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GARDEN CARE FOR SEPTEMBER From Living Earth The signs of Spring are beginning, with longer daylight hours and slightly less water-logged soils, so let’s get into the Edible Garden! • Don’t be overly ambitious with the new seasons vegetables – tomatoes, capsicums and zucchini are more successful when we see warmer temperatures. Unless your vegetable garden is very sheltered and very sunny, it pays to wait a month • But: do plant the ‘cut and come again’ lettuces – rocket, miner’s lettuce and mesclun mixes. Put in a crop of snow peas and sow onions and radishes • The prettiest way to ward off carrot fly is to mix the seed with nigella or cornflower seeds and sow – such a pretty way to control pests in the garden • Focus on growing citrus and other fruit in pots – lightly fork a layer of our Living Earth organic-certified Compost through the potting mix, but take care not to dig too deeply. If you’ve put a good layer of mulch on them, simply remove it, then replace after you’ve applied the compost • Top up your raised garden beds – with our Living Earth organic-certified Veggie Mix – a perfect chemical-free way to grow food! • Aphid watch – unbelievably, aphids appear quite soon after the mild weather begins – an initial infestation can normally be controlled by wiping them off with your fingers! Plants under attack can be leafy varieties such as lettuce and brassicas, or watch for black aphids on plants of the onion family • Remember to liquid feed everything in the edible garden up to twice a month – most liquid fertilisers, such as Living Earth organic-certified Liquid Compost are ideal for foliar feeding, using a sprayer or a watering can • ‘Hill’ up soils around newly emerging potato foliage, so you get lots of spuds for Christmas! Staking Broad Beans – this bean variety makes it through winter with ease – but often they get forgotten over Winter. Now is the time to straighten up the plants, staking them up or gathering them together, so that the sun and the bees get to the flowers! And, while we’re at it – right now you should fertilise your lawn – Central Landscapes have Turfmaster Gold, a high-performance professional grade slow-release fertiliser, which is perfect for use on all lawn grass types Great news for Gardeners – the Annual Millwater Gardening Competition is on again in November 2016! theMillwatermag and Central Landscapes Silverdale are delighted to bring this to Millwater residents for the 3rd year in a row! We’ll keep you posted about when to enter. Email sarah@themillwatermag.co.nz for more information.
