut off at the fence line and tossed back over the fence as they belong to the neighbour. Likewise roots growing into your property can be cut off and dug out. Before doing any of these actions it is best to inform the neighbour of your intentions as they can be peeved to come home and find a pile of branches and roots in their backyard.
Avoid where possible making enemies. If the shading of a tree on a neighbor's property is making for a cold damp house and your neighbour will not do anything about it, then you need to approach your local council and find out what can be done.
You should also have a look at the trees on your property and ask your neighbours if they have any problems in their regard.
Common cutesy. The big problem arises when non-gardening folk obtain a little tree or shrub and plant it on their section and it grows up to be a monster. Some trees have very invasive root systems that just love to travel great distances for available water sources which often are in sewerage pipes.
The roots clog up the pipes and cause a ‘S’ load of problems. This can also be from your own trees and the easy solution is to pour a kilo or more of blue stone (Copper Sulphate) into the toilet and a few flushes through normal use will progressively send the copper down and burn out the roots.
A very recent email asked the following; Dear Wally, I enjoy reading your weekly column. We are shifting in two weeks time and was hoping to take some of my plants with us. We have a 4metre pittosporum, 3metre silver birch, 4metre cherry tree and a daphne bush. Can these plants be shifted, would like some advice if they can, thanking you, Anne.
My reply; You have some major moving problems with the 3-4 metre tall trees.
The Daphne should be cut back by removing some branches and then spraying the remaining foliage with Vaporgard under and over the leaves. Then lift taking a reasonable amount of roots undisturbed in the soil. That one would be easy.
As the silver birch and cherry are deciduous it would be a waste of time spraying the foliage with Vaporgard, but by removing some branches, will take some of the stress off the damaged roots. With a bit of luck they will re-establish.
The pittosporum would resent moving but maybe by reducing it to about 1.5 metres and using the Vaporgard you might be successful. A big truck and some strong helpers would be needed. Also with the larger specimens some strong staking would be needed at their new home till they are established. (Note it would have been better to move the deciduous trees when dormant in winter.)

Another gardener asked what to do with surplus lawn clippings.
These are very useful if spread out under established trees and shrubs as a mulch keeping moisture in, suppressing weeds and feeding the trees.
Even if a herbicide has been used on the lawn this should not affect established trees unduly and the residue of the herbicide will help kill weeds in these areas.
Later a drench of Thatch Busta and Magic Botanic Liquid will help undo the damage the chemical does to the soil life. Do not put herbicide treated lawn clippings in the compost or in other garden areas where preferred plants are growing.
Also do not send them to a green recycling centre where they are going to be made into compost for other gardeners or yourself to buy. It can be a real disaster.
If you do buy any compost from one of these places do not put onto gardens without testing its safety by cutting a slit in each bag and planting a few bean seeds. If the beans sprout and grow nicely then use the compost. If they don't, or grow with distortions take the compost back and get your money refunded.
Another question often asked is how does one find the pH of a garden?
A very simple way in the vegetable garden is to plant two small rows of peas side by side about 18 inches apart. On one row use the new Rapid Lime when sowing the seeds. If the treated row grows better plants than the other control row then you need to use the Rapid Lime over areas where you are not planting tomatoes, potatoes, blue berries and strawberries.
Frosts are starting to happen now so all tender plants should be sprayed with Vaporgard to give them frost protection down to minus 3 for the next 3 months. A further spray should be done about July.
Works a treat within 3 days of application but if you have a series of frosts, night after night additional protection is needed. Happy Gardening
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Calcium is a vital element to all life forms on the planet.
For us humans it builds and maintains bones and teeth; regulates heart rhythm; helps regulate the passage of nutrients in & out of the cell walls; assists in normal blood clotting; eases insomnia; maintains proper nerve and muscle function; lowers blood pressure; important to normal kidney function and in current medical research reduces the incidence of colon cancer, and reduces blood cholesterol levels.
If we lack sufficient calcium it can result in arm and leg muscles spasms, softening of bones, back and leg cramps, brittle bones, rickets, poor growth, osteoporosis ( a deterioration of the bones), tooth decay and depression.
Acute deficiency symptoms are avoided because of the large skeletal stores. Prolonged bone resorption from chronic dietary deficiency results in osteoporosis either by inadequate accumulation of bone mass during growth or increased rate of bone loss at menopause. Dietary calcium deficiency also has been associated with increased risk of hypertension, preeclampsia, (A pregnancy disorder) and colon cancer.
Our main source of dietary calcium comes from dairy produce and vegetables.
Plants, like us, need calcium in their diet for their good health.
Plants, unlike us, calcium (once fixed) is not mobile in the plant. It is an important constituent of cell walls and can only be supplied in the xylem sap. Thus, if the plant runs out of a supply of calcium, it cannot remobilize calcium from older tissues.
If transpiration is reduced for any reason, the calcium supply to growing tissues will rapidly become inadequate. A more common problem caused by this is blossom end rot in tomatoes.
Without adequate amounts of calcium, plants experience a variety of problems, symptoms of which in crops are often called physiological disorders.
The symptoms of calcium deficiency are: Necrosis at the tips and margins of young leaves, Bulb and fruit abnormalities, Deformation of affected leaves, Highly branched, short, brown root systems, Severe, stunted growth, and general chlorosis. Chlorosis is a yellowing of leaf tissue due to a lack of chlorophyll.
Calcium deficiencies reduces the uptake of some minerals such as magnesium.
It must be remembered that these problems are caused by an inadequate supply of calcium to the affected tissues. These deficiencies can occur even when the soil appears to have an adequate presence of calcium. Garden Lime (A common supply of calcium) is often derived from lime stone which is hard and can take between 3 to 10 years to become available to plants after application to the soil.
Calcium is found in many minerals in soil, but is relatively insoluble in this state. Calcium is not considered a leachable nutrient. Many soils will contain high levels of insoluble calcium such as calcium carbonate, but crops grown in these soils will often show a calcium deficiency.
High levels of other cations such as magnesium, ammonium, iron, aluminum and especially potassium, will reduce the calcium uptake in some crops. A common misconception is that if the pH is high, adequate calcium is present. This is not always true.
Calcium plays a very important role in plant growth and nutrition, as well as in cell wall deposition. The primary roles of calcium are: As a soil amendment, calcium helps to maintain chemical balance in the soil, reduces soil salinity, and improves water penetration. Calcium plays a critical metabolic role in carbohydrate removal.
Calcium neutralizes cell acids.
Another aspect that is often over looked is that calcium is the fuel that feeds the soil life.
If you want healthy gardens and plants you must build up a healthy soil food web of beneficial microbes and fungi along with all the other creatures that live in the soil including the gardeners best friends, worms.
Worms along with other soil creatures hate water soluble fertilisers such as general purpose fertilisers, Nitrophoska Blue, chemical sprays and herbicides. Avoidance of these chemicals is a must, instead using all the natural products such as animal manures, compost etc.
It is not only the use of water soluble fertilisers that make the soil acidic and undesirable to worms etc, acidic soils is a natural aspect of many New Zealand soils; to be a bit on the acidic side due to our rainfall and other factors.
There are 3 common products which contain ample amounts of calcium, Gypsum (calcium and sulphur) Dolomite (calcium and magnesium) and garden lime. Both Gypsum and Dolomite are pH neutral as the sulphur or magnesium balances out the alkalinity of the calcium. These two natural products can be used anywhere in the garden to advantage and most importantly to be used around acid loving plants.
This also includes tomatoes, potatoes, pepinos, blue berries and strawberries as they all prefer a slightly acidic soil.
There is two problems with garden lime as many garden limes come from lime stone (calcium carbonate) and the particles can take many years to breakdown and be of benefit to the soil and plants. Some limes are softer or finer particles and these readily breakdown.
Which ever type, lime is a powder and is messy to apply and if there is a breeze at the time of application, a percentage will end up where you don't want it including over yourself.
Recently a New Zealand company produced a product that overcomes both these problems.
The product is called Rapid Lime and it comes in small pellets or balls which makes the spreading of it very easy to the target areas. Once wet, the balls breakdown and release the fine particles that are readily available to the soil life and plants.
Farmers and horticulturists love the product as application is so much easier than the common powder limes and being ‘rapid’ they know its doing its job straight away.
Another secret with calcium or lime is to have an ongoing supply to the soil and plants. This means a number of small applications each year rather than a big dose in the traditional winter application.
A few grams per square metre every 3 months will do a lot more good giving a continual supply to soil and plants. When I first obtained Rapid Lime a few weeks back, I tested its breakdown on some beans that I had growing in containers.
The beans had basically finished for the season (or so I had thought) but in a couple of weeks of applying Rapid Lime, they burst into new growth and flowers and a late crop is coming available for picking.
Rapid Lime is coming available in a number of garden centres in 1200 gram and 3 kg jars.
Ideal at this time of the year for planting out of brassicas, sweet peas and snow peas as well as a general application to vegetable gardens.
Rapid lime can also be used in the mash you feed your chickens to harden up their egg shells. If you have a puppy then occasionally add a little to their food for the calcium they need for their growing bones. I learnt the later, one time when a chap came into the garden centre that I used to run and purchased a bag of garden lime.
He said that it was not for the garden but for his pups that he was rearing, it was a much cheaper way of obtaining the needed calcium rather than the expensive packets at pet shops and vets.
We all need ample calcium as do our gardens and Rapid Lime makes for ease of application and quick results.
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Weeds are both a boon and a curse to gardeners. You may ask what advantage is there in having weeds?
Two aspects immediately spring to mind, weeds are a free source of organic matter for composting and mulching but must be cut and harvested before they set seeds.
The second advantage is a much more complex one which many farmers have a reasonable knowledge of, that is the type of weeds found growing in various areas indicate two important markers, the pH of the soil and the mineral content of the soil in weed growing area.
In the home garden situation each of us have our own batch of weeds that germinate and grow either consistently or only appear at certain times of the year.
Many weeds are easy to deal with if they are removed before they are allowed to set seeds and increase the problem. Others such as oxalis are more difficult to control once they become established.
Grass weeds are likely to be the most prolific weeds we have to deal with in our gardens and any other area that can allow a seed to germinate, such as in cracks in a concrete path.
Our own lawns can produce thousands of grass seeds which carried by wind, water or our own actions will distribute grass seeds to where we do not want a new lawn.
In my book ‘Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide’ I devoted a good sized chapter to the control of weeds in the home garden giving both safe and chemical ways to control the more common plus hard to control weeds.
Regular readers of my weekly column will be aware that I am dead against the use of chemicals in the home garden and I have not used any chemical weed killers for over 10 years.
Prior to that I was a great user of Roundup then having an expensive, state of the art, back pack sprayer unit, solely for weed killing. Every 2-3 months out would come the pack and in would go the Roundup and water to spray every inch of the section that supported weeds.
Believing in those times that Glyphosate (The active ingredient in Roundup) was a safe chemical to use and it would break down quickly leaving no prolonged residue in the soil. I began to realise the harmful effects of the chemical when one of my expensive Shar Pei dogs developed skin problems, which turned out to be caused by Glyphosate. (Going into recently sprayed areas)
Another aspect also occurred, which after many years of using Glyphosate in my nurseries and at home, without any protection whatsoever, I was beginning to feel out of sorts for a couple of days after spraying.
In other words my body was developing an allergic reaction to the chemical. I have read that numerous people become faint if they just get a whiff of Glyphosate being sprayed in the neighbourhood.
If you come to realise that most of the non-organic food you buy will have traces of Glyphosate, so even without you using Glyphosate as a weed killer, your body is likely absorbing this chemical.
If you intend to use any type of chemical spray you should wear all the protective clothing that is available, a full spray suit with respirator leaving no part of your body exposed is best.
OK so you look like you are ready for a trip to the moon but at least you are safer.
It reminds me of a story I was told about a lady that was at a park where her young children were playing.
A fully protected park employee was spraying nearby and being concerned about her children she called out to the man to find out what he was spraying. He replied back, ‘Oh its ok, its quite safe’ Yeah Right!
You always are learning and recently I attended a ‘Farmsafe’ course about agrichemicals. It is a one day course which I would recommend all gardeners to do, as you can learn a lot about safety in chemical handing and use.
You know how we think that spraying a chemical on a calm day is best? Completely wrong as the spray droplets float on the air surrounding the user and with conventional currents, are lifted up, to spread over vast areas.
It is far safer to spray when there is a light breeze as you can avoid breeze carried droplets from travelling to non target areas.
A housing over the end of your spray wand is also a safe way to use chemical weed killers to ensure your spray particles hit the target and stay there inside the housing.
One of the big problems with chemical weed killers is the damage that they do to the soil life. Killing beneficial soil populations including worms does not make for healthy gardens and plants.
If you need to use a chemical weed killer you can reduce this problem by adding Thatch Busta to the chemical spray. It will do three things, Thatch Busta is a food for the beneficials so it counteracts some of the damage the chemical causes, it can make the spray/kill more effective and it will help clean up the dying weeds faster.
Many chemical weed killers have to enter the foliage of the target plant to work and every plant has a natural barrier to some degree to prevent this happening. This is more so on shiny and hairy leafed weeds. By adding Raingard to the spray assists the chemical to penetrate the foliage and results in up to 50% more effective kill.
I explained in my book, how the use of these two natural products added to a chemical weed killer can mean you can use less of the chemical and still obtain the same results. That in itself will be a saving of time and money.
There are many safe ways to control weeds without having to use chemicals.
The first thing to remember is that any weed or plant cannot survive indefinitely without leaves to gather energy from the sun. For instance if you cut off at ground level the leaves of oxalis or convolvulus and continued to do so as soon as new leaves appeared then after a time the bulbs or roots will fail to produce more leaves, having exhausted all its energy. The root or bulb would then naturally rot away.
But on the other hand if you dug the ground trying to lift the bulbs or roots you would actually spread the problem further. Many of you will be aware of this when you tried to dig up and sift out the bulbs of oxalis.
By the way baking soda with Raingard added is ideal way to kill oxalis without harming other non related plants. This spray must be done on a hot sunny day when the ground is on the dry side.
This aspect of a sunny day with drier soil is a key time for any weed control as all plants are in a weakened state at that time. A spray of a cheap cooking oil will dehydrate the foliage of any weeds sprayed in those conditions. Weeding by hand is an enjoyable way to spend an hour or so outside on a mild day.
If you have a healthy soil it is best to not disturb the soil any more than need be.
For instance if instead of pulling out weeds you cut them off at ground level with a sharp knife and you leave the roots in the ground to feed the soil life as they decompose. You also do not interrupt the webs of beneficial fungi that attach themselves to the weeds and then across to your preferred plants nearby, thus making a free food source for your garden plants. Perennial weeds such as docks need to be sliced below ground with a sharp knife to cut off the crown of the weed.
The foliage of all weeds cut can be left on bare soil as a natural mulch or taken to the compost heap. Just ensure that the weeds have not been allow to reach seeding stage.
Not using chemical weed sprays anymore and not having sufficient spare time to weed I have solved much of my weed problems by having raised gardens with either weed mat or empty compost bags on the ground to prevent weeds establishing. My back yard has free ranging chooks which never allow a weed to grow. (It used to be a problem when I stopped using chemical weed killers)
Keeping free range chickens may not be every ones cup of tea but if you can provide a small hen house and use netting to keep them in the area you want cleared then you cant go past having a few of these wonderful birds. Any costs of grain fed is offset by wholesome free range eggs.
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Now is the time to prepare ourselves and our gardens for winter.
We are prompted by advertisements and common sense to prepare for the coming short daylight hours and the cold that winters bring. We order in firewood, check our electric blankets, and as the saying goes, ‘we get out our winter woollies’. We endeavour to make ourselves and our homes, ‘as snug as a bug in a rug’. If we take time to look after our needs, why should we not make time to look after our much loved gardens and plants?
It is only logical that the plants and gardens we have cared for over the last 9 months should now be given a bit of protection against the chills and wet they are going to face in the coming months.
Wet soil greatly increases the cold, that plant’s roots have to survive in. Prolonged wet feet increases the chances of root rot which is a killer of a number of plants in winter. It stops growth, where drier soil allows some growth even in a wet winter. We cant stop the rain falling but we can assist the soil to dry out faster.
For instance if you have a vegetable patch dig a trench at least a spades depth around the perimeter of the garden. Water will drain into the trench where wind and the weaker sun will speed up its evaporation.
Clay soils and hard packed soils tend to hold water in the root zone of plants and the easy way to open up these areas is by applying good doses of gypsum now.
You can also install nova flow drain pipes from known wet areas into your storm water system.
In my case I have a backyard that can become a lake in winter, with rain water which can lay for days or weeks. This is not good for my citrus trees and other plants that grow in the area.
My chooks, which free range the area, must wish they were ducks. I solved the problem by digging a trench the length of the yard and placing a nova flow pipe in the trench covered with pea metal and then replaced the clay soil over the top. At one end, near the house, a deep hole was dug and lined with a plastic container that has ample holes in it. A submersible pump is placed inside this and connected to the storm water system.
When we get a good downpour, the water drains into the nova flow pipe and runs into the hole with the pump. When the water builds up the pump automatically turns on and pumps the water away.
The end result is the yard never stays under water for long and my chooks have not developed webbed feet. You have an initial outlay for a submersible pump, but as I have had the same one for over 20 years it certainly has more than paid for itself.
If you have lived at a property for more than a year you know where your wet areas are and do something to improve the drainage. Another interesting thing with big down pours of rain was highlighted in the Dominion Post (Friday March 30th) up north at Opua which read; ‘Residents of luxury homes in Opua were evacuated to the Opua Cruising Club as slips endangered properties’.
There has being a big movement for people to purchase properties with views of water (sea/lakes/rivers) in more recent times and these supposed desirable (and high priced) properties may not be a good investment with global warming.
We are going to get high rainfalls, oceans rising, land erosion and expensive properties could well become worthless at time goes by. Once people cotton on to this the value of many properties will drop like a stone, insurance companies will not insure them and many will lose their current asset. Its a bit like living on an active volcano, disaster will happen sooner or later.
For us fortunate people that live on higher ground well away from water ways and possible land slips life and home should be fine in comparison. Well back to winter proofing the gardens.
There is a product called Perkfection which is great for protecting our plants against wet weather diseases. A couple of sprays now, a month apart, will put your garden plants in good stead for the winter ahead. Perkfection is ‘Synthetic Organic Phosphates’ and what you are doing, is placing this valuable material, onto the foliage of your plants, where it is very readily absorbed and transferred through the whole of the plant. This fortifies the plant’s cells, increases the plant’s immune system and makes your plants less susceptible to invading pathogens.
The next step in ‘winter readying’ your gardens and plants is to apply magnesium and potash which can be found in balance with a product called Fruit and Flower Power.
Used around your preferred plants at the rate of 50 grams per square metre once a month for the next 2-3 months. The magnesium is involved in chlorophyll production, which converts sunlight into sugars and is involved in activating enzymes. Because of its role in chlorophyll, the first symptoms of magnesium deficiency shows up as yellowing, usually between the veins of the older leaves. In severe deficiencies, the entire leaf will turn yellow or red and then brown, with symptoms progressing up the plant. Often we see leaves yellowing in winter due to insufficient amounts of this element.
As the weather cools and winter approaches, plants feel the chill like we do, but plants cant put on a jersey like we can. Plant’s protection from chills and frosts comes from having adequate Potassium in their diet. Thus us gardening commentators always suggest to gardeners to supply adequate potash to their plants as winter starts to approach and to avoid too much nitrogen.
Potassium harden up the cells of our plants giving protection from frosts and wet.
We can further protect our soils and plants by a soil drench of Magic Botanic liquid (MBL) and a spray over the foliage of the same.
Next step is to protect those plants that do not like the cold and frosts and we can achieve a good degree of protection from a spray of Vaporgard. VaporGard is organic and it provides a long lasting (2-3 months, or longer in winter) film over the foliage which protects down to 3 degrees C.
In areas where you have harder frosts than 3 you will still need the extra protection such as the traditional frost cloth (Good quality frost cloth protects down to 5), combine the two together and you will have increased protection. Note, several frosts in a row will result in damage still.
VaporGard develops a polymerised skin over each spray-droplet which filters out UVA and UVB. Providing a sunscreen for the chlorophyll, which is normally under attack by UV light. This results in a darker green colour of the foliage within a few days of application. The chlorophyll build-up makes the leaf a more efficient food factory producing more carbohydrates, especially glycols giving stress protection from moisture loss and extra fuel for better growth and faster maturity.
The glycols are anti-freeze for the plant’s cells so you have enabled the plant to have its own anti-freeze system. It is the freezing of cells at frosty times that causes the frost damage.
During an average winter with the occasional frost I can keep my tamarillo in full foliage as well as other frost tender plants. An application of Vaporgard now will prevent you being caught out with an early frost and later on about June another application will protect your plants into spring.
Once you have applied Vaporgard to any plants and wish to apply another spray of Perkfection you need to add Raingard to the spray so it will pass through the film of Vaporgard.
In a nut shell you firstly aid drainage, then apply Fruit and Flower Power, followed with a drench of MBL and spray of the same with Perkfection added. Lastly for those tender plants a spray over the foliage with Vaporgard; the spray on frost protector.
Happy gardening.
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Autumn is not only the time of harvest it is also great for sowing seeds and collecting them. We sow seeds for lawns, green crops, winter vegetables, winter flowers and for those that like something for nothing, we collect seeds.
Last week we wrote about sowing lawns, which autumn is the best time as the young grasses have ample time to establish before they face a hot dry summer.
Sowing of vegetables seeds for harvesting in a few months time is also a great way to have healthy home grown crops for winter meals. ‘Niche’ has a range of vegetable seeds that are ideal for planting now. Available from most garden centres the range includes;
Broccoli Romanesco easy to grow, delightful whorled spears, pick as required. This is a great broccoli for autumn growing and the heads are a lovely lime green in colour.
Mini Cabbages (double packets) conical and ball heads, mini savoy (crinkled head), and mini red head all easy to grow and enough for a meal or two with no wastage, great flavours.
Mini cabbages are quick to mature, less problems from club root disease, which for those with the problem in their soil, they can obtain a jar of potassium permanganate (Condy’s Crystals) from a garden shop. The jar has a recipe for drenching the planting hole with the diluted crystals and salt to prevent the disease attacking the roots.
White butterfly will still be a problem for a while yet and you can overcome this by sprinkling Neem Tree Granules on the soil near the base of the seedlings. (Also do the same with Kale below)
Kale (Borecole / Scotch Kale / Winter Kale) excellent source of vitamins, needs cool weather to bring out the sweet flavour
Carrot Rainbow selection carrots in a range of funky colours, red, yellow, purple, white and orange, all taste like carrots, each with their own individual nutrient content.
Carrot Sugar Snax one of the sweetest, juiciest and crunchiest carrots available, really easy to grow, can be eaten as fingerling's.
To avoid carrot fly damage sprinkle Neem Tree Granules down the row with the seeds and later when the seedlings are up, side dress the row with the same.
New Zealand Spinach start only a matter of weeks after sowing the seed, cut only what you need and allow a couple of weeks for re-growth to pick again.
The above vegetables are top rating ones for vitamins and minerals giving you nutritionally dense fare to ward off colds and chills in winter. Best eaten raw in salads and coleslaws to obtain all the enzymes and vitality, freshly picked from the garden.
You only get out what you put in so drench the soil at sowing time with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and spray the crops 2-4 weekly with the same. Use only compost and natural plant foods such as sheep manure pellets and avoid any chemical fertilisers and sprays.
Don’t forget sprouts can be grow all year round in a Bio Set propagator and after the sprouts have germinated give them a flush of a weak solution of Ocean Solids for all the natural minerals.
For the flower garden, Niche have a huge range of sweet peas, hollyhocks, pansies, aquilegia and poppies that can all be sown now.
Green Crops or fodder crops are sown over gardens that you have harvested your summer crops of vegetables or in vacant flower plots.
The reasons for sowing fodder crops is for them to take up the goodness that has been left in the soil rather than have that goodness leached away with winter rains. A thick cover crop also reduces weed establishment. There are a number of popular crops that can be planted for this purpose and each one will bring added benefits to your gardens.
Later when the crop is reaching maturity and before it sets seeds, you cut the crop off at near ground level with a pair of hedge clippers and then cover the stubble and cut foliage with compost. (The old way was to dig in the crop but this damages the soil food web and also brings weed seeds to the surface) Using the cut and cover method means no soil disturbance.
After cutting the crop you sprinkle Rapid Lime (Soon to be available) and drench the cut foliage with MBL and Mycorrcin which will assist in the breakdown of the green matter. Also animal manure can be sprinkled over the area before the compost. You only need about an inch of compost to cover and leave fallow till you are ready to plant up in the spring. In the meantime the soil life and worms will work on the materials supplied making a fantastic garden for growing in next spring.
The following are some of the seeds you can grow for a green crop;
Lupin are a quick growing and excellent source of nitrogen. Prefers light, slightly acid soil.
Alpha Alpha easy to grow and perfect for rejuvenating worn out soil. Breaks up soil pans with its vigorous root growth and draws up sub-surface minerals. Drought resistant. Cut for a nitrogen rich mulch.
Mustard is excellent for weed seed control and cleaning up some harmful soil fungi. Very fast growing and prefers moist soil. (DO NOT PLANT IF YOU HAVE CLUB ROOT PROBLEMS IN THE SOIL)
Oats Provides lots of organic matter.
Wheat is a very good source of carbon and humus.
Peas not only provide a rich source of nitrogen but you can benefit from a crop of fresh peas to boot.
My preference is to sow a mix of any or all of the above to obtain a range of benefits in one sowing.
Our last aspect is the collection of seeds which is a great way to obtain a lot of seed to resow next spring/summer costing you only a bit of your time collecting and storing.
With any vegetables that you have grown, you let one of the best plants go to seed and harvest the seeds later on when they are ripe.
Normally speaking if you allow a silverbeet go to seed (for instance) you will have hundreds of seeds for future use.
When you sow this seed next season and allow for another plant to go to seed, you will over a few generations obtain a strain of silverbeet that has adapted specifically to your soil and weather conditions. This applies to any type of vegetable or plant. It is also the reason why certain weed species you have an on going problem with do so well in your gardens.
Collecting flower seeds of annual flowering plants is much quicker as they are already flowering or have flowered and have seed pods ready to harvest.
Impatiens is one of my favourite ones as the seed is expensive to buy. When touched the ripe seed pod springs open, scattering the seeds all over the place. Just slip a small plastic bag over the pods and seal before the pod springs open. Activated, all the seeds will be in the bag.
Whatever the seed is that you collect place each type in a jar lid and leave on a window sill for a couple of days to dry. Then place the seeds in a small paper bag with the type written on the bag.
A number of these bags are then placed in a sealed glass jar and put in the fridge for storage.
The cold temperature of the fridge will keep them in good condition for sowing later on.
Seeds collected in this manner are a great savings and a lot of fun to do.
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While writing this weeks article (Sunday the 18th ) two important gardening events have taken place; daylight savings has ended and a lovely stream of rain is falling, both events herald the real beginning of autumn.
The end of daylight savings means we have less time before dusk to do any gardening chores plus the knowledge that we are only 3 months away from the shortest day.
As the days shorten plant growth slows and temperatures cool. Gardeners need to be mindful of this and to be careful in watering gardens or containers as the plants require less water and wet feet gives rise to wet weather diseases. (Spray susceptible plants with Perkfection) Parched soils have been soaking up the recent rains and this promotes seeds of weeds, which laid dormant over the summer months to germinate.
Watch out for these young weeds and zap them while they are very small. If allowed to grow they will race to maturity before winter sets in and drop a fresh load of seed to create weed problems for you in the spring.
A few weeks back we suggested that gardeners should prepare areas where new lawns are to be sown.
For those that have done their preparation work now is about the time to sow the new lawn seed.
Preparation work involved making about the top 15 to 20 cm of soil, friable and a good medium of soil and compost/humus for the lawn grasses to grow. It also involved the laying of drainage and irrigation systems if required and periods to germinate any weed seeds that were present.
If all the above have been done you will now have an area that is of bare soil of a fine tilth, free of weeds and moist with the recent rains. A sprinkling of Gypsum over the area and lightly watered in will assist in seed germination and root establishment. If you would like to go a step further also apply a sprinkling of Simalith rock dust and lightly water in.
At this stage you have done a lot of good work so do not spoil it by planting poor grass seed.
The best seed types to sow are ones that are a mix of fine rye and fescue. Avoid mixes that have brown top in them as the brown top is going to cause you heaps of thatch problems in the future.
(Who wants to create more work and costs for themselves?)
The modern fine rye strains are quick to establish, hard wearing and make a great looking lawn.
The fescues are also a very fine bladed grass but slower to germinate and not as hard wearing.
Many lawn seeds offered to the home gardener are coated, which means you get less seed per kilo.
Some coatings are so heavy that up to half the weight of a kilo of seed is coatings. These coated types of lawn mixes are a waste of money and can have much slower and poorer germination rates.
Green keepers (the masters of turf) seldom if ever, use a coated lawn seed, instead they prefer uncoated seed that is certified having a proven germination rate in the 90% plus with about a 99% purity.
This last figure is important as you do not want to be sowing a lawn seed mix that has a lot of grass weeds or other weeds in the mix. Consumers (Magazine) a few years back when testing common brands of lawn seeds for the home garden market found one that had no lawn seed in it at all, just weed seeds!
Though I am against coated lawn seed there is one brand called Super Strike which is an excellent mix of fescue and fine rye and the coating is so fine that it only adds 1 gram of weight per kilo of seed.
A great lawn is one that is a dense mat of fine grasses mowed at a height of 25 to 50mm tall.
A dense mat means very few weed problems as weeds can not establish in such competition and the odd one that does, can be cut out with a sharp knife. A bonus to this is that you do not have to waste a lot of money on lawn weed sprays and moss controls.
The rate you sow a lawn at will determine how many seeds are in any given area. Often the rate for home gardens is 1 kilo of seed per 30 to 33 sqM. There is no reason that you cannot increase this by half or even double. A thick mat of grasses that establishes quickly will ensure you of a better lawn.
After you broadcast your seeds you can either lightly rake or even better cover the seed lightly with a weed free sand or fine pumice then lightly water to settle.
It is now important that the area be kept moist for several weeks while the seed is germinating and the grasses are establishing. Failure to maintain a good moisture level means a poorer strike and establishment. At the same time you do not want to drown the area and have seeds wash away from the places where they landed. A light watering morning and night, when it is not raining is about right.
On any hot sunny day a midday watering maybe needed.
Birds, if plentiful in the area, may help themselves to your freshly laid seeds.
To overcome this you can feed the birds with cheap fresh bread on the other side of the house.
The fresh bread will swell in their tummies and reduce their foraging habits. Placed out at dawn (or before you go to bed if not an early riser) and maybe another sprinkling of the bread later in the day.
Bird Repeller Ribbon can be stretched out over the freshly sown areas till the grasses have established.
Using the new fine rye grasses (Super Strike) means a very quick germination and less bird problems.
You can further enhance the germination and establishment by spraying the area with Magic Botanic Liquid after sowing and repeat two weeks later.
Endeavour to keep the area sown of activity till two or more mowing's are completed.
Never mow off more than one third of the height of the grasses in any one mowing. This aids the grasses to branch and form that dense mat.
The type of food you supply to your lawn is also very important. Do not use the common lawn fertiliser as it can cause problems such as thatch, burning and weak rapid growth. Besides it only gives the lawn a boost, kills the soil life and weakens the health of the grasses.
Instead use a slow release food and the best one for this is a natural product called Bio Boost. Inexpensive when compared to other lawn fertilisers and it releases over a 12 month period but should be applied to lawns in both spring and autumn.
Not readily available except from a few garden centres and some farm supply stores such as Fruit Fed/PGG Wrightson.
Small quantities in some garden centres as Break Through.
Also by mail order at Bulk section.

I have been told that later in the year this excellent slow release product will become more readily available.
For those with existing lawns now is the time to apply Thatch Busta to your lawns to clean up the thatch that has gathered in the last 6 months. Thatch is the debris that builds up on the soil at the base of the grasses.
It causes problems of drainage, disease and moss. Thatch Busta is sprayed over the lawn and it will eat up an inch of thatch in a month in average conditions.
If you wish to thicken up the existing grasses then it pays to run a scarifier over the lawn and sow fresh seed into the grooves that are left. By scarifying and over sowing a lawn with quality lawn seed every spring and autumn till you have the desired lawn you require.
This process will tend to force weaker grasses and weeds out of the lawn and convert a poor lawn into a great one. For further information on lawns and lawn care obtain a copy of my recent book, Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide available from some libraries, book shops, garden centres and by mail order.

There is two chapter devoted to lawns and their care.
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Stress in plants is the same as stress in us two legged’s, when we are under stress our immune systems are weakened and we are more likely to catch colds and have other health issues.
Stress in us comes with side effects, such as unable to obtain a good nights sleep, rushed meals or fast foods and the digestive system does not operate as well as could be; our body functions are under pressure. Thus our original stress condition is compounded with the resulting side effects.
Similarly when a plant comes into stress at this time of the year because of the hot dry conditions, it also weakened, attracting pests and diseases, who’s job in nature is to assist in taking the plant out.
The plant goes into reproductive mode, flowering profusely and setting seeds. As the plant’s life is threatened it just wants to produce offspring and most, if not all its resources goes into this.
To make matters even worse the soil life including the worms have insufficient moisture so they disappear and reduce further the plant’s ability to take in nutrients and moisture.
Sap sucking insects compound the problem and diseases such as black spot, rust and mildews run wild.
To illustrate a point, I have two areas of garden where I have silverbeet growing. One right down the back, fenced off from the free ranging chooks, was planted up in late spring. The area is very dry with a heavy clay soil and a number of established trees which also suck most of the available nutrients and moisture out of the soil.
It is not a good gardening area and I plan to put raised gardens in with lots of compost to make great growing beds.
Till this is done I have not watered as much as I should have and the silverbeet is poor looking with rust problems and going to seed.. Where in another area I do have a raised bed with ample compost and animal manures in.
This area was planted with silverbeet seedlings in mid January and each night I give the bed a nice drink of filtered water with a hand held hose. Here the silverbeet is lush and already ready to harvest the outer leaves.
No rust, just happy plants that have no stress problems. Worms are active which tells me that all the soil life is also. Better growing medium and a little watering daily is all that is needed to keep it right.
We mentioned a cheap remedy a couple of weeks ago on lawns for the problem of dry spot. This occurs when the soil becomes to dry and will not accept water. To break the surface tension you simply fill a watering can with warm water and squirt some dish washing liquid into the water. Give the water a stir to make it soapy and water onto the dry spots or areas. This breaks the surface tension and water can then penetrate. The same principal can be applied to gardens that have become too dry.
Once you have treated with the soapy water you can then water and the water will soak into the soil.
You do not need to supply a lot of water, instead a little water every day later in the afternoon will do nicely. I prefer to water by hand and at the same time I can then check plants for insect pests and any diseases that might be starting up and take the appropriate action to control.
It also allows me to pull out any young weeds and pick ripening fruit before the birds start pecking them. I will often come back inside with a couple of pockets full of near ripe tomatoes to go into a bowl and finish ripening.
Leaf hoppers are into many plants at this time and a few nights ago I noticed a number of them on a Brugmansia I have growing in a container, so out with the Neem Tree Oil and Raingard and a good spraying of the plant along with other plants in the area. Next night there was not a hopper to be seen and only the odd one has turned up since. Another spray a week or so later should be in order.
For bad infestations a number of sprays of the two products maybe required for a few weeks.
White butterflies are starting to flit around my gardens so all the cabbages and brassicas along with the tomato plants have been given a dose of Neem Tree Granules onto the soil at the base of each plant, which helps keep the pests under control.
Spider Mites are another pest insect that can run amok on plants at this time and a spray of Liquid Sulphur will stop them in their tracks. (Do not use with other sprays including Neem tree Oil)
You can however mix Liquid Copper, Liquid Sulphur and Raingard together, but dilute the copper and sulphur separately in some water before adding to the sprayer. For instance if you wanted 10 litres of spray add 35ml of Liquid Copper to a couple of litres of water then in another couple of litres add 25 mls of Liquid sulphur.
Put a couple of litres of water into the sprayer and then add the diluted products. Add 10 ml of Raingard and the other 4 litres of water to the sprayer and agitate. You are now ready for battle.
Some gardeners like to use both copper and sulphur as protectors on plants for a range of diseases.
A gardener very kindly sent me a poem she has written which I would like to share with you.
OBSESSION

I’m sick of pouring chemicals
Toxic sprays I’ve had a few
I’m going to grow things naturally
I’m now obsessed with poo

My niece has got a sheep farm
So we drive the country route
I pack a shovel in the car
And buckets in the boot

Our palm trees harbour pigeons
They are there from dark to dawn
The compost bin is filling up
With droppings from the lawn

Got a worm farm for my birthday
It takes kitchen scraps for free
Worms give me lovely vermicast
And bottles of their pee

Products in the potting shed
Are lined up in a row
They’re prefixed “Magic” “Bio” “Sea”
And some you’d never know

My strawberries are so big and sweet
Far nicer than a lolly
And I’ve got heaps to give away
Thanks to growing tips from Wally

My garden plants are happy
My obsessions tending manic
But that’s the way it has to be
When you’re growing things organic

Joy Gore

Thank you Joy

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We are all aware that our bodies need adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals, nature has over thousands of years evolved our bodies to take the vitamins and goodness our of the fruit and vegetables that we eat. When we eat a fresh bit of fruit or a vegetable we take into our bodies a number of vitamins, minerals and enzymes which are in balance and readily absorbed by our metabolism.
It is also known that a number of minerals and vitamins need to have complementary enzymes and minerals for absorption. If these are lacking then our bodies will likely pass the valuable vitamins out with our toilets. The more I read and understand about our food chain and the assimilation of healthy, nutritional dense food the more intriguing it becomes.
For instance there maybe a herb that you can take to assist with a health problem. Scientists discover that the constitute of the herb, that assists the condition, is a particular substance so they then synthetically make the substance.
The man made substance often is not as affective as the original herb and may even cause adverse reactions in some people. The reason is simple, the herb contained many properties other than the particular substance that assisted with the health condition. When the man made substance is produced we lose all the other properties which enhance the action or absorption in our metabolism.
This point was raised in a recent article I read in the Dominion Post entitled, ‘Vitamins’ value debunked’ The article came from The Times in Britain and was originally published in ‘Journal of the American Medical Association’ The article read, ‘Vitamin pills, commonly taken by millions of people, are doing them more harm than good, an analysis of the evidence has concluded.
Three supplements- vitamins A and E and beta carotene- appear to increase the death rate of those taking them.
Vitamins C and selenium have no effect. The research was carried out by a team led by Goran Bjelakovic of Copenhagen University Hospital and colleagues, using methods developed by the Cochrane Collaboration, the leading international group specialising in the analysis of what works in medicine.
Supporters of vitamin supplements believe these man made vitamins act as anti-oxidants, preventing highly active oxygen radicals in the body damaging molecules such as cholesterol, to cause heart disease. The theory seemed plausible, and some initial trial results appeared to lend it support.
But as better trials were done different results emerged. The Copenhagen team found that supplements as a whole increased the death rate by 5 per cent. When supplements were taken separately, beta carotene increased death rates by 7 per cent.
(For those that do not know, Beta-carotene is the molecule that gives carrots their orange colour. It is part of a family of chemicals called the carotenoids, which are found in many fruit and vegetables, as well as some animal products such as egg yolks.
Carotenoids were first isolated in the early 19th century, and have been synthesised for use as food colorings since the 1950s. Biologically, beta-carotene is most important as the precursor of vitamin A.
It also has anti-oxidant properties and may help in preventing cancer and other diseases.)
Vitamin A increased death rates by 16 per cent and vitamin E by 4 per cent.
The team said it examined only the use of synthetic vitamins.’
I have believed for many years that man made vitamins were a waste of money and the only effect of them was that they changed the colour of your pee.
Instead of wasting your money on vitamin supplements do what the British Heart Foundation says, ‘People should not take supplements, but should concentrate instead on eating a healthy diet.’
Which leads us back to our gardens where you can simply grow very healthy fruit and vegetables at little cost and enjoy the vast complexity of vitamins and minerals they richly provide.
For instance one cup of raw spinach contains .86 grams of protein and .81 grams of fiber. Plus Potassium - 167.4 mg, Phosphorus - 14.7 mg, Magnesium - 23.7 mg, Calcium - 29.7 mg, Sodium - 23.7 mg, Iron - .81 mg, Selenium - .3 mg, - Vitamin K - 145 mcg, Also contains small amounts of manganese, copper and zinc. Plus Vitamin A - 2014.5 mg, Vitamin C - 8.43 mg, Folate - 58.2 mcg and contains some other vitamins in small amounts.
Spinach is so easy to grow as well.
One medium size tomato contains 1.05 grams of protein and 1.35 grams of fiber, Potassium - 396.7 mg, Phosphorus - 62.7 mg, Magnesium - 22.8 mg, Calcium - 31.9 mg, Sodium - 11.4 mg, Iron - .51 mg, Selenium - .8 mg, Also contains small amounts of manganese, copper and zinc. Plus Vitamin A - 2364 IU, Vitamin C - 25 mg, Folate (important during pregnancy) - 46 mcg, Niacin - .94 mg, Vitamin B6 - .1 mg and don't the ones you grow taste so much better than purchased ones?
There is another rule in nature, in that you only get out what you put in, so when it comes to growing any fruit and vegetables you need to supply into the growing medium a vast range of minerals and this can be simply done these days with applications of Magic Botanic Liquid which we wrote about last week, the minerals from the ocean, ‘Ocean Solids’ and the minerals from rocks, ‘Simalith’. Add these to your soil with ample amounts of compost, animal manures and any other natural products.
If you have limited room you can grow a few vegetables in containers or polystrene trays using a mix of compost and a bit of soil.
One really great thing you can grow is wheat grass in trays and then juice it through a manual juicer to drink about 30 mils a day on an empty stomach. Grown with all the minerals supplied by the products mentioned above, that 30 mils is the equivalent of 1 kg of fresh vegetables in regards to the vitamins, mineral and enzymes.
I have been growing and juicing wheat grass daily, for over a year now and I cant remember a time, other than my youth, when I have felt so fit and healthy as I do now.
I don't even catch colds anymore, I can feel a cold coming on and next day its gone. For more information see my web site at Wheat Grass or give me a call on 0800 466464
Most of us cannot grow all the fruit and vegetables that we need in our daily diets but what we are able to grow can obtain a good percentage of our bodies daily needs of vitamins and minerals.
Grow your own and be healthy, don't waste your money on supplements.
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March is the first month of autumn and on 18th of March this fact will be brought home to us abruptly as day light savings finishes. Less time to get those evening chores and a bit of gardening done before dusk.
Plants receive a little less natural light each day and their growth slows as a result.
It is not too late to plant quick maturing vegetables but time is quickly running out for those crops that take longer to mature.
Summer grown vegetables will be harvested and stored or frozen for winter use, bare land will be mulched with compost and cover crops planted making ready for next spring plantings.
Winter flowering plants and spring bulbs will be planted into flower gardens and containers to brighten up the winter days that face us soon.
Insect pests run rife at this time trying to get those last generations through before winter sets in.
This makes the autumn time a important time to eradicate as many of these pests as possible.
In gardens and plants where there are pests, a weekly spray of Neem Tree Oil would be advisable. On other plants a couple of sprays two weeks apart should keep them fairly free of late populations.
White butterflies are reaching a peak at this time so sprinkle Neem Tree Granules on the soil around your winter cabbages and other brassicas.
Powdery Mildew will start to attack a whole range of plants and a simple spray of baking soda at the rate of a heaped table spoon to a litre of warm water with one mil of Raingard added will give protection for up to 14 days. This will help extend the time of annual vegetables and flowers affected, but in the end they will succumb to winter.
Roses will also start to show signs of the seasonal change and you can use protective sprays such as Neem Tree Oil to prolong their appearance but as its that time of the year you may decide just to let nature take its course.
In areas where early frosts may happen a protective spray of Vaporgard would be advisable on the more frost tender plants. Incidently the same spray will also protect plants from a number of autumn diseases and pests.
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March is usually the bulb planting month, both in pots for indoor display and in the open garden.
Though bulbs in pots are planted in a high humus bulb mix, high in fibre, in the open garden the main requirement for bulbs is drainage rather than compost.
Adding some sand or gritty soil to the bulb bed is better than giving them too much compost. And both in pots, containers and in the open bed, adding some charcoal -- partially burned wood -- will help growth.
Where bulbs are planted in bowls without drainage holes -- many are sold which are really unsuitable for growing plants in because they have no drainage hole -- pieces of charcoal and a drainage layer of gravel or small stones are a must if good growth is to be achieved.
Growing in aqua containers, jars or vases which hold the bulb just above the level of the water so that the roots grow down into it, is an attractive way of displaying bulbs, particularly hyacinths. The ones with coloured or darkened glass are best, as light can encourage the growth of algae in the water.
In this case, changing the water frequently will be found to give better growth. Oxygen leaches rapidly from water into air, and if the same water is left in the container all season, by the time the bulbs have flowered an unpleasant smell can develop.
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As we are now in Autumn it is the best time of the year to prepare and sow new lawns, patch existing ones and over sow sparse lawn areas.
The best thing you can do for your new lawn in the preparation is to give the area to be sown a good coverage with Gypsum Soil Life.
The reasons for this are several, it will open up heavy soils allowing for the roots to penetrate deeper. Gypsum will provide valuable calcium and sulphur without altering the pH of the soil. Gypsum will assist in draining excess water and reduce ponding effects. Gypsum will increase the germination rate and success of your lawn seeds as field trials have proven.
Gypsum will give you stronger and healthier grasses that will be able to withstand serve conditions better.
If you are preparing a new area for lawn or replacing an old existing lawn, spray the area with Roundup to remove the current weeds and grasses.
A few days later the area can be tilled, levelled and granulated to suit and at this time Gypsum Soil Life should also be applied at the recommended rates.
The area then should be kept moist to germinate any other weeds or seeds that are dormant. (Gypsum will also assist these to germinate quicker)
Then the area should be sprayed again with Roundup to kill these seeds.
Sprinkle a light coating of Gypsum prior to broadcasting the lawn seeds or mix Gypsum with the seeds to be scattered.
Lightly rake to work the seeds and Gypsum into the soil.
Similar treatment can be applied to lawn patching.
If you wish to over sow an existing lawn to increase the amount of grass and better the texture then spray the lawn with a lawn weed killer.
After the lawn weeds have died spread Gypsum Soil Life over the area and either use a scarifier or rake to open up the soil in preparation for planting. The new lawn seed can then be broadcast followed by a light raking to work the seeds into the area.
Remember to keep the area that is sown, moist after planting, by regular sprinklings of water if it does not rain. Regular light sprinklings will prove better than intermittent heavy soakings.
Choose the right lawn seed to suit the conditions and to give you the type of lawn you require.
Look for high quality, non-coated lawn seeds as you get more seeds per kilo and without a coating to slow down germination. (the exception to this is Super Strike lawn seed) If you are not looking for a quality lawn then any lawn seed will do as long as its a high viable germination rate.
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The Passionvine Hopper (Scolypopa australis) attacks passion fruit vines, kiwifruit, pumpkin, citrus, beans, flax, ferns and many other plants.
They are also feed on tutu (Coriaria arborea Linsay). When they feed on tutu’s sap a poison from the plant is released into the honeydew; honey bees collect this and the honey produced is from this is highly poisonous to humans. Honey poisonings have been traced to this in NZ.
The Passion Fruit Hopper are sucking insects which can cause shriveling and distorting of the fruit. Sooty mould is another noticeable aspect that will let you know that your plants have this problem. Most sucking insects excrete honey dew which causes sooty mould.
The major damage occurs to passion fruit and kiwi fruit and is one of the reasons why passion fruit vines fail prematurely.
The bugs are found all over the North Island and some parts of the South Island.
The adults are about 1 cm in length with transparent wings, speckled with small, brown opaque areas.
Wings are held out to each side at rest, giving the insect a triangular appearance from above. Body greyish-blue in colour. When disturbed they jump. The Nymphs are dark pinkish colour, wingless with a conspicuous large white tuft at hind end. They also jump similarly to the adults when disturbed.
The winter is passed in the egg stage. The Nymphs emerge between October and December and take nearly 3 months to pass through 5 nymphal instars.
They feed on succulent shoots near the stem growing tips. Adults are present from late December-May.
They are a difficult pest to control as repeated sprayings with Neem Tree Oil is needed while the nymphs are developing to adults. Neem tree Oil would be one of the few sprays that will actually control this pest.
I would suggest that if you have a passion fruit vine that you check it for the hoppers and if noticed spray with Neem and repeat again 14 days later. Repeat where noticed. If you do not notice any hoppers on your vine then a monthly spray with Neem oil would not go amiss to ensure that the pests don’t get established. The same treatment for other types of leaf hoppers.
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Written by Wally Richards.

We all like to have nice gardens with healthy plants and the only way to ensure this state is to have a healthy soil-food-web. That means a soil that is teeming with microbes, beneficial fungi along with many soil creatures including big populations of earthworms.
The easiest way to determine that you have good healthy soil is by the number of worms you see when the soil is opened up. No worms, in a moist soil, means you have a problem and until rectified you will struggle to have healthy plants and gardens. Note that I say moist soil because when the soil becomes too dry, too wet or too cold you will be lucky to see any worms, even if you do have good worm populations.
When temperatures drop or soils get too warm or dry, worms know what to do. If it starts getting chilly, they may tunnel deep into the soil before it hardens. They may also coil into a slime-coated ball and go into a sleep-like state called estivation. It’s something like a hibernating bear.
Once conditions improve to the worm’s liking up they come to work your gardens for you.
There are 3500-4000 species of earthworms around the world and nearly 200 species have been identified in New Zealand. They are full of calcium, protein, fibre and vitamins, making them a valuable food source for many mammals, reptiles and fish. Earthworms vary in size, on average from no more than 1 centimetre to about 3 metres in length.
One of the world’s largest earthworms, the Giant Gippsland Earthworm (Megascolides australis), is found in Australia. It has an average length exceeding 1 metre.
However, the longest recorded earthworm was a South African giant specimen (Microchaetus rappi), measuring around 7 metres in length.
An interesting site to find out about worms and other aspects of gardening is at hosted by Lincoln University.
The following is some of the information they provide on earthworms: Pastures commonly support the biggest populations of earthworms as they usually contain large amounts of organic matter and are infrequently disturbed by cultivation events.
Numbers of earthworms can commonly range between 7 and 12 million per hectare under a productive pasture in New Zealand. This corresponds to 1 to 3 tonnes of earthworms per hectare and means that the weight of earthworms below a pasture is similar to the weight of the grazing animals supported above ground!
Earthworms are hermaphroditic, which means they each have both male and female organs.
It is an old wives’ tale that cutting an earthworm in half will make two earthworms; one part may survive, but it is much more likely that both parts will die.
The excreta produced by earthworms is known as casts. As soil passes through an earthworm’s body, some of the nutrients are converted into forms that are more readily available for plant uptake. So casts are generally rich in plant-available nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
As well as consuming soil, earthworms also help to break down and thereby recycle organic materials (such as dead herbage and dung). Scientists have calculated that each year through their activities they are responsible for burying around 6 tonnes of pasture litter per hectare.
As they burrow through the soil, earthworms create burrows and channels that help to loosen the soil, allowing air to circulate and roots and water to penetrate the soil more easily.
In New Zealand an incredible 25-30 tonnes of soil per hectare per year has been measured by scientists as being deposited by earthworms on the soil surface in the form of casts. But we must remember that some earthworms deposit their cast material both within and upon the soil surface, so the total amount of soil that they turn over in a year is even higher!
There are four main types of earthworms that you might find examples of in your garden:
Compost dwellers. Like to live in high organic matter environments such as compost heaps, but will not usually survive in soil unless it contains very high amounts of organic matter.
Soil surface dwellers. Feed on decaying roots, shoots, leaves and dung and live near the soil surface (0-15 cm depth). Important in mixing plant litter into the soil.
Topsoil dwellers. Most common earthworms in New Zealand; live in the top 20-30 cm depth of soil. Burrow through soil, eating and excreting it. Tend to eat more soil than organic matter.
Subsoil dwellers. Tend to live in permanent burrows up to as deep as 3 metres below soil surface. Drag food such as leaves into their burrows from the soil surface. Often larger than other earthworm types.
What affects earthworms? Temperature (they don’t like it too hot or too cold) Moisture (they don’t like it too wet or too dry) Food availability/type (some sources of organic matter are of better quality/contain more nutrients than others) Soil type and texture (soil organic matter is a good food source; sand can be abrasive to the earthworm’s skin) pH of soil/organic material (most earthworms prefer a pH closer to neutral) Seasonality (numbers decline during summer when it gets hot and dry)
Land management (cultivation, fertiliser application, irrigation) Predators (such as birds and flatworms) Toxic substances (such as fungicides, fumigants, chemical weed killers, sprays and chemical fertilisers such as General Purpose, Rose etc and Nitrophoska)
How do I encourage earthworms in my garden?
Maintain soil pH between 5.8 and 6.3 by adding lime periodically to the soil. Limit the amount of cultivation where possible but, if cultivating, avoid machines that pulverise the soil and the earthworms contained therein. Limit the use of harmful pesticides etc as mentioned above.
Irrigate the soil during dry periods to maintain earthworm activity, and increase organic matter in the soil (a good food source for earthworms) by incorporating composted material and animal manures.
You can breed worms in a worm farm such as a Worm-a-Round (see ) I have two of these units in operation and my well composted gardens are now full of worms as a result. You simply put your kitchen wastes into the worm farm to feed the worms and gain worms, worm pee and worm casts for your gardens while turning your scraps into a valuable garden resource.
Liming regularly your gardens with a fast acting lime such as Rapid Lime. (which I will be discussing in a few weeks time) Applying animal manures and compost as mulches along with Magic Botanic Liquid as a soil drench makes moist garden soils a paradise for big worm populations.
Cultivation of soil such as digging should be kept to a minimum and instead cover bare soil with animal manures and compost (in that order) and then plant your seedlings into the compost.
If you need to dig a garden to loosen the soil or to add in compost this is best done when the soil is dry and the worms are not present.
Total avoidance of common fertilisers and chemical sprays is a must.
When plants are finished such as annuals and vegetables either cut them off at ground level or pull out with the minimum of soil disturbance. This also applies with weeds. Not only do these actions give minimal disturbance to worms but it also leaves the webs of beneficial fungi in tack to the great benefit of all other existing plants.
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Gardeners have one desire; healthy gardens and plants that are growing well, fairly free of diseases and pests. Some years ago scientists discovered that Humate and Fulvic acid incorporating more than 77 minerals as well as a number of Amino Acids, derived from prehistoric cycad forest deposits, did wonders for the soil and plants.
Unfortunately, many of the minerals and trace elements which contemporary research is showing to be necessary for full health are no longer readily available in our soils. Modern farming methods have not replaced these in our soils, and so these minerals and elements are less available to the plants grown for food or pleasure.
The result is that they are not available in our food. Indeed, recent studies conducted at various agricultural collages and universities show that today's fruits and vegetables are lacking in all the 77 minerals and trace elements with most samples containing 30 or less.
This is why the food in our current, conventional food chain lacks the nutritional values we need for good ongoing health. Our plants are not healthy, our animals/stock are not healthy and we at the top of the food chain also have numerous health problems these days.
Humate and Fulvic acid is readily available in many garden centres under the name of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL). Extracted in New Zealand from lignite (low grade coal) which is the consolidate of those giant prehistoric forests growing at a time when the planet was mineral rich.
I often mention MBL in my weekly columns and numerous gardeners have tried the liquid in their gardens. The results and feed back that I have received from gardeners using the liquid have been remarkable.
One lady gardener rang me the other day and told about a life style block they had purchased some years ago. The soil was of poor quality as a result of past use and they were having difficulties getting plants to grow no matter what they did.
She gave an example of a stand of olive trees they planted 5 years ago which were alive but barely growing since planted. The lady had obtained a bottle of MBL and used it on her roses; the roses quickly responded and now she is proud of what once were poor specimens.
With this in mind she convinced her husband to treat the olive trees to the liquid.
A good drench of the soil and a few sprays over the foliage and hey presto the olive trees are now growing well and looking really healthy.
I cannot recount the number of gardeners that have phoned, emailed or posted me letters telling how their gardens have never been as good as now, since they started using MBL.
One gardener from Auckland rang me up the other day and said “I don't know whats in it, but now I have a fantastic garden.” He went onto to say his garden won the top garden in his area as a neighbough had nominated his garden as an entry for the competition.
What does this magic stuff actually do? Well it does a number of things such as unlocking and making food or past fertilisers in the soil available for plants.
It helps clean up toxic poisons and chemical residues in the soil because of its high carbon content.
Soil life respond to the liquid and their populations grow aiding the health of the plants.
(Note chemical fertilisers and sprays kill this vital soil life which is a good reason never to use chemicals)
Also found in the humate is humic acid.
Humic Acid is a generic term for a complex of acids found in decaying plants. These acids are used in the chelation process. They also are the source of one of the most exciting health discoveries in recent times: Fulvic Acid.
Fulvic acid is only one of the substances in humate, however. Humic substances comprise an immense arsenal of powerful phytochemicals, biochemicals, enzymes, amino acids, hormones and antioxidants, to list just a few.
It is like waving a magic wand over your gardens and every thing starts to come to life.
To start off you drench the soil with 20 mils of MBL per litre of water applied with a watering can when the soil is already moist. The same can be repeated every 2-3 months for a season or two.
Later on when everything is doing well a drench in the spring and another in the autumn would maintain the health.
Spraying the foliage of plants is also important and will result in better plants and healthier food crops. This can be done two weekly initially, at the rate of 10 mils of MBL to each litre of water. Spray the foliage for reasonable coverage and the soil near the plant at the same time.
Later on a monthly spray should be all thats required.
Often the effects are noticed fairly quickly especially in gardens where chemicals have been used in the past. Organic gardens will also benefit but the improvement will be more in the nutritional value of the crops rather than an increase in the health of the plants. (Because they should be pretty healthy anyway)
More benefits include; Aids and speeds up germination of seeds. Helps to release locked up fertilisers from past applications especially phosphates.
Helps increase availability of chemical fertilisers and organic foods for plants.
Helps reduce many common plant disease problems.
Cleans up many toxic compounds, chemicals and oil spills in soil.
Helps to establish plants in areas where they cant or struggle to establish.
Stimulates growth of soil micro organisms.
Increases root respiration and formation.
Increases availability of micro nutrients.
Increases permeability of plant membranes, which enhances nutrient uptake.
Increases vitamin content of plants.
Accelerates root development.
Stimulates plant enzymes.
MBL contains a number of trace elements such as Si, Mg, S, Mn and more.
Increases photosynthesis.
Contains silica which strengthens cell walls, helps block disease and regulates cell temperature which increases drought and frost tolerance.
Increase pH buffering properties of soil.
Retains and releases water soluble fertilisers for plants when needed.
Increases soil aeration.
Improves soil structure.
Makes soil more friable.
Has a capacity to detoxify chemical residues and heavy metals.
A powerful, natural chelating agent.
Improves taste and shelf-life.
Fulvic acid can promote prolonged production, as it tends to delay the aging process. Fulvic acid increases the metabolism of proteins.
You can put some magic into your garden for your own pleasure, increase the nutritional value of your own home grown fruit and vegetables and have the best looking roses in the street. Its Magic.
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I am pleased to see that more gardeners are taking pride in their lawns. It is the old story, great gardens are enhanced by great looking lawns. Poor, scruffy, weedy lawns ruin the appearance of the best of gardens. In fact one can go as far as saying that a great looking lawn will improve the appearance of a mediocre garden. It would then make sense for anyone landscaping a section, to firstly establish great looking lawns before worrying too much about the gardens the lawn will border on!
Autumn is the best time to sow a new lawn as the autumn rains and cooler temperatures make it easier for the grasses to establish. Spring planted lawns do not have much time to establish before they are hit with the summer conditions and unless regularly watered, they can fail.
Gardeners that plan to sow a new lawn or rip up a tatty lawn for resowing, should start preparations now.
The first thing to do is to determine what the soil is like in the area to be sown. Light, sandy soils need good friable top soil and compost mixed through the soil.
Heavier clay type soils need to be opened up by using ample Gypsum, top soil and sand, incorporated. Gardeners that are blessed with nice friable soil need only incorporate more compost into it.
The first step would be to kill off whatever is growing in the area to be sown and then rotary hoe to a depth of at least 250mm.Then place a layer of the materials you are going to add to the area (about 4 to 6 cm thick) and rotary hoe them in. Now we water the area regularly to germinate the weed seeds that are going to be present.
Once these weeds are up they can then be killed off. A further layer of introduce material may then be applied to the area and rotary hoed in also. Water and allow the weeds to germinate so you can kill them off while young.
We are trying to establish an area of friable soil to a depth of about 250mm that is free draining with ample humus for moisture retention.
If the area is prone to flooding you may wish at this stage to lay some nova-flow pipes.
It is also at this stage when a pop-up irrigation system can be laid. Complete these tasks and level off the lawn allowing a fall for water run off, to prevent ponding later. Once again water to germinate any other weed seeds.
The above will be done over several weeks which should take us into autumn and the time to sow your new lawn.
The quality of lawn seed you buy will determine the end result so no cheap lawn seed.
Super Strike lawn seed is one I can recommend as it comprises of only fine turf grasses and no brown top seed. (Do not sow a mix with brown top in it as the brown top is a grass that gives you thatch problems and looks out of place in a fine rye and fescue mix)
Super Strike has a fine coating on the seed which only adds a gram of weight per kilo of seed. Most other coated seeds can add up to 500 grams of coating per kilo and you lose 500 grams of seed.
We will look at sowing and after care, later on in autumn.
For those gardeners that have a reasonable lawn which is prone to weeds and is not as thick a mat as you would like, then you can use another method for improving your existing lawn.
It is too early to start this, but what you do when the soil becomes moist with autumn rains is to hire a scarifier and run that over your lawn, north/south, east/west. This rips up the thatch and makes grooves in the moist soil. You then spread a top quality lawn seed and gently water it into the grooves.
This method will greatly improve your lawn, thickening up the grasses, making it difficult for weeds to establish and creating a carpet of green. You can do the same again the following autumn till you have the lawn you require.
For those gardeners that do have a great lawn there is a reasonable amount of work needed to keep it nice. Never mow more than one third off the height of the lawn in any one mowing. Also mow so that the height of the grasses are between 25 to 50 mm tall. Mowing lower weakens grasses and allows weed establishment.
Never use a lawn fertiliser on the lawn. Only use a slow release fertiliser and preferably a natural one such as Break Through or its commercial name Bio-Boost.
Ordinary lawn fertilisers damage the soil food web, weaken the grasses, cause thatch problems and are like fast foods, give a boost then nothing.
You can apply the following products to advantage, soft garden lime, dolomite, gypsum, diluted liquid animal manures, Magic Botanic Liquid, Perkfection and Ocean Solids as a liquid feed or spray.
Grasses are just another plant like your roses, and for healthy plants you need natural products.
Twice yearly applications of Thatch Busta will not only eat up thatch in your lawn but will also improve the soil food web for healthier grasses. This can be done now as long as you keep the lawn soil a little moist after application. If you need to apply a weed killer always add the Thatch Busta to the spray as it will make the spray work better and the weeds will disappear faster. It will also off set the damage the chemical does to the soil life.
If you have ‘dry spot’ which are areas where the grass is browning off, it is because the soil has become too dry and will not accept water. You can remedy this very simply by adding some dish washing liquid to warm water in a watering can and apply this to dry areas.
A couple of gardeners have told me that they have porina caterpillars in their lawns at this time.
This would be right as the young caterpillars would be active now and they eat the grasses at the base, causing gaps and damaging the lawn. A simple spray of Neem Tree Oil over the lawn late in the day after the lawn has recently been mowed will stop the damage. A further spray of the same about a month later should catch others that have hatched out in the meantime.
Root Nematodes are another pest that attack lawns but being at the root area of the grasses they are hard to detect. When nematodes suck on roots they take energy from the plant and the plant looses its vigour.
After mowing the lawn you can sprinkle Neem tree Granules over the lawn and water in.
These break down, releasing the Neem properties which are taken up by the roots of the grasses and thus stopping the nematodes from ever feeding again.
A few weeks after application you will notice a new luster to the grasses and the leech's have stopped sucking. The same treatment will also take care of any grass grubs feeding on the roots and porina chewing on the grasses.
Another point with lawns are the lawn mowing contractors whom in many cases want to mow their client’s lawns so low that they scalp the lawns. This is really bad as it opens up the lawn to weeds and weakens the grasses.
The result is a lawn full of weeds that quickly becomes unsightly and needs the mower man back to do it again, often.
Another point that some have complained about is that mower contractors do not wash their mowers between lawns and as a result, they can carry new weed seeds to your lawn.
Great looking lawns add a lot of value to your property and are a pride to the owner.
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Well gardeners, its mid February already and the last month of summer, not that it has seemed much like summer for most of us over the last couple of months, but that’s the weather for you.
Now is time to look around your annual flowering plants in containers and gardens to see what is going to be ok for the next few months, what can be spruced up and what needs to be replaced.
Annuals that have being flowering for sometime that have past ‘their use-by date’ should be taken out for replacement.
Annuals such as Petunias and Impatiens that have given a good show, but now are getting a bit leggy and scraggly should be trimmed back with a good pair of scissors. If you want to retain some colour or flowers, then rather than have a gap, before they re-flower again, selectively cut back.
This means cutting back the outside of the plant and leaving the middle part flowering. Later when the outside is starting to flower again then cut back the middle. Or maybe do half the plant now and the other half later. Use whichever method suits you best.
It is important to feed all the flower plants that you do this to, to bring on the new growth, so use blood and bone with sheep manure pellets, side dressed to to give them a boost. A faster booster would be to dissolve some nitrogen or chook manure in water and water this around the root zone.
Now is also the time to look at the autumn flowering plants that are currently available through your local Garden Centre.
Chrysanthemums called Mini Mums are now in and these young plants will quickly grow and flower over the next few months. Ideal for containers, both indoors and out, as bedding plants and for cut flowers. Chrysanthemums are not an annual so you will have years of pleasure from them.
Pansies for Autumn are also now in and there is a tremendous range to choose from. Give them a more shaded situation at this time, whether in pots or in the garden and remember to keep them moist. They are very quick to mature and flower so you will obtain a great show in no time. Dried Blood under the pansies at planting time also helps the plant establish quickly and gives a lovely dark green foliage, less susceptible to mildew and brighter coloured flowers.
Seedlings of polyanthus and primulas are now coming available and these should be planted out over the next couple of months for winter flowering.
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Citrus trees are fairly free of most disease problems and a twice yearly spray of Liquid Copper normally keeps them clean and healthy. Scale and mealy bugs are the two pests most likely to attack citrus trees, if this happens one or two sprays of Neem Tree Oil should sort them out.
Citrus tree borer can destroy a prize citrus tree over time. One gardener gave me his answer to control the pest and that is to soak an inch wide strip of felt with a solution of Neem tree oil and water 50:50 and wrap the felt around the trunk or the branch that has the borer. Use drawing pins to hold secure and cover will food wrap. Leave on for 3-4 weeks and then remove. Exit holes in the tree should be sealed with a coat of paint as it is these holes that allow the females to enter the tree and lay more eggs.
Fruit trees, with silver leaf, if not too bad at this time, can be saved by a few monthly sprays of Perkfection. Its always a pity to lose a fruit tree so save them, or protect them from this otherwise fatal disease. Fruit trees or roses (which are also prone to silver leaf disease) but are not showing any silvering will also benefit from a couple of sprays of the same product each year.
Plum, pear and cherry trees may have the black cherry slug eating the leaves at this time and a spray of Liquid Copper with Raingard will stop them in their tracks. If you allow too much damage to occur to the foliage you will reduce the size of your crop next season.
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Mites (spider mites) have been especially bad this summer and many plants including roses may have bad infestations right now. The mites are very small and hard to see as they often just appear as dust-like particles on the foliage. Being spiders, sometimes they are noticed by the very small webs they weave.
Discoloured foliage is a good sign they are present but unfortunately by the time the foliage is damaged they have got a real hold on your plant. They are unlikely to kill the plant but they certainly cause a lot of damage and it can set back a good plant, and may take a year to recover. One or two sprays of liquid Sulphur will sort them out.
Thrips are also another microscopic insect and like wise, are very active at this time. You will certainly notice them on your gladioli if you haven’t been spraying for them.
Check also your beans, Camellias, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, tomatoes, cubits, strawberry plants and other ornamentals. Use sprays of Neem Tree Oil to control.
Caterpillars will be into your cabbages, cauliflowers and broccoli about this time, maybe also the loop caterpillars on tomatoes and corn. Neem Oil can be used to control them and sprinkle Neem Tree Granules on the soil beneath the plants for longer term control.
If you can keep the pests under control and prevent them from building up too greater numbers, then your plants and gardens will be the better for it.
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February is a harvesting month with many of the vegetables planted back in spring reaching maturity.
Main crop potatoes for instance will likely be dug this month and the crop stored for later eating.
As we harvest and leave land bare, allows for the decision on whether to re-plant again or to sow a fodder crop. Short term crops of salad vegetables can fill the area, alternatively winter crops of quicker maturing varieties could be planted.
(It is now getting a bit late to plant varieties that take over 3 months to mature for winter)
For areas where early frosts are likely, there is a risk of re-planting more seed potatoes. Where in other warmer areas a late crop of quick maturing spuds is right on, as long as you water well till the rains take over. Tomato plants will be producing well and many gardeners stop feeding the plants at this time.
Thats a bit silly as they will continue to grow and produce more fruit if you keep feeding them. For a good cover crop, with a harvest to boot, plant peas. Not affected by frosts the plants will produce a crop before winter and you can let them then die where they stand. You win with nitrogen fixing and pea straw for free.
Buy the bulk seed, then just broadcast the seeds and cover with compost. Water in with MBL.
In the flower garden we should be planting winter flowering plants where there is space available.
Insect pests are in their hey day at this time and all garden plants should be checked regularly for signs of populations building up. A very good, safe to use, combination of sprays for most insect pests is Neem Tree Oil and Key Pyrethrum mixed together in warm water and sprayed late in the day, just before sunset, on and under the foliage of any affected plants.
You can also protect any plants from insect invasion by sprinkling Neem Tree Granules or Pellets into the root zone and dampening them down.
Dependant on the type of plant, they can in many cases, stop pest numbers from building, but a spray of the above may still be needed occasionally.
Its time to prepare the ground for sowing of lawn seed later. Rotary hoe and level the area for planting.
Next keep the area moist to germinate all the weed seeds which you kill off after a show. Repeat till you are ready to sow the lawn seed. For the best lawns only use uncoated high quality seed like green keepers do. Many will find that the main occupation this month is to keep sufficient moisture in the gardens with watering.
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Watering is essential at this time of the year. Mulching is all very well -- as long as the soil is first moistened -- but water will still be needed, more by some plants than others.
Many gardeners do not apply enough water at a time, and some actually harm their plants by watering little and often, standing with the hose in the hand every evening. Surface roots then develop to tap the source of moisture, and one failure to supply their needs can result in death.
Do you know how much water you are applying when you turn on the sprinkler? Few gardeners do. At least 2cm or 3cm -- one inch in the old terms -- should be applied at a time. A couple of tins marked at 3cm in the sprinkler's area will show just how long it takes to apply an inch of irrigation.
Another method is to slice down the depth of a spade after irrigating and look at the soil profile. You may be surprised at how shallow the water penetration is after half an hour's sprinkling in a heavy soil. Penetration is faster in a sandy soil.
And another hint involving tins. A couple of these, with a few holes punched in the base, sunk near the drip line of large shrubs and trees can be filled weekly. This will provide water near deep roots, avoiding the surface rooting effect which follows sprinkler watering. There will be no evaporation, every drop will go to the trees, and weed seedlings will not develop as they are apt to do after surface sprinkling.
Not every species needs the same amount of water in the soil. Lush annual growth from dahlia or potato tubers, or by shallow-rooted annuals, needs a higher soil moisture content than the foliage of a deep-rooted shrub or even some perennial clumps. Try to understand your plants and their needs and give them just what they need and no more. Water is a precious resource and should not be squandered.
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One should remember to keep on Dead Heading their roses through the summer.
This helps keep the growth compact and ensures repeat flowering of plants.
When using sprays always do so late in the afternoon, after the heat has gone from the sun and before the cooler night temperatures begin.
High humidity encourages black spot on roses. This can be identified by black patches surrounded by yellowing of the leaf.
Sprays of Mycorrcin every 2 weeks will assist in reducing the problem.
Neem Tree Oil also has some excellent fungi control properties and this can be mixed with the Mycorrcin.
If you have trouble with Possums, place two or three drops of Eucalyptus Oil in a litre of water with a drop of Raingard and spray on the plants.
It helps prevent possums nibbling. Also the regular sprays of Neem tree Oil does the trick too so rural gardeners tell me. Apply Blood & Bone fertiliser around the plants to promote new growth and flowers. The spreading of a mulch around the plants will help conserve moisture and reduce weeds. Dry areas should be watered well first applying a drench of Magic Botanic Liquid or dish washing liquid.
Many Garden Centres will have their lists of New Season Roses coming available soon. Watch out for them and place your orders.
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The pear slug, larvae of the pear-leaf sawfly (Caliroa cerasi), also called the cherry slug, first appears from November onwards in a warm year.
But it is usually the second generation which explodes in February and March in warm years which does the most damage. The larvae rasp off the epidermis of the leaves, resulting in the typical skeletonised effect, only the framework of the leaves being left.
The larvae are attacked by an ichneumon fly and predaceous bugs, but by that time the damage has been done. Larvae which have been parasitised fail to drop to the soil, where normal pear slugs hibernate over winter, so the numbers are eventually reduced. But that is no help to a tree attacked just now.
Spiders, birds, preying mantids and other predators seem to dislike the slimy slugs, and as the larvae are not caterpillars, the caterpillar killers Bacillus thuringiensis, or derris dust, are not useful.
The easy answer is to use Liquid Copper and Raingard as a spray over the foliage. The larve are similar to slugs and they hate the copper also. If the trees are still bearing fruit then normal washing will remove the copper before eating.
Quite high trees can be treated if necessary by setting the nozzle on jet and firing the spray high over the tree, allowing it to drip down over the foliage.
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At this time of the year rust becomes a problem on a range of plant species. Geraniums are sometimes devastated by rust, yet in other gardens only the unsightly red or orange rust pustules are seen here and there and the plants don't seem to suffer.
Rust is really an all-embracing term for a range of fungal diseases, usually applied when the infections seem to look like patches of rust on a car.
Plants under glass often suffer, as this fungous disease seems to develop in hot and dry conditions rather than the warm humid conditions which encourages other fungous diseases. Removing affected leaves should be the first priority to lessen the production of rust spores, spreading the disease.
Roses are hit by rust, some cultivars being affected much more than others, which seem to be able to shrug off infection. Again, picking off affected leaves early will help keep it down. Many ornamental flower species, such as hollyhocks and antirrhinums, are also susceptible.
Mint is often attacked, and commercial plantings in Canterbury, ( some years ago) advised by DSIR, as was, started burning off the crop in autumn, as commercial strawberry growers used to do. This seemed to work very well as rust spores were not carried over to spring, the crowns were not affected by the fire, and no sprays were involved.
Plums seem to be the fruit species most affected by rust, but on the leaves, not the fruit. If enough leaves are attacked on a young tree, growth may be slowed and fruit drop may be experienced.
Two natural protections are either sprays of Liquid Sulphur or Baking Soda.
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Gardeners can spend a lot of time and money combating diseases in their gardens. Many of the conventional chemical sprays can be likened to many medications put out by the pharmacy industry; in so much as they give temporary relief without curing the cause. In fact it is my strong belief that many of the chemical sprays we use on our gardens cause more problems than they cure, as they can kill off the beneficial microbes and fungi, leaving our plants more vulnerable to disease attacks. It’s a bit like the antibiotics we take; they weaken our immune system leaving us more vulnerable to other health issues.
When it comes to microbes/bacteria, good or bad, many have very short life spans, some as short as 6 hours, this means that they can build up resistance to chemical sprays in a few hundred generations. (Some have over 4000 generations in 6 weeks) In the garden we tend to find that these traditional chemical sprays lose their effectiveness, including their ability to control the diseases they are meant prevent. Instead they end up harming the beneficial microbes that are essential to the health of the plants.
Nature has developed what we call diseases, as a way to remove the weak and unhealthy plants, starting the conversion of them, back into food for other healthier plants. Thus we can say that diseases in our plants are a sign that there is a basic problem and the disease is only the cleaner, at the beginning of a composting cycle. We need to find out what the problem the plant has and if possible remedy it so the plant will grow healthy.
It could be one of many things such as inadequate or too much moisture, sun light, soil condition, lack of nutrients and elements. Similarly with our own health we need to tackle the cause not the symptoms. Annual plants only have a short life; they grow, mature and produce seeds then die. Once they mature and seed we expect diseases such as powdery mildew to attack them.
Deciduous plants such as roses, will at seasons end, be attacked to clean up the old foliage which is of no further use to the rose.
A perennial tree or plant that becomes diseased tells us the plant has an underlining health problem which we need to address. The first step is to ensure that our gardens have a healthy soil-food-web, teeming with microbes, beneficial fungi and worms.
We know that common fertilisers (General Purpose, Rose, Nitrophoska etc) harm the soil life where natural foods such as manures, organic matter, calcium etc strengthen the soil life. We also know that chemical sprays and chemical herbicides such as Glyphosate, harm the soil life too.
Often the simple aspect of total avoidance of man made chemicals will over a few seasons result in far healthier plants and soil. We can speed up the process with applications of calcium, compost, blood and bone and other minerals. Also ensuring there is adequate moisture that is free of chlorine (Chlorine in tap water harms microbes)
It is easy to gauge the health of your soils by the number of worms present when the soil is moist.
No worms, very poor soil, lots of worms, high health soil.
There never is a need to feed your plants, there is only a need to feed the soil and Nature will do the rest.
This is contrary to conventional growing where one feeds the plants, while killing the soil life.
Worms when they move through the soil create a slime that is rich in nitrogen, beneficial fungi that are attached to the roots of plants collect this nitrogen and feed it to the plants in exchange for carbohydrates (sugars) Beneficial fungi not only extend the plant’s root collection area, they also prevent harmful fungi and nematodes from attacking the roots.
The microbes in the soil convert organic matter into food that the plants can use. For thousands of years this system has worked perfectly and it was only with the introduction of super phosphate and harmful chemicals, that man changed the natural order of things. Then diseases started attacking what appeared to be healthy plants.
I have a plum tree that developed brown rot in the fruit a few years back along with gum excluding from some branches and die back.
Not wanting to use a chemical to try to control the problem I simply applied Ocean Solids and Simalith last season to ensure that the tree was getting all the minerals it required to be healthy.
This season I have enjoyed a large crop of big plums, only noticed a couple of plums with the brown rot instead of most of them. No more die back or gum problems and very few bladder plums which the tree also had as a problem.
That is without any spraying of copper or any other attention. What has also likely helped is that we had ample rain for much of the time. Having placed water filters to remove the chlorine from my tap water is likely to have assisted as well, when there has been a need to water.
I have written before about the applications of Ocean Solids and Simalith to gardens which ensure that each plant obtains every element that they may need to be healthy. I am starting to see results. It may take a few seasons in some cases but far better and cheaper than the conventional control sprays.
Silver leaf disease is a major problem in stone fruit trees and roses in some areas.
If the disease is not too far advanced, one can cut out effected branches and spray the tree or rose with Perkfection at 10 ml per litre for the first application, thereafter monthly, at 5 mils per litre till mid autumn. Start again in the spring when the first foliage appears. Perkfection builds up the plant’s immune system and assists it to overcome the disease. That is as long as the tree or rose has not gone beyond the point of no return. Apply also the Ocean Solids and Simalith once a year.
Mycorrcin and Magic Botanic Liquid are also two products that can be drenched into the soil and sprayed over the foliage of plants. They feed the microbes and beneficial fungi that are in the soil or on the plants, also improving the health of the roots and foliage.
Traditional copper and sulphur sprays can still be used as an external protection against a range of diseases while you are building up the health of the soil and plants.
Liquid Copper is best for downy mildew, blights, brown rot, leaf curl in stone fruit, bacterial diseases and citrus diseases. Liquid Sulphur is best for powdery mildew, rusts, botrytis, leaf moulds or spots, black spot and spider mites.
The two can be mixed together, after diluting each separately in water and then applied to different plants for prevention or control of a wide range of diseases.
Baking soda at the rate of a heaped table spoon per litre of warm water with one mil of Raingard added for each litre is an excellent control for powdery mildew which can attack even the healthiest of plants, prone to the disease, in weather conditions, which favour the disease.
As the health of your soil and plants improves there should be less need for these sprays.
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Timing is one of the most important aspects of gardening if you wish to have fresh vegetables to eat straight from the garden during winter and colourful flower displays in your borders and containers.
Timing requires that you plant about now, seeds or seedlings that will just about reach maturity as winter sets in.
If you leave it too late the plants will still be young as winter sets in and they will only slowly grow on and not mature till the spring. With vegetables the slow winter growth followed by the quicker spring flush forces the plants to bolt, or in other words, go to seed. This makes them only fodder crops, to be dug in, composted or feed to the chooks.
With flowers it means you will have little winter colour but a good show in spring.
When you are buying vegetable seedlings or seeds check the maturity times on the labels or packets.
For planting over the next few weeks the plants should have a maturity period of about 4 months.(120 days)
This means that they will be reaching maturity about May at which time the daylight hours will have reduced along with the colder conditions the plants will hold well over the June/July period.
You then can harvest your vegetables fresh as required for use, from the outdoor like refrigerator.
Vegetables sown in March should be ones that mature in about 90 days. April sowings would be 60 days to maturity.
Brassicas such as cabbage and cauliflower will be young small plants during the worst time of the year for white butterfly damage.
Too much damage to the leaves will slow their growth and delay maturity.
A simple answer to this is to place a heaped teaspoon of Neem Tree Granules under each seedling at planting time and a similar amount on the soil near the base of the plant.
How this works is when the Neem Tree Granules breakdown, they release the Neem properties which are taken up by the plant’s roots.
This means when a caterpillar hatches out and bites into the leaf it will get a small amount of Neem in its guts and will never eat again. The only damage that is done is a very small hole in the leaf.
You need to apply further Neem Tree Granules around the base of the plant about 6-8 weeks later to keep the protection going while the butterflies are still around. Normally two applications per crop are all that is required.
A gardener last summer told me about this use for Neem Tree Granules so I tried it out and was very impressed with the results through the summer months, when white butterflies are at their worst.
There are a good range of vegetables that you can grow for winter cropping and one of my favourites would be Rainbow Beet, the colourful silverbeet. Having a sweeter taste than the dark green silverbeet it not only tastes great but looks good giving a bit of colour to the veggie plot.
In fact it would not be silly to plant a few in a cottage type garden amongst the flowers.
A number of gardeners have taken my suggestion in using polystyrene boxes for growing vegetables in.
The boxes are discarded by the fishing industry and are either free or very cheap to buy. All you need find is a local wholesale fish outlet to obtain them. They come in a few sizes and most are about 20cm deep which is ample root room for several types of vegetables.
A nice story one gardener related to me this week was about friends that had returned from overseas after being away for several months. The gardener had being able to provide their friends with instant vegetable gardens by giving them a number of polystyrene boxes, each with a different type of vegetable just about ready to harvest.
Simple to use, just obtain the boxes and drill a number of drainage holes in the bottom, fill the boxes with a good compost adding in a couple of handfuls of soil or vermicast. If you can, put a few worms in each box to keep the compost open.
Sprinkle a little Ocean Solids and Simalith Rock Dust into the mix so that your crops will have the entire mineral range they need and better flavour.
You can either plant seeds or seedlings and it is not too late to do a box of dwarf beans for harvesting in about 60 odd days.
Now is also the right time to start off tomato plants for winter cropping and those with glasshouses should consider doing so.
If you do not have a glasshouse then you will have to be careful where you have the plant in winter.
I like Russian Reds as they are a cold resistant tomato which means they will still set fruit in cooler times, unlike many other tomatoes types, as gardeners have found over the last few months.
The colder spring and early summer has seen tomato plants flower and not set fruit as the flowers of many types only produce pollen when its warm enough. These tomato plants should now be starting to set fruit.
A mistake that many make is that they stop feeding their tomato plants once they start harvesting the first ripe fruit. If you continue to feed, the plants can go on producing right into winter.
You might like to try my own tomato food called, Wally’s Secret Tomato Food either straight or with Neem tree Granules added.
The Neem Tree Granules help keep the plants free of whitefly and caterpillars.
The secret of growing tomatoes in a glasshouse through winter is to always keep the mix a little dry and never water too much, just enough to keep them from drooping through lack of water.
Growing your winter tomatoes in a 45 litre container means you can control the moisture level and move them around if need be.
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Birds love fruit as much as we do and if you are not careful birds can get all the fruit off a tree or bush before you do. There are several ways you can ensure that you have ample fruit from your garden leaving surplus for the birds to finish off.
Many types of fruit can be picked when they are near ripe to ripen indoors. Much of the fruit sold has been picked at the near ripe stage which gives the suppliers a longer shelf life.
Fully ripe fruit can be held longer in the fridge but in doing so often the sugar levels and flavour is reduced.
Bird netting is another way to reduce bird damage but can be difficult to put over and take off many trees. Ideal for smaller fruiting bushes where you can make a frame over the bush to support the netting.
From America we have the imported ‘Bird Repeller Ribbon’ which is a highly reflected ribbon with holograms imprinted into the ribbon.
The ribbon is strung between branches with twists to it so it will move more in the breeze. The light reflected from the ribbon is startling and very off putting to the birds.
Over time the ribbon will fade and birds will become accustomed to it so it pays to only use it when the first sign of damage is noticed and remove it as soon as the crop has been harvested.
By using two or three of the above you should have ample fruit for your needs.
Another gardener told me that spraying Neem Tree Oil over the fruit can also deter birds.
If this is so it would be that the oil has a foul taste and an oily smell which could be off putting to our feathered friends. You would only need to wash the picked produce under a running tap to remove the oil.
Likely regular sprays about 5 days apart would be needed if it was to work.
Farming gardeners have reported that regular sprays of Neem Tree Oil have kept possums off their roses and other garden plants.
Another farmer told me that he uses the oil for fly strike in sheep and reports that it works as well as the chemicals and more pleasant to use.
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The Internet is such a wonderful resource for information and this week I received from the States information about growing vegetables in what is described as Biointensive food production.
The www.growbiointensive.org/ web site suggests the following:

‘Growing your own food can be rewarding on many levels, and can bring benefits both to you and the planet. It is empowering to know that you are able to provide for yourself in such a basic way.
The taste of fully-ripe food fresh from the garden may be an eye-opening experience. Fresh air and exercise are added benefits.
And each food item that comes from your backyard rather than the supermarket means less of the oil use, resource use, air pollution and soil pollution that are required for commercial growing, processing and transporting of foods’.
Growing as many of your own vegetables as possible, assists in personal reduction of global warming and as one reader recently said to me recently, “Its far better than buying a chemical time bomb from the supermarket that is tasteless.”
The above web site also gives some interesting facts that many of us may not be aware of;
‘Because of population growth, pollution of water sources, and greater use of water for industry, by 2050 each person on the Earth will have only 25% of the water that was available in 1950.
Current agricultural practices use 80% of the Earth’s available water.
95% of the seed varieties ever grown in agriculture are now virtually extinct.
Much of this is due to the growing of relatively few crops, and the frequent use of hybrid seeds for the crops that are grown.
Seeds that are no longer used soon lose their viability and are rarely available.
Global warming may cut agricultural production in half within as little as 20 years. In February, 2004, the Observer in the United Kingdom reported that climate change is a greater threat to the world than terrorism.
With supplies of petroleum and natural gas running out, conventional agriculture heavily dependent on these resources will become more expensive, raising food prices accordingly. As natural gas is used to make inexpensive nitrogen fertilizer is depleted, it may take significantly more land to grow the same amount of food, when conventional agricultural practices are used.
Thirty percent of the world’s cropland has been abandoned in the last 40 years due to severe erosion. (The cause is conventional farming and cropping)
As little as 40 years of farmable soil remain globally.
For each pound of food eaten in the United States, approximately 6 pounds of soil are lost to wind and water erosion, resulting from conventional agricultural practices.
Twelve pounds of farmable soil are similarly lost in developing countries, with 18 pounds of farmable soil lost in China for every pound of food eaten.
Approximately 213,000 people are added to the planet daily, requiring about 34,000 more farmable acres each day to feed them, acreage which does not exist.
Due to all of these factors, by 2014 only about 64% of the world’s population is likely to have an adequate diet.
On June 15, 2004, the United Nations observed that the world’s land is turning to desert at an alarming speed, at twice the rate that was occurring in 1970.’
It is interesting to note here that this is one of the main arguments that genetic engineered companies use to promote their products, most of which are failures and are not wanted by people to eat because the GE crops have never been proved safe to consume by humans or animals.
(Animals will not eat them unless forced to, which says a lot in my book.)
Another interesting fact from the web site states the following; ‘How can the soil's nutrient fertility be preserved with agriculture continuously removing nutrients as one crop is harvested after another?
One answer is surprising. Each person's urine and manure contain approximately enough nutrients to produce enough food to feed that person.
However, those nutrients are not enough when they are spread thinly over the one-half to one acre that it takes mechanized commercial agriculture to produce that person's food.’
If we think back to places such as China where the same patch of land has being intensively cropped for over a thousand years with mainly human manure been the main source of fertiliser, the system has been proved to work.
(I am not advocating you turning your vegetable garden into the family toilet but it is very interesting to note that what we expel is sufficient nutrients to feed the soil, to produce the food, to sustain us.)
The Biointensive system requires that gardens are deep dug to the depth of 24 inches and plenty of compost is incorporated into the soil. Now 24 inches is a bit like the double trench method that gardeners used to use in the past.
The reason being that you want a great depth for deep root runs of the plants you grow, giving them friable soil to a depth of about 60cm. Easy for those with light soils but for us with heavy clay soils a real task.
I hate hard work so the simple way is to build raised gardens with surrounding structures of wood or iron about 60cm above the existing garden bed.
These are filled with a combination of top soil and compost about 50:50. A bed that is about a metre to 1200 cm wide and as long as required, allows one to work the bed from either side without having to stand on the bed.
Several of these can be made over time with enough space between to move and work. 200 litre drums cut in half is another way.
Plants are grown close to each other, only allowing sufficient room for each to reach maturity. You can plant seedlings but it is far better to sow seeds as there is no root disturbance and those initial roots will penetrate very deep into the soil.
Plants that have deep roots means that the plants gather nutrients and moisture from way below rather than side ways as with shallow gardens. Gardens as such require far less watering.
Use seeds from open pollinated plants rather than hybrids, the open pollinated do far better and you can allow one vegetable to go to seed and collect your own seeds for future plantings.
Mix up your plantings, tall plants will have shorter plants growing near their base, stagger plants of similar size.
I have a number of fruit trees growing in drums and use the space around their base to plant lettuce, silverbeet or brassicas with great results.
Here is a tip for sowing seeds take a roll of toilet paper and each of the squares has two seeds of the vegetable placed in the centre with a paste of flower and water or egg white as the glue. Write on the paper the type of seed.
When dried they are ready to plant by laying on the surface of your raised garden and covering lightly with compost before wetting down with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL). Spacing for some plants will be the squares just touching or half a square apart.
When the seeds germinate cut off the smaller of the two plants near the base, do not pull out to disturb the one left.
Ensure that your plot has all the minerals and elements by applying Simalith and Ocean Solids before planting.
Spray the soil and plants with MBL every couple of weeks which also supplies minerals and carbon. Use ample calcium in the form of lime/dolomite or gypsum.
Seed the beds with worms as they will do a number of chores for you and their slime is nitrogen rich which is needed for good growth from your plants.
Once the beds are established you will never work them again, instead you add more compost and animal manures prior to each new sowing. Weeds will be easy to control and they are added to the compost bin for future use. The system, when working correctly, will produce great soil 60 times faster than in normal nature conditions.
The facts are, we are running out of resources globally and wasting the remaining resources, yet you in your own backyard, can make a change and be far better off health wise and pocket wise for doing so.
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For many years I have been collecting various fruiting trees, vines, bushes and currently have a modest collection, which is only limited by the room I have for planting or container space.
When I come across a specimen that appears to be of interest I will obtain a plant and grow it in a container and see how it performs. If later I feel the plant needs more room I will up the container size or plant it into the garden.
My goal is to have a range of nice tasting fruit, coming available at different times, giving a continual supply of fresh fruit for a good part of the year.
Growing many of the fruiting plants in containers means that the full potential of a tree is not reached and a smaller harvest is obtained without too much waste. When a fruiting plant does not perform well, or if I do not like the taste of the fruit the plant will be removed (if the space is needed for a better type) and given away to someone with more garden room.
Sometimes there pops up a fruiting plant, that for some reason I have overlooked and this happened recently; I live in a commercial industrial area where there are only myself and a neighbough next door, whom have the original farm house.
A long iron fence separates the two properties and a range of natives and other plants are growing on their side of this fence. Likewise up to recently my side also had a number of natives hiding the iron fence.
These were removed to make way for a concrete driveway and a new development of storage sheds. The removal of my trees allowed one to see the tops of the trees growing on the other side of the fence. A couple of these trees turned out to be Loquats with their bright yellow fruit, some of which were dangerously hanging over my side and well within reach. I had not seen a Loquat tree for many years and just had to pick the ripe fruit to remember what they tasted like. They have a deliciously sweet flavour with a nice little acid bite.
There were two stones in the variety growing, but some can contain up to 5 stones dependant on the cultivar. I am now endeavouring to germinate the stones, but will likely look around a few garden centres for an established plant or two. Here is a bit of history and information of the Loquat.
The loquat is indigenous to south eastern China. It was introduced into Japan and became naturalized there in very early times.
It has been cultivated in Japan for over 1,000 years. It has also become naturalized in India and many other areas.
Chinese immigrants are presumed to have carried the loquat to Hawaii.
It was common as a small-fruited ornamental in the USA in the 1870's, and the improved variety, Giant, was being sold there by 1887.
Japan is the leading producer of Loquats, followed by Israel and Brazil. (It grows well in New Zealand in most areas)
The Loquat is adapted to a subtropical to mild-temperature climate. Where the climate is too cool or excessively warm and moist, the tree is grown as an ornamental only and will not bear fruit.
Well established trees can tolerate a low temperature of minus 10 C. The killing temperature for the flower bud is about minus 7 C and for the mature flower about minus 1 C. .
Extreme summer heat is also detrimental to the crop, and dry, hot winds cause leaf scorch. The white-fleshed varieties are better adapted to cool coastal areas. The Loquat tree can be grown in a large pot and would look stunning as it is a beautiful tree.
The Loquat is very hardy and can be grown in any soil type as long as there is reasonable drainage.
Prolonged wet feet are the only problem and thus a container would be best for growing them in if this is your case. Virtually free of pests and diseases make for the Loquat as a perfect fruit tree.
The loquat is a large evergreen shrub or small tree with a rounded crown, short trunk and woolly new twigs. The tree can grow 20 to 30 ft. high, but is usually much smaller than this--about 10 ft. Loquats are easy to grow and are often used as an ornamental.
Their boldly textured foliage adds a tropical look to the garden and contrast well with many other plants. Because of the shallow root system of the Loquat, care should be taken in mechanical cultivation not to damage the roots.
Loquat leaves are generally elliptical-lanceolate, 5 to 12 inches long and 3 to 4 inches wide. They are dark green and glossy on the upper surface, whitish or rusty-hairy beneath, thick and stiff, with conspicuous parallel, oblique veins.
The new growth is sometimes tinged with red. The leaves are narrow in some cultivars and broad in others.
Flowers are small, white, sweetly fragrant flowers, borne in autumn or early winter in panicles at the ends of the branches. Before they open, the flower clusters have an unusual rusty-woolly texture. The fruit forms and ripens over winter making them the first fruit available, fresh from your garden in late winter or early spring. After establishing, feed the Loquat with animal manure, compost and potash.
Deep water them during dry times. I remember a friend of mine (many years ago) told me that often people did not like to grow Loquats for the fruit as they had big stones and only minimal flesh to eat. He produced big fleshy Loquat fruit by providing heaps of compost and manure plus potash.
The Loquat has interesting health benefits also and for more information see middlepath.com.au/plant/loquat.php Organic NZ has an article in their recent issue (January/Febuary 2007) If you are interested in obtaining a Loquat enquire at your local garden centre and if not available place an order.
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Had an email the other day that said, “Could you please tell us what Blueberries need?
Ours is planted among camellias so gets an acid fertiliser, but the berries, although there are plenty of them, are small and don’t seem to grow.”
My reply was: Blueberries only produce smaller sized berries though they are a bit larger in some varieties. They require a free draining, rich, moist, acid loam soil of 4.5 to 5.5 pH.
Maybe apply animal manures such as chook manure with liberal amounts of potash.
Sprays of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) over the foliage and soil will also assist.
Blueberries are very popular at this time, as the ripe berries are now available and this promotes people to buy a bush or two for their own home grown berries. Easy to grow in a 45 litre container that has a free draining compost mix. Berries ripen in a staggered pattern and can be frozen down for later use.
Protect the ripening berries with Bird Repeller Ribbon or Bird Netting.
Spider Mites have appeared in some areas now that the weather has warmed up a bit. The simple solution to control is sprays of Liquid Sulphur. Often one good spray, under and over the foliage is all that is needed if caught early. For well established mites, a second or third spray maybe needed to eradicate.
Neem Granules should be place in the root zone of tomatoes and brassicas to prevent the infestations of caterpillars and whitefly from getting out of control. This simple method can avoid the need to spray, by just sprinkling the granules over the soil about every 6 to 8 weeks.
Cooler moist weather has caused early outbreaks of powdery mildew in some areas. Most of us have the control for this disease sitting in our pantry; Baking Soda: place a heaped tablespoon of baking soda into a container and add one litre of warm water.
Stir to bubble up and then add one mil of Raingard. Spray under and over foliage of affected plants and others prone to the disease. The mix kills the mildew in its tracks and prevents re-infestation for about 14 days (because of the Raingard).
It will not harm any plants other than oxalis which it will burn the foliage off, especially on a sunny day when the ground is a bit on the dry side.
(Who cares?)
Happy Gardening.
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Every year about this time I remind gardeners summer pruning is as important as conventional winter pruning.
This is particularly the case with fruit trees, vines and bramble fruit, but also applies to ornamentals -- flowering trees, shrubs and roses.
Apples and pears, pip fruit, should be summer pruned about now to encourage the production of fruit spurs, carrying flower buds. Winter pruning, though necessary, is apt to produce a reaction, a bounce-back effect which results in more growth.
Summer pruning is very simple. It involves cutting back this year's new shoots to three leaf clusters from where they arise.
It can be done quickly by snapping the green shoots between the finger and thumb, leaving them hanging to be pruned off in winter, or properly with secateurs.
This checks the sap flow and growth is diverted to maturing the wood and the formation of fruiting spurs. Fat flower buds -- leaf buds are pointed -- result.
Blackcurrants also need pruning in summer by cutting off the wood which has borne fruit. Blackcurrants only bear on young wood. This encourages the production of new wood which will fruit next year.
Grape vines should be pruned even earlier than this, cutting off the loose, trailing shoots a couple of leaf clusters beyond the grape bunches, forcing growth into swelling the bunches.
Raspberries, boysenberries and loganberries should be summer pruned, raspberries by cutting out the old canes which have fruited, boysenberries later than this, after fruiting.
Spring-flowering ornamental shrubs, roses and trees should be cut back after flowering, paying particular attention to dead flower stems. Do this with bottlebrush trees, for instance, and you will be rewarded with a better display the following year.
Hedge clippers may be used to speed the job. Don't waste time on it.
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Gardeners who have a greenhouse or access to a glassed-in verandah or conservatory for growing can prepare for winter now by sowing a few tomato seeds.
Tomatoes raised now should develop quickly if shaded in the heat of the day. They should not be given too rich a mix initially, nor too much water.
But when the first truss of flowers is fertilised and the tiny green tomatoes are seen, more water and some general-purpose, or potato, or citrus fertiliser may be given.
These tomatoes, sheltered with glass, should crop right on into June or even August -- I have picked a ripe tomato on August 1 from a January seedling, without winter heat.
Frosts must be kept out with a double skin or Frost cover draped over the plant, but that is not particularly difficult to arrange.
Many gardeners go for early tomatoes in the spring, but few remember the season can be extended at the other end, by having ripe tomatoes after the outdoor ones have all given up the ghost. Try it.
Cold loving tomato strains are best and they will set fruit in the colder weather.
Russian Red is one that comes to mind and Kings Seeds have one or two varieties of cold loving tomatoes as well available by mail order.
If you have tomatoes growing such as Early-girl and you can find a lateral or two on the plant then strike these as cuttings.
Some garden centres will have seedlings available over the next month or so for winter cropping also. Ooooo
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Gardeners often ask me about their plants, what is wrong with them, why they are dropping their leaves, buds, or whatever. Making a diagnosis is not easy, especially as they seldom describe the type of soil they have.
Soils can be roughly divided into three categories, sand, loam or clay, and there are a range of plants which prefer one of these conditions, and another range which will grow quite happily in any of the three, given the basic conditions of sufficient moisture and reasonable drainage.
A rule of thumb way to find out if you are not sure is to stir a heaped tablespoon of average earth in a glass of water. Take two or three samples if the soil seems to vary, keeping each sample separate and labelled. Stir vigorously and leave overnight.
The sand should form a layer on the bottom of the glass. If it forms a large proportion of the material the area is sandy.
The next layer should be loam, darkish, easily raised in a cloud if shaken. This should be a fertile soil. The next layer, on top, should be lighter in colour, and is clay, also fertile, but apt to be poorly drained, drying out in summer into hard lumps.
On top should be floating the proportion of organic matter -- compost and the like. All soils should contain at least some humus.
Sandy soils warm up quickly in spring, become dry in summer, and suffer from frost in winter. Given plenty of humus, and water in summer, they can be very fertile.
Loamy soils are those every garden book tells you to choose when making a vegetable or flower garden -- whereas you have to take the soil as it comes where you have chosen to build your house. If it's loamy you're lucky.
Clay soils are fertile -- roses love clay -- but they have to be softened with Gypsum in winter and extra humus mixed in as often as possible. If a clay soil is given green manure crops, compost and stack bottom, plus Gypsum, it will become very productive. Do not allow a clay soil to dry out in summer.
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Mildew or botrytis often strike grape bunches from now on, ruining the appearance and yield of the vines. A spray or dust should be applied early before the signs are seen if trouble has been experienced in previous seasons.
Once the infection is established it is difficult if not impossible to eradicate.
Sulphur spray and Raingard is recommended for grapes, but remember to apply every 2 weeks for protection before the problems occur.
For more than 1000 years, grape growers and gardeners have been using sulphur to control fungal diseases in grape vines. Accepted as an organic form of control, the finely powdered sulphur is available in liquid form as Liquid Sulphur which is mixed with water to be applied as a spray.
Best sprayed in late afternoon.
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Written by Wally Richards.

Areas where you have growing, trees and shrubs, can be a bit dull if you don’t have flowering or colourful foliage plants under them. There are two problems with these places, low light and very dry. If the lower branches are still on the shrubs then nothing much will grow there but if you remove these branches then you open up the amount of for light for planting.
By removing the lower branches you convert the shrubs into tree forms, by exposing the trunks.
The area besides being dry will be lacking in much nourishment.
So one needs to spread a good layer of organic mulch to the depth of at least 2 inches and up to 4 inches thick.
Next you need to set up an irrigation system through the area that is either fixed type or a removable soak hose type.
Once all this is in place you can pop down to your local garden centre and pick out some nice suitable plants for the area.
My favorites are Impatiens and Mimulus for the summer followed by Primula, Polyanthus and Cineraria for winter displays. With a good irrigation system and good dappled light you should have no problems getting an all year round display.
You may wish be venture into other plants such as Hostas and Winter Roses. By asking your Garden Centre for shade loving plants can extend the range and variety.
An interesting aspect too is that with adequate water in summer and the protection that the overhead canopy gives many of your plants, such as Impatiens and Mimulus, will not be lost in the winter and after cutting back a bit will come away the following spring/summer.
A spray of Vaporgard before winter will also help with their survival.
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Summer time can be a hard time on house plants if you are not careful. It is also the best time for the plants, outside of spring, for new growth. House plants need ample water right now and the pots can dry out very quickly especially if they are root bound. New growth needs ample food also and with house plants there is no way they are going to get feed unless you do it. Potting mix that becomes too dry will not accept water just the same way as outdoors in the garden.
Now with Pot plants there is a simple solution, just plunge the pot into a tub of water and watch it bubble.
When it finishes bubbling lift and allow it to drain.
A excellent product to use on your Shiny leaf plants and palms is Yates Aerosol Leaf Shine.
Easy to use as it does not require wiping or polishing, just spray it on and you have an excellent shine all over the foliage. It will last for months and repel dust for some time also.
If you have a very dusty plant then gently wash off the dust outdoors with the hose. Allow to dry out of direct sunlight before spraying Yates leaf shine onto the foliage.
It makes your shiny leaf plants look really great.
House plants that are established, need a big drink of water once a week at this time of the year and in some cases twice a week. Any more that this indicates that the plant is too pot bound and you should consider repotting or root pruning.
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At this time of the year I often recommend planting a late crop of seed potatoes. If quick maturing potatoes are planted such as Ilam Hardy, gardeners will be able to harvest them about April/May.
I must admit that I haven’t bothered to grow many potatoes for some years as I do not have a lot of available ground left in my gardens. A few months back I had several spuds that had shot in a bag and rather than throw them out, I planted them in an area between some fruit trees and bushes.
The area was not congenial to grow much and often had to be weeded, so here was a chance to kill two birds with one stone. Potatoes would help keep the weeds at bay and also a good way of using up the old spuds.
No great care was taken and the spuds were just placed in shallow holes and left to their own devices. I figured that I might be lucky to harvest a few spuds but they would break up the soil and keep the weeds down.
About Xmas time I noticed that there were several new potatoes near the surface and that they were turning green with the light. So out with the fork and I lifted the crop.
A few good size spuds were forth coming and a lot of smaller ones, ending up with about 4 buckets of usable potatoes.
Now here is the part that I found most interesting, when I came to peel the potatoes their skin and texture were firm, much more so than the spuds I have being buying.
Then once they were boiled, the flavour was pure heaven. I suddenly remembered what real tatties should taste like.
Even cutting them in half prior to cooking, one would notice the good solid tissue that resisted the knife, when compared to purchased spuds.
Well here the proof was in the pudding, home grown, uncared for, not even fertilised potatoes, tasting like real potatoes should.
So if you are like me and haven’t grown and tasted real potatoes for a long time then plant a few seed potatoes now and see for yourselves.
. Keep the area moist but not wet till harvest. I hope you enjoy your own tatties as much as I did. Ooooo
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Hebes are really great looking plants that have the ability to withstand very serve conditions such as clay soils and drought resistant. Many gardeners have clay based soil and Hebes just thrive in clay where many other plants would fail (as long as good planting preparations are observed.) Many of the newer Hebes are compact plants with lovely foliage and flowers. Needing little attention from you they will grow, flower and be disease and pest free in most situations.
A trim back now and then is about the only work they involve. This is to prevent them smothering other plants nearby, but if you have plenty of room, just let your Hebes do their own thing and you will be rewarded with magnificent displays till they start to become woody and need a hair cut.
Some of the great Hebes available now include; Hebe hulkeana with its great display of lilac coloured flowers, it grows 1 x 1.5 metres and prefers a sunny well drained site.
Hebe Icing Sugar is a newer release and one of the best Hebes around. A compact form at 1 x 1 metre, shiny glossy leaves and smothered in pink and white flowers from late spring till autumn.
Hebe Waireka is hardy and colourful all year round. Glossy leaves feature a green centre with cream margins..
Light purple, brush looking flowers grace the plant from spring till autumn. 90 x 60 cm.
Hebe Inspiration 75 x 75 cm is a neat compact, spreading Hebe with oblong, 3cm dark green shinning leaves.
Purple flowers in 4 cm clusters begin in November and December.
Hebe Oratia Beauty grows 1 x 1.5 metres having fresh green foliage with dense racemes of deep pink buds opening to soft pink flowers that fade white with age. Flowering from this month on into autumn.
Hebes are outstanding plants and can be used in most garden settings and several are suitable for containers as well..
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Well folks it is about time again to remove all the old 2006 calendars from their places and put up the new 2007 calendars on the 1st day of the new year.
There has being a lot of changes over the years and one of those that I have noticed is the lack of free calendars from firms each year. There are still a number of places that give away a decent calendar, but many of us need to go out and purchase what we require, for the year ahead.
Maybe someday someone will invent a electronic screen calendar that hangs on the wall and changes at midnight at the end of each month. This would never need replacing as the program could cover months for hundreds of years into the future. A simple program could give you pictures of your choice that would change monthly, or even daily. Another program could give us warnings of events coming up such as friends or families birthdays, which would be a great help for those of us that sometimes forget. Anyway a very happy New Year to all you gardeners and may the next few months provide better weather than what we have had so far this spring/summer.
Our attention has been drawn to global warming in recent months and the resulting problems that can happen.
If I was told that we were heading towards an ice age I would agree, as it has been the coolest spring/summer that I can remember in Palmerston North. Heat loving plants such as passion fruit and rock melons are now very difficult to grow outside when compared to a few years back. The melons grow once the weather warms, but tend not to produce well in the shorter season they have.
Passion fruit vines do well the first summer but tend to flag and fade the following year.
Gardening methods may have to be changed to grow a number of plants or we just stop growing some of the more tender types and replace them with hardier ones.
Recently I was talking with my brother Peter Richards who has been involved for a number of years in contract growing of maize in the Manawatu. The cooler weather and increased rainfall in the area has reduced the ability to obtain good crops of maize resulting in many farmers changing to other more suitable crops. On the east coast the problem is too hot and dry for maize in many areas.
The Chinese have a saying, ‘Living in interesting times’ which is a good way of looking at how the weather and world is changing.
Still we as gardeners will fight against the odds and have great gardens for our pleasure. Happy New Year. Wally Richards
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In the Manawatu we have had a lot of rain over the last few months which has been interesting as the gardens have had ample moisture to do well.
One thing I have noticed this spring is a great fruit set on all my fruit trees and the likely reason is ample rain water from the sky.
Often in the past the trees have flowered well but the trees have shed a lot of the immature fruit after pollination. I must remember to water more in the spring while the fruit are forming if there is not sufficient rain.
Rain water is still the best water for our soil and plants, it is live water, (to use a simple term) carrying organic nitrogen (especially when lighting is about), and plants respond quickly after a good shower of rain.
Tap water on the other hand, is in comparison, dead water, treated with chlorine to kill bacteria if it comes from town supply rather than tank water. The chlorine put in town supply water can harm the beneficial microbes in the soil and on plants, which makes the plants and soil more prone to disease attacks.
You can water your gardens during dry spells and never see much more than slow growth, when a shower of rain comes along the plants respond with a great show of growth.
You can put filters on your hose taps to remove the chlorine and your gardens will improve as a result.
One thing that really concerns me is that when there has being a break of two or three days without rain, how fast the soil dries out. Weeds in areas not watered; start to die very quickly within 2-3 days of no rain. This means that water tables are either very low or non existent.
The likely reason for this; is that too many farmers and agriculture areas are sucking out the ground water to irrigate their land.
Also to add to the problem is the chemical fertilisers that kill off the soil life and the humus in the soil is non existent.
Humus is the buffer that holds moisture in the soil giving plants ample water for their needs. So what happens is that it rains, the rain is sucked down into the dry subsoil and down into the under ground streams to be pumped out some distance away for irrigation.
Gardens or pastures that lack in a good layer of humus dry out quickly from evaporation off the surface soil, requiring regular irrigation to keep the plants or crops alive.
Super phosphate and urea kill off the soil life which builds up the humus levels through their life cycles, and our plants suffer. The glue that is created by the soil food web is lost and erosion takes place.
Inert soil does not have the means to build up humus and is easily washed away with a down pour of rain.
Then farmers, whom pour urea and super phosphate onto their land, to force the grass to grow, then have to irrigate to keep the nutrient deficient grass or crop alive.
Over time the situation gets worse and worse, stock are unhealthy and crops lack nutrition value making for a poor food chain. It is about time farmers, agriculturists and gardeners woke up to this destructive cycle and stopped their present practice of using chemical fertilisers.
It is relatively simple to achieve by either applying Dicalcic fertilisers or by using mineral rich rock dust and calcium on their pastures and gardens.
Get those soil food webs growing and thriving with all the zillions of microbes and beneficial fungi that nature intended. Their dead bodies make the humus and seeing many only have a short life of 6 hours it does not take too long before benefits are noticed.
Within a few seasons the soil is full of life with worms and microbes giving us healthy plants and crops. Stock grazed on this type of land are healthy and do not create the massive vet bills that many farmers pay for remedies which unhealthy stock need.
We all benefit, when our food chain improves, so does our health as we are finally getting the minerals, vitamins and enzymes that our bodies need. The planet becomes a healthier place for all living things both below the soil and above.
It is a very simple formula, dead soil below, unhealthy animals and people above. Healthy soil below, healthy animals and people above.
Something to think about during the New Year.
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Many of us will have seen the film, ‘The Grinch’ which was a spoiler of Christmas and in your gardens there are a number of pests that can spoil our plants if we are not careful.
Over the year I have endeavoured to show you how to obtain healthy plants by caring for the soil life and using beneficial mineral products, rather than the harmful chemical sprays and fertilisers.
Many of you have reported back, after following my advice in these columns or from reading my book, that your gardens have never been better. That is great stuff to hear and visual proof of the methods which you can relate to. Keep up the good work.
Healthy plants maybe disease free but they are still vulnerable to some insect pest problems, though often far less than unhealthy plants.
In Nature the balance is achieved through beneficial insects called predators keeping the populations of pest insects low. It takes time to build up populations of predator insects in your gardens and the past use of chemical sprays has greatly reduced their populations. Some gardeners who have taken care to look after the predators in their gardens report good populations which keep most pests under control.
Remember the saying, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ which is very true in our gardens.
Ladybirds, praying mantis, predator wasps and small birds are our friends as they will keep the pests numbers low. To this end, it is important that we do not kill off all their food sources and allow a few pests to live and provide food for our friends.
At the same time we do not want to allow the pests to run amok and damage our plants so let’s have a look at the safe control methods for keeping pest numbers down without harming our friends.
Neem Tree Granules has to be one of the easiest methods of control for pests on a number of plants.
Simply sprinkle the granules on the soil in the root zone of the plants you wish to protect, as the granules breakdown they release the Neem properties, which are taken up by the plant’s roots.
The properties translocate through the foliage and when a pest eats/sucks a little of the foliage they get a small dose of Neem and stop eating, to die later. This works very well on some plants and to a lesser degree on others. The granules are perfect for the control of whitefly and caterpillars on tomato plants, outdoors or in a glasshouse.
They are also very effective on caterpillars that attack brassicas.
Pest soil insects such as root mealy bugs and carrot fly are easily controlled by applications to the soil.
The granules need to be replaced about every 6 to 8 weeks and you can experiment with them on any garden plants which are attacked and eaten by insect pests.
If you find the granules do not have the desired control on some types of plants or if you have large pest populations already on the plants, then you will need to spray occasionally with safe sprays such as Neem Tree Oil and Key Pyrethrum.
These two sprays can be mixed together but should only be sprayed just on dusk because the pyrethrum is very quickly deactivated by UV.
Key pyrethrum is a quick knock down spray where the Neem Tree Oil gives extended control through its anti feeding and growth regulator properties. The normal spray program would be two sprays 7 days apart then followed by one 14 days later and a final spray a month later. If problem persists then keep spraying about every 7 to 10 days.
Spider mites can easily and quickly controlled with a spray of Liquid Sulphur and Raingard. Normally, one complete coverage spray is all that is needed but a word of warning never mix with Neem Tree Oil as the two will burn foliage. In fact a period of at least 2 weeks should be applied to any plants where the oil or the sulphur has been used before using the other.
Liquid Copper with Raingard added is very effective in controlling cherry/pear slugs on plum, pear and cherry trees. The same copper spray will also protect plants from snails and ordinary garden slugs while the copper is present.
Leaf hoppers are a big problem pest for many and a number of sprays 7 days apart, using the Neem Tree Oil will be needed to obtain control.
The Neem Tree Oil sprays will cover all pest insect problems (not pear slugs or garden snails/slugs) and by adding Raingard to the spray will extend its control period.
The combination of Neem Tree Oil spray and Neem Tree Granules is needed to control mealy bugs on any plants. The granules get the mealy bugs in the root zone and the oil takes care of the ones on the plant’s foliage.
As mentioned a couple of weeks back the felt pads soaked in Neem Tree Oil and wrapped around the trunks of Rhododendrons is an effective control for thrips on larger rhododendrons which are difficult to spray. Bands are left on for only one month.
Neem Tree Oil can be applied to tanks in hydroponic systems to control pests on plants growing in these systems.
I have been told of some people that have used it for head lice diluted down to normal spray application strength I presume. A farmer told me he used it for maggot control and other pests on sheep.
These are applications that have not been trialled yet to find the effectiveness of the oil.
I do know of trials where the Neem tree Oil has proved successful in the control of a number of leaf diseases such as black spot and rust. Some rural gardeners have also told me that their garden plants sprayed with Neem Tree Oil has prevented/reduced possum and rabbit damage.
Likely as time goes by we will find many more uses for the Neem Tree and its extracts.
One thing for sure is that Neem Tree Oil and Granules are far safer and better to use than poisonous chemicals.
Have a great Xmas. Wally Richards
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In my recent book, ‘Wally’s Garden Guide’ the very first chapter is on roses, because if there is one garden plant that I am asked more about, over all other plants, it is roses. Gardeners and even non-gardeners just love their roses, going out of their way to have great looking roses.
I have to concur; even my own few roses which are in full flower at this time, certainly make an impressive sight. One is a climbing rose which I have no idea of its name but spotted many years ago growing in a friend’s garden.
Open creamy white flowers with yellow stamens and a hint of pink on the edges of the buds. What made this rose stand out are the hundreds of 6 cm in diameter flowers that cover the branches so that only a few leaves can be seen. (Naturally I took a cutting) This rose has only one flowering a year, but now mine has become so large, covering several metres in three directions, means the flowering lasts for 2 months or more. A spectacular sight and about as perfect in health as one could wish for.
This and my other few roses in the same area, receive ample food from the chickens that free range the back yard. I spray occasionally, a little Key Pyrethrum and Neem Tree Oil for the aphids.
Earlier in the season I ensured the roses had sufficient minerals by applying a little of the Ocean Solids and Simalith rock dust. An occasional spray of Magic Botanic Liquid and that is it.
It would be over 15 years since a herbicide was last used in the gardens which is another factor that can reduce the health of plants because of the chemical’s effect on the soil food web.
I believe that the soil food web is vital to plants and should be nurtured more than one would nurture the plants growing in the soil. Hence no rose fertiliser or Nitrophoska would ever be applied to have their acid nature damage the web. The non use of herbicides, chemical fertilisers and sprays means my soil is teeming with worms which are the sign of a very healthy soil.
If you do not have chickens to fertilise the soil for you, then you can provide the natural base foods such as sheep manure pellets, blood & bone and animal manure based composts.
Every week I receive emails and phone calls from gardeners who have adopted the natural methods I write about and they all tell me that they have never had such great gardens as they now have.
Many tell me that after years of struggling to obtain healthy looking roses (and other plants), using rose sprays and rose fertilisers to no avail, they have changed to the natural foods and health giving products.
Within a season or two all the past problems have disappeared and now their roses are even better than they had ever hoped for. There is no secret to this, just work with Nature, not against it. If you try to work against Nature all you end up with is chemical warfare which both you and the plants are the losers.
So what should you be doing with your roses at this time? Ensure that they have a little potash and magnesium each month. This can be applied as Fruit and Flower Power (mix of both in balance) or alternatively a little potash and Epsom salts. Dolomite and Gypsum can also be sprinkled every couple of months for the calcium/sulphur/ magnesium that these products supply.
Calcium is very important for the health of soil food web. When aphids or other insects are around a simple spray of Key Pyrethrum and Neem Tree Oil, just prior to dusk, will keep them under control.
Roses that repeat flower through the season should be dead headed as the blooms finish.
With newly planted roses just nip off the dead flower head without the removal of any leaves.
A new rose needs all its leaves to gain growing energy from the sun. Established roses, second year or older should be cut further back taking some stem and leaves with the dead flower head.
This encourages new growth and your next lot of buds and flowers. Established roses can be cut for vases but not first year roses. Gardeners that have roses that they are not proud of can follow the following procedure to obtain those desired healthy roses;
1/ Stop using any chemicals any where near or on the roses. 2/ Drench the soil with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and Mycorrcin combined and spray the plants with the same.
3/ Sprinkle a little Ocean solids, Simalith, Dolomite, sheep manure pellets (or animal manure) plus blood & bone, around the root zone then cover the products with compost. Water in with MBL and Mycorrcin.
4/ Twice a month till mid autumn spray the soil and the plants with the same two products. Use the key Pyrethrum and Neem Tree Oil if insects attack the plants.
5/ In autumn (March) apply the Dolomite, blood & bone, sheep pellets and cover with more compost.
You should see improvements this first season but more so next season.
For those that do have nice healthy roses a monthly spray of MBL and Mycorrcin over the foliage and soil should be sufficient. Feed the roses the natural foods as required, covering with compost.
In the late autumn early winter your roses will start preparing for their winter rest and you should not be concerned about any blemishing of the foliage at that time. It is just nature taking out the foliage and converting it to food for the soil food web. A clean up spray of Lime Sulphur in winter is all that is needed.
It is a successful easy approach to gardening and should be also applied to your vegetable and fruit crops as they are going to provide you with the vital healthy food our bodies need.
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I have a suggestion for a Xmas gift that can be given to a family member or friend this year.
Purchase a citrus tree from your local garden centre along with a larger container (about 45 litres) and a bag of compost. Total cost would be somewhere between $30 to $50, depending on the type of container you select.
Plant the citrus tree in the container using the compost with some blood & bone and Sheep Manure pellets along with a hand full of soil mixed in the lower part of the container, where the tree’s roots are going to sit. Back fill with more compost.
Ensure that there is about 30 mm between the top of the compost and the rim of the container which allows for easy watering.
Place outside in full sun till you are ready to wrap and present.
If you would like to add a little more to the planting then place say 4 lettuce seedlings, one at each of the cardinal points of the container. Alternatively 4 herbs such as thyme, sage, marjoram and chives can be planted at the 4 points.
This makes a wonderful gift that will bring years of pleasure to the receiver.
Any type of citrus will do but choose a type that the person does not have a specimen of already.
I have three citrus trees growing in containers this way and they produce a good harvest of fruit each year.
For a young couple setting up home it can become an annual gift, of a new different type of citrus every year. Start with a lemon and work your way through all the different types such as the oranges, grapefruit, tangelos, ugly fruit etc.
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The question is; do you have a garden invasion happening each evening?
An email from a reader this week stated the following;
‘The other evening just on dusk we were out in the garden and heard a low humming noise. My husband thought it was a helicopter or a light plane far in the distance, I thought it was a huge swarm of bees coming, but it turned out to be grass grub on the wing.’
Sounds a bit frightening but that is what maybe happening to many gardens around the country at this time.
Last year one gardener contacted me and said his citrus trees were being defoliated, so one evening he went outside with a torch to see what was happening. He was amazed to find his citrus trees crawling in grass grub beetles to such an extent, that it was difficult to see the leaves. Next morning there would not be one to be found only the chewed up leaves that were left.
The poor weather conditions this spring has meant that the beetles have been slow to emerge so likely great numbers of the pests are emerging at the same time when conditions permit.
The females will lay about a 100 odd eggs each in a 2-3 week period in clusters 20 to 40 about 70 to 200mm deep in the soil. The grubs hatch out 16 to 21 days later and start eating the roots of grasses.
More often than not the female will lay her eggs back in the area that she emerged from unless she is attracted away by light at night. Hence the worst infestations will be localized or near areas that are lit at night. The grubs are not easy to control in the soil until they have reached the base of grass near the soil’s surface which is usually about May to July.
By that time there maybe little roots left on the grass and as it is winter then, the grasses often don't show signs of damage until they start to try to grow in the spring. Without sufficient roots to sustain the grasses they tend to fail and brown off.
Mistakenly gardeners often treat their lawns at that time to no avail as the grubs have returned to the lower depths to pupate. ( I have written extensive information about grass grub control in my recent book, ‘Wally’s Down to Earth Gardening Guide.’)
I believe the best way to control the grass grub problem is at this time while they are in the adult beetle stage. Light attracts the beetles around dusk to early evening, just as light attracts moths.
Using this method one can setup a strong light in a window facing out onto a lawn area where the pests are known to be from past problems. Under the window, against the glass you set a trough like a wall papering trough.
Fill the trough two thirds full of water and then pour some kerosene onto the water so that there is a film of kerosene over the water.
Here is what happens; Mr and Mrs Grass Grub Beetle emerge and see this bright light, they cannot resist the primal urge to fly to the light, so at their fastest flying speed they race to the light.
Not realising that a sheet of glass is in the way they bang into it knocking them senseless to fall into the trough below. The kerosene prevents them from crawling out of the water, so there they drown or are stuck till next day, when you can flush them down the toilet or feed them to the chooks.
Another very astute gardener uses the same principal to control codlin moths that infest their apple trees. There are other ways this method can be applied where damage is further away from normal light sources, these are explained in my book.
The beetles can do a lot of damage to the foliage of plants which they eat during the few weeks they are on the wing. Plants such as roses, beans and citrus are affected and you may notice the damaged foliage at this time of the year but no sign of any culprit during daylight hours.
You can reduce the damage by spraying the foliage of the plants with Neem Tree Oil which does not actually kill the beetles but does stop them from eating any more foliage. A spray every 7 days for the next 2-3 weeks would be ideal. You can stop spraying when your light trap stops providing you with a good catch each day.
What happens to the beetles during the day? Well in most cases they pop back under ground into the holes where they emerged from in your lawn and that is one of the reasons you will see starlings and blackbirds ripping up your lawn to obtain a feed of these beetles.
Grass Grubs are a problem for many so do something about it and show them the light.
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Silver leaves on your rhododendrons are the sign that the minute insect pest called thrips have been at work, rasping the skin off the leaves while feeding. The silvering is the scar tissue that is left and like a permanent scar will not become green again but overtime these damaged leaves will be replaced with new foliage.
The trick is to stop the damage reoccurring and thus protecting the new foliage.
There are two ways this can be achieved the first is by spraying the foliage with Neem Tree Oil both under and over the leaves just prior to dusk.
This can be very difficult of a larger rhododendron so the well known rhododendron grower ‘Cross Hills’ came up with a simple solution a few years back. This involved taking a strip of felt and soaking it in Neem Tree Oil and wrapping the felt around the trunk of the tree. Hold in place with a couple of drawing pins and then covered with food wrap to prevent weathering.
The strip would be left on the tree for one month only. The oil will soak into the sap flow and thus be translocated through all the foliage.
Thrips rasping on the foliage will then get a dose of Neem in their gut and stop eating, forever. The system has being trialled and used successfully by growers and gardeners.
Only one instance that I have heard off that caused a problem was when it was used on a vireya rhodo, the oiled pad caused a collar rot and the plant was lost. Likely the finer bark of this type means that the best way to treat would be with a spray not a felt pad.
It is also important the pads not be left on longer than a month as damage can occur otherwise.
Now is the time to treat the rhododendrons with either method as the thrips are now starting to build up their numbers. One treatment per year should be all that is needed but if spraying you would be best to do a couple of sprays about a month apart.
If not treated the damage will be noticed next year when lots of leaves have turned silver.
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I have had two gardeners contact me recently about tomatoes that they have purchased.
When cut open these tomatoes have seeds inside that have germinated, having roots and little leaves inside the parent tomato. A very odd occurrence and I can only guess that maybe the tomato has being in cool storage for a time, then when exposed to warmth, the seeds inside have sprouted.
A more sinister aspect could be that chemicals used by some in the tomato industry to ripen green picked tomatoes, are causing the condition. I would be very interested to hear the views of commercial growers.
One of the gardeners who rang me has carefully removed the seedlings and is now growing them as plants to see how they turn out.
I would advise if you come across this aspect, not to eat the sprouted seedlings, the rest of the tomato, presumably is ok.
Talking about tomatoes you must be careful when removing the laterals not to allow disease to enter the wound.
A spray of Liquid Copper over the wound immediately on removing the side shoot or leaves, will help prevent the loss of a plant through disease.
I have heard that blight is around in some areas which will also destroy both tomatoes and potato crops.
For prevention spray the foliage once a month for two months with Perkfection and if the problem is really bad in your area spray the foliage 2 weekly with Liquid Copper and Raingard.
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Gardeners desire variety in their gardens. The more variety of the types of plants we have, the better we love our gardens and efforts put in. There is nothing more pleasing to be able to show off to family and friends the rare and unusual plants when they visit that we have obtained and cultivated.
When I come across seeds or plants that no one else is likely to have and they appeal to me I will obtain and grow them with pride. I have a good number of such plants, the odd one or two, just about impossible to obtain and others which you would have to really go looking for to find.
Many years back before trading in general shops became a 7 day affair; it was garden centres that were open on Saturdays and Sundays.
Gardeners on a Sunday would hop in their cars and take a tour around all the local garden centres to see what was new and different. Often a few gems would be picked up on this tour.
Likely there still are people that go seeking different plants and in the true garden centres you are still likely to find an unusual specimen or two.
A complaint that I have received from several gardeners is that the more modern chain store type garden centres are rubber stamps in the plants and products they sell. You can go from one brand chain store to another and find their layouts are about identical and the plants and products are the same.
Its even worse, you go to a different chain store group and about the only thing that has changed is the name above the door!
Sure they have a selection of about 10-15 different types of pansies which is a small offering out of maybe 50 or more types that could be made available. Maybe 5 types of petunias, 8 types of impatiens and so the list goes on.
Those wallars that work in head office, dictate what each store in a chain sells.
They commission a nursery to grow for them vast numbers of each plant selected, to go to each of the numerous stores. They have taken away your right of choice and imposed their choices on you.
This is not good business thinking as it opens the door for the owner/operator garden centre to supply the must needed varieties of plants and products that us gardeners want.
You may pay a little more to obtain a plant that has not been massed produced but has been lovingly grown by a smaller nursery, trialled for suitability and then made available to the independents.
When I owned a garden centre/nursery some years back I would go out seeking unusual plants or seeds to sell.
Thus my garden centre was very popular with the local gardens.
Every week, just about, there would be new and interesting plants available.
When you visit a garden shop and find the selection is ho hum then ask the owner if he could source some new and interesting plants to make your visits worthwhile.
Gardeners do not enjoy Mediocrity! We are not robots.
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I received emails this week that went like this:
“Crop & Food Research in the South island have applied to ERMA (the Environmental Risk Management Authority) for a 10-year field-trial of Genetically Engineered brassicas. The plants will have genes spliced from bacteria and viruses, including ‘Bt’ (Bacillus thuringiensis) which can kill some insects.
These GE field trials lack credible benefits and should not be approved.
The GE plants could never be used without contaminating GE-free production.
Most New Zealanders and overseas markets have rejected GE foods. Community values and this economic reality must be respected.
Even trace-levels of contamination are a risk to farmers and the economy.
Public funds are better invested in researching long-term sustainability for our agricultural production not short-term fixes.
Scientific interest claimed for the trial can be delivered by fully contained experiments.”
I don't know how you feel about the GE or GO thing but I find it total madness especially after reading a well written book called, ‘Hard to Swallow, the Dangers of GE Food’ by Jeffrey Smith, Craig Potton Publishing.
The book gave me a good understanding of the dangers and pointed out the many failures of GE crops allowed with the risks to health and the environment.
Monsanto is the company that is mostly concerned with establishing GE crops through out the world with sales last year of 4 billion dollars worth of GE seeds. What do they say about it?
Notable historic quote: "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job." - Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Playing God in the Garden" New York Times Magazine, October 25, 1998.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration USA) is supposed to ensure that products such as GE are safe for the American people and even our own NZ Food Safety Authority takes advice from them.
Do they (FDA) do a good job? Here is another email about this just received:

NEW CONGRESS SCOLDS FDA FOR NOT DOING ITS JOB IN PROTECTING PUBLIC HEALTH

FDA Bureaucrats received a kick in the butt this week from Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), the newly elected chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Kennedy slammed the FDA for endangering public health by ignoring science and serving as a puppet for big business.
"The dedicated professionals at the FDA have been pressured to trim their scientific views to the prevailing political winds.
These are symptoms of a serious illness, and we should act without delay to provide the cure," the senator said.
Kennedy said the committee will hold a series of FDA oversight hearings in early 2007 to force the agency back on track.
FDA advocates responded by saying the agency can only become scientifically credible if Congress increases the FDA's budget in order to supplant the millions of dollars it now receives from industry. End.
Getting back to putting the protein of Bt or other viruses into brassicas to keep them free of caterpillar damage.
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a naturally occurring bacterial disease of insects.
These bacteria are the active ingredient in some insecticides. Bt insecticides are most commonly used against some leaf- and needle-feeding caterpillars.
Commercially, Bt insecticides are available for farmers in NZ to use on crops as a spray to kill caterpillars.
It was for a time available to the home gardener from Yates but as the product had an expiry date and did not sell well enough, it disappeared off the home garden market.
Bt is a good safe product which used as a spray, in germ warfare to kill caterpillars, without hurting other life forms.
As a spray I highly endorse the product but to put foreign bacteria into your cabbage’s DNA can be liken to playing Russian roulette as Genetic Engineering is NOT an exact science and even the scientists do not know what can happen or go wrong.
Most European countries have rejected GE food stuffs because of health concerns and this has cost billions of dollars to farmers in USA in lost markets, and the only one to benefit apparently is Monsanto (who has 90% of the world’s GE seeds)
I for one would not eat a cabbage that had bacteria inserted into it which could cause me health problems.
I can not see any benefit in conducting this type of research by a government owned facility wasting tax payer’s dollars while they could be using the same money to put more nutritional values into our food chain and working towards the removal of Super phosphate and other harmful chemicals.
Mind you, it is a crazy world we allow to happen.
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When you read this week’s gardening article it will be about four weeks till Xmas where with all the busy seasonal chores, one still has ample time to prepare your gardens for the festive season.
With all the rain we have been having reminds me of the old nursery rhyme “Rain, rain, go away, Come again another day, Little Johnny wants to play.”
Though wet weather makes gardening a little more difficult there is an up side, the gardens have not looked so lush and green at this time of the year for sometime. Natural rain and ample of it, means we have not had to water our gardens with tap water which contains chlorine and fluoride in many locations.
Both these toxic chemicals are harmful to our plants as they disrupt the soil food web harming the beneficial microbes that plants need to be healthy.
It is interesting to note a recent news release which states;
‘On November 9, the American Dental Association (ADA) finally admitted that fluoride levels in common tap water could be dangerous for infants. The ADA's announcement comes on the heels of a National Research Council report that revealed fluoridation's adverse effects to the thyroid gland, diabetics, kidney patients, high water drinkers and others.’
Not good for either our gardens or personal health.
The rain has created healthy gardens to enjoy and ample weeds to grow. Wet soil makes for easy weeding as the root’s of weeds will easily pull free of wet soil, where with dry soil they hold fast.
If you are out in the garden pulling weeds and not putting the weeds through your own compost bin, then the soil that comes away with the weed’s roots will be lost to your garden. Overtime you have to replace this lost soil.
To reduce the loss why not take a bucket of water with you and shake the soil loaded roots of the weeds into the bucket’s water. Later you tip the bucket of water and soil back into your garden.
If you are composting the weeds then this is not needed as the compost will be used back in your gardens.
I prefer to weed with a sharp carving knife slicing the weed’s foliage off just below the soil leaving much of the roots in the soil.
There they will break down into humus by microbes without causing disruption to the soil food web. Using this method your weeds become an advantage to other plants and the removed foliage with its crown goes into the compost bin or can be tossed to the fastest compost maker of all. (Your chooks)
While you are weeding your gardens you have ample time to contemplate what to buy family and friends for Xmas. In the past most Xmas gifts would be handmade articles that we would produce ourselves with only a minimum of purchased gifts.
Why not combine the two aspects, purchase the products that you can put together yourself for your gifts. What I am talking about here is to purchase a few containers and plants along with a few bags of compost. The containers may be plastic or more decorative dependant on your budget.
Colour spot flowers can be potted into 150mm to 200mm pots with the compost for excellent inexpensive gifts. They will look great and professional in plastic pots, plus they have ample time to grow on before wrapping and giving. Do a number of extra ones as well for yourself and if you have forgotten someone they are your standbys.
For a bigger item purchase a fruit tree such as any member of the citrus family, feijoa, fig, berry, persimmon, plum etc. You will need a 45 litre or larger container to pot up the fruit tree with the compost.
This is an ideal gift for anyone which will give the receiver years of pleasure and healthy fruit to boot.
Ornamental plants such as roses can also be used as gifts in this manner.
The larger containers can be decorated by planting a few lobelia or similar around the rim of the mix. Thyme is also ideal for this as it not only flowers most of the year, it cascades down the side of the container making a lovely display and is a wonderful culinary herb.
Gardening gift vouchers is an easy way to shop and they can be included in a Xmas card as a neat gift.
Good gardening books that are informative rather than pictorial are very much appreciated and without blowing my own trumpet too much, my own recently released gardening book, ‘Wally’s Down To Earth Gardening Guide’ is proving very popular, with many people purchasing extra copies for family and friends.
(Available through some garden centres, book shops, Touchwood Books or by mail order.)
Children should always be encouraged to garden and a few packets of seeds or a pot plant can be a great start for them to take an interest in gardening.
Children love pets so for those that are able why not build a small chook house with a run and give a child two or three chooks, or alternatively one or two chooks per child. The children can feed the chooks, wheat, mash, water, kitchen scraps and weeds from the garden.
They can collect the eggs each day from the nesting boxes. This would bring the children closer to nature with a number of valuable lessons to be learnt. You will also have the advantage of one of the best manures for your gardens.
With concerns about global warming Christmas 2006 should focus as much as possible on green gifts.
Compost bins and Worm Farms are two ways we can do our little bit.
For friends and family with larger properties the ideal gift would be trees. You can never have enough trees if you have the room to grow them and trees are the answer to many of our current problems.
Talking about trees many of you will have a live Xmas tree that you bring indoors to decorate.
For many years I had one such tree and the worst aspect was that the needles of the tree would be progressively shed while inside, due mainly to the lack of light indoors, when compared to outside.
Similarly with cut pine trees that are used for Xmas Trees, you have a problem after Xmas, getting rid of the shed pine needles.
A garden centre owner reminded me of the fact that if you spray the live tree or cut branch with Vaporgard before bringing it indoors, the spray will reduce the problem. You need to spray for a complete coverage and this is done while outside to your live tree a few days before taking indoors.
With a cut branch, spray as soon as you get it home and leave in a garage or carport for a day to allow the spray to dry before bringing indoors. The sooner it is sprayed after been cut the better. If you are cutting your own tree then spray the section to be cut a few days before cutting.
I have not tried this myself but am assured that it does reduce the needle cleanup problem after Xmas.
The rain we are having makes a perfect time to plant out seedlings or to germinate seeds in the gardens they are to grow in. You want your gardens looking nice for Xmas so get planting.
Tender plants such as Cucumbers and egg plants should be safely planted out now.
Once they have settled and started to grow you can with cucumbers apply a special food called Cucumber Booster. This is a combination of two types of nitrogen which are added to water and applied once a week only.
It is like rocket fuel and makes for rapid growth on any of the curbits (pumpkin, zucchini, gourds etc) interestingly it can also be applied occasionally to a number of other plants where you want rapid foliage growth. Time I got the wet weather gear on and did a bit myself.
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A well know adage is ‘You only get out, what you put in’ which is applicable to many facets of life.
An older version of this is the biblical adage, ‘You reap what you sow’ which relates to both gardening and our interactions between people and projects.
It is a very simple rule and one of common sense especially with our gardening activities. We put good natural products into the soil and reap healthy plants with high nutritional value.
A couple of weeks ago I stated that the sales of vegetable seedlings and seeds were at record highs this season from information received from garden centres through out New Zealand.
The nurseries that produce the seedlings are hard pressed to keep up with the incredible demand and there are shortages of a number of vegetable plants such as tomatoes in some areas. This is very interesting as it has not being to date, a great season for gardening, yet more and more people are planting out their own vegetables.
I read in the Dominion Post (Friday November 10) an article entitled ‘Health Warning in NZ’s Fruitbowl. The bi-line stated; Hawke’s Bay people are strangely reluctant to eat fruit and veges, and their health is suffering.
In the article, Hawke’s Bay’s medical officer of health, Caroline McElnay rated the area significantly worse than the New Zealand average for various health problems.
(I have heard through Hospice in Palmerston North that the majority of their cancer clients are from the Hawke’s Bay, rating far higher when compared to clients from the Manawatu. A significant number of clients are Bay’s agriculture workers)
The article states that fruit and vegetables are cheaper in the Hawke’s Bay than elsewhere in NZ yet the local sale of produce is low. The article blames fast foods as the cause of both low sales and health problems. I would concur that this would be a certain amount true, but only part of the picture.
I phoned a number of garden centre owners in the Hawke’s Bay to ask them how their vegetable seedling and seed sales were this season.
They all reported above average to much higher than previous seasons.
The conclusion one would gain from this is that more gardeners are growing their own fruit and vegetables and not buying the produce for sale.
One garden centre stated that the sections people have these days are much smaller, which means less room for a few vegetable plants, yet the momentum is to grow their own in containers or on whatever small bit of land they have.
One needs to then ask the question, why? Produce is supposedly cheap to buy in the Hawke’s Bay, little personal land for cultivation and the hassle of caring for plants in containers in an area that is well known for its hot summers?
I think the answer is simple as the people in Hawke’s Bay drive past the orchards, vineyards, market gardens and see the clouds of chemical sprays that are applied to the food that will be offered for sale.
Most people in the Bay know of at least one person or more, that in the last few years has been diagnosed with cancer or some other major health problem. Maybe they have come to realise that much of the health problems are in their food chain.
Chemically fertilised produce grown in soil saturated with past chemicals and sprayed with more. (Land that is often too dangerous to be converted to housing developments) Commercial produce, that can also be lacking in minerals and nutritional value.
Maybe that is why gardeners in the Bay and elsewhere in NZ are growing more of their own as they know what goes into their home grown food and prefer not to play Russian Roulette.
Which brings us back to the point as to what goodness goes into our gardens, relates to what comes out.
When a land mass is under the sea, the land gains all the natural minerals from the ocean. Later the land rises out of the sea and the minerals gained are both used by plants and over time leach away, back to the sea.
The simple answer is to bring these minerals back from the Ocean and put them on the land.
I have heard many tales of gardeners that fish out at sea, bringing sea water from the blue ocean, back to dilute and spray over their gardens. These gardeners have great healthy gardens.
Rocks are also a great source of minerals when they are powdered down and applied to the soil.
In prehistoric times the planet was extremely mineral rich and there are pockets of these minerals which can be harvested and applied to the garden. To get the best out of our gardens we need to apply these lost minerals.
The other factor is to create a quality food-soil-web which is thriving in microbes, beneficial fungi and worms. We do this by avoiding harmful chemicals and applying natural soil foods such as compost, animal manures, blood & bone, lime, dolomite, gypsum and seaweed extracts.
Minerals are applied with Ocean Solids, Simalith and Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL).
I had a phone call recently from an Auckland gardener that took my advice a couple of years ago in applying MBL to his garden. His gardens and roses are reputed to be the best in the street and a neighbour nominated the gardens for a garden competition this season, unbeknown to him. His call was to tell me that his garden had won the category entered, and he believed it was all due to his use of MBL.
As the gardener does not use harmful chemical products, using only natural ones mentioned, also has a big bearing on the results.
It is a joy to have great looking, healthy roses in your garden, instead of disease covered specimens.
More importantly for your health, is having the nutritional density in your own home grown produce.
Each plant requires a good soil-food-web in the soil where it is growing along with an X number of minerals. I have yet to see a chart that says a tomato needs say 45 certain minerals and say a rose 55 or whatever.
Not knowing the minerals each plant requires means we need to apply all the minerals possible and let the plants choose for themselves from the mineral and element smorgasbord.
We do know however that certain plants will utilise all the 92 natural elements known, these include wheat and barley grass, which makes both these grasses so popular for growing and juicing when all the elements are in their diet. 30mils of wheat grass juice, correctly grown, contains all the minerals, vitamins and enzymes of 1 Kg of naturally grown produce.
Wonderful for your health, keeping you fit, slowing the aging process significantly, and a great aid in removing the harmful chemicals stored in our bodies. I strongly recommend everyone to grow and juice this inexpensive health aid.
I had a call from a lady in Hamilton the other day that had health conditions that were not nice at all.
A few months back she took my advice on growing/ juicing and now she has noticed very good health improvements and is able to do many things she was unable to do for many years.
If we give our bodies all the goodness it needs by growing our own fruit, vegetables and wheat grass there are obvious healthy benefits.
It is a simple matter to obtain a few polystyrene trays, fill them with compost adding a bit of the natural goodies mentioned, after drilling a few drainage holes. Space out say a dozen dwarf bean seeds or half a dozen lettuce/silverbeet/brassicas to grow. Not only will these home grown vegetables have more flavour, they will have real nutritional value.
Happy, Healthy gardening.
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We need to encourage our children and grandchildren to appreciate Nature by including them in some gardening activities.
I believe that young children have a natural infinity with plants and insects when they are allowed to explore our gardens.
Children learn many things by mimicking their parents and are often keen at a young age to assist in various gardening activities.
I remember as a toddler spending many hours in the garden collecting caterpillars off the cabbages and feeding them to our chooks.
I was given my own little spade and wheelbarrow when I was about three and had a lot of fun moving the weeds my mum removed from gardens to the compost bin or to feed them to the chooks.
I can still remember how good it felt to be part of Nature back then and the same feeling pertains today when I work or wander around my gardens.
It was about that time, when I was given my own little plot of ground to grow plants in. Seeds would be planted and I would be taught which seedlings were weeds and which were plants.
My own little watering can would nurture the baby plants till maturity. A great ado would be made when one of my cabbages, silverbeet or lettuces was harvested for the evening meal. Even though I hated eating silverbeet back then, I had to enjoy my own grown silverbeet, because I grew it!
It was the fuss that the adults made, that gave me a feeling of importance and likely kept me gardening for the rest of my life.
Plants that move have a fascination for children and a great one for this is Mimosa pudica, the Sensitive Plant, which folds up its leaves when touched. They are easy to grow from seed, as a pot plant for a windowsill. Nice pink flowers also. As the plant matures it has thorns on the branches which incidentally are another attraction for children. (Available from Kings Seeds)
Cacti with their prickles often appeal to young boys and I had a small collection when young and still keep a few.
Two awesome plants for children to grow are the super giant sunflowers and pumpkins.
Called ‘My Giant Sunflower’ these extra tall sunflowers will grow up to 5 metres tall.(17 odd feet) Grown in full sun in soil that has excellent drainage.
The giant pumpkin is called ‘My Giant Pumpkin’ and these monsters can weigh over 1000 pounds at maturity. (Half a ton)
Niche seeds have the two giants on their seed stands in garden centres through out New Zealand.
Each garden centre is running a competition for the tallest sunflower and the biggest pumpkin with various prizes for the winners. Details can be obtained from your garden centre.
Designed for children but may also be open to big kids like me. The seed packets contain information on growing and recording the progress of your plants. Another interesting aspect is to encourage the children to give their giant plant a personal name after it is established. Naming the plant makes the giant more personal and helps the children to have respect for plants and nature.
If I was going to grow either of these giants, here is what I would do: In an all-day-sunny area, I would dig a hole about a spade depth and width, chop up the bottom of the hole, so the soil is loose, then fill the hole with chook manure to about two thirds full. (Other manure could be used if chook manure is not obtainable, but chook is best)
Fill the rest of the hole with a good compost and soil mix, 50/50 making a small mound about 12cm tall above the filled in hole. Place one seed in the middle of the mound and wet it down with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL), (20 ml of MBL to 1 litre of water.)
Water the mount to keep moist with plain water and then every 2 weeks with the MBL.
Overseas the biggest record vegetables have been achieved with products very similar or the same as MBL. Spraying the foliage of your Giants every 2 weeks with MBL (10 ml to a litre) will also assist in a bigger healthier plant. After your plants are established and growing well, give them a drink using Cucumber Booster, once a week.
This is a high nitrogen product that is a combination of sulphate of ammonia and potassium nitrate, which you diluted in water. Cucumber Booster is excellent for any plants that enjoys a boost of nitrogen after establishment. It is used for growing cucumbers, pumpkins, zucchini and gourds.
The MBL and Cucumber Booster can be combined for watering into the soil near the base of the plant.
Because of the weather patterns we are experiencing, after you plant your seed, cut off the base of a 2 to3 litre plastic fruit juice bottle and place this over the mound, with the cap removed.
This will give your seed and seedling its own little glasshouse.
This is removed once the seedling starts to fill the bottle and needs more room. With the Giant Sunflower a tall strong stake should be put in the ground at seed planting time on the edge of the mound. This will be needed later to give extra support to the plant.
Another interesting thing to do is once the sunflower gets up about a metre tall, plant 3 or 4 climbing bean seeds at the base of the plant. These will grow up the sunflower and also provide extra nitrogen for the sunflower.
It is a lot of fun plus a great way to get the children way from the TV and video games, showing them there is more to life than a screen. Ooooo
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