Tag Archives: Spring

Gardening, News

A gardening checklist, heading into Summer (Wally Richards)

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Now that we are halfway through Spring and quickly heading to Summer (December) there is a fair bit to do in our gardens so lets run a check list in case some things are missed.

It will depend on what you have in your gardens as to whether any or all things aspects concern you.

Roses: generally at this time we have new foliage, buds and some flowering taking place.

If there is any sign of black spot or rust, spray the roses and soil underneath with a solution of potassium permanganate mixed at ¼ a teaspoon to a litre of non chlorinated water and spray. (It may stain walls etc temporarily).

Food for Roses ; ideal is horse manure, blood & bone otherwise sheep manure pellets with the blood & bone.

These should be applied to the soil and covered with some purchased compost.

Add to this a sprinkling of Wallys Unlocking your Soil and once a month a small sprinkling of Fruit & Flower Power.

If you want good roses avoid soil damaging fertilisers such as rose fertiliser and nitrophoska.

Bio Boost is also a good natural slow release one and very well priced. (Available from PGG Wrightson or Fruit Fed)

If you have roses that need recovery from past chemical sprays such as Shield (now banned) the chemicals will have broken down the natural immunity of your roses.

You may like to start a recovery spray program which I wrote about originally just on 10 years ago.

On the first of the month mix the following at their label rates per a litre of water, PerKfection for Roses, Magic Botanic Liquid, Mycorrcin & Wallys Neem Tree Oil.

Spray late in the day just before sunset. Then on the 15th of the month repeat spray all the above except for PerKfection.

Only water with non chlorinated water so you don’t harm the beneficial soil life including the gardeners best friend, earthworms.

In some cases the health improvement of your roses will be quickly noticed; although some may have the additional problem of inherently poor breeding and always be a sickly specimen (even if they have brilliant flowers).

Lawns; I have had a number of inquiries about lawn problems starting with moss in lawns.

Don’t waste your money on sulphate of iron as it only burns the top of the moss which then it quickly comes back.

Instead, jet spray the moss with Wallys Moss & Liverwort Control. It kills the moss completely without damaging the grasses.

If there is a spongy feeling when walking on the lawn that indicates a thatch problem.

Simply spray the lawn with Thatch Busta to clean up the thatch. (Do the moss killing first, wait about 2 weeks then the Thatch Busta.)

Bare patches in the lawn indicate the root damage caused by grass grubs in the autumn/winter period and these same grubs are now down deep, pupating to emerge shortly as beetles.

They are too deep to do anything about them at this time so don’t waste your money on treating. The horse has gone so no need to close the gate.

Another bare patch problem with holes in the lawn indicate that porina caterpillars are at work eating at the base of the grass in the evening (when they are safe from birds) to return to their tunnels before dawn.

A simple spray over the lawn with Wallys Neem Tree Oil will stop the damage and cause them to starve to death.

In areas where porina are a problem treat the lawn this way every 3 months.

Best do this late in the day on a recently mowed lawn.

When the grass grub beetles emerge they are going to eat the foliage of several plants so after you have noticed holes in the leaves go out after dark with a torch and have a look.

If you have beetles then spray them directly with a mix of Wallys Super Pyrethrum and Wallys Neem Tree Oil. Repeat nightly.

Also a bright light in a window facing the lawn with a trough two thirds full of water with a film of kerosene floating on the top; placed directly under the window pane, will trap lots of beetles (maybe a few Codlin Moths too)

They fly at the bright light hit the pane and fall into the water where the kerosene stops them from escaping.

Feed the beetles to the chickens next morning or flush down the toilet.

By the way if you do not have two or three chickens and you have room for a small hen house and run it is a great investment.

They will convert kitchen scraps and weeds into the best manure around and as a bonus supply you with a few eggs that you will find really tasty and magic for baking.

Not only that you are a bit more self-sufficient.

Check all grafted fruit tree and ornamentals for any sign of foliage appearing on the root stock below the graft union.

Any found should be rubbed or cut off otherwise they will grow and the preferred plant will die.

Rust on garlic and curly leaf on stone fruit; this season because of a lot of rain and too many cloudy skies meaning not much direct sunlight has placed plants into stress which makes them more prone to catching diseases.

To help rescue the crop mix a table spoon of molasses to a litre of hot water to dissolve and then when cool spray over the foliage.

Repeat regularly till harvest. Also you can water the same into the root zone occasionally.

Weeds; they certainly grow at this time of the year and as long as you deal to them before they set seed they are not too much of a problem.

In fact weeds are a excellent asset to your garden soils as they have taken up goodness which can be returned to great advantage.

You could pull the weeds out, shake the soil off them and lay them back down on the soil.

That is good but even better; with a sharp knife slice through the weeds just below soil surface.

This leaves the roots in the soil to rot and provide food for the soil life and it does not disrupt the beneficial fungi in the soil.

The foliage can be laid on the soil surface where it will be quickly devoured by the soil life and worms.

Your soil will build up humus quickly if you spray the dying weeds with Mycorrcin.

Doing these things (sure it takes a bit of time but it is so therapeutic and anti-stressful) will overtime make for dream gardens and plants.

Citrus; its a good time to sprinkle Wallys Neem tree Granules underneath the citrus trees from the trunk to the drip line. This will help prevent insect damage.

If you have chook manure give a good sprinkling of that otherwise any animal manure or sheep manure pellets along with blood & bone. Cover with compost.

Sprinkle Fruit and Flower Power once a month.

A spray of Wallys Liquid Copper with Raingard added in the spring and autumn will help with any citrus diseases.

If the trees are looking a bit sad add Perkfection to the copper spray.

In cases where wet feet have rotted roots treat the area with Terracin to suppress the pathogens and help save the tree.

Three weeks later spray the soil with Mycorrcin.

Note always use non-chlorinated water which is easily achieved with a special carbon bonded filter on your outside tap (available from our mail order web site).

Pear Slugs; In warmer areas and later in cooler areas the pear slugs will attack pear and plum trees, they eat small holes in the foliage and look like a black slug.

Simply spray the tree with Wallys Liquid Copper to control.

Remember be nice to your gardens by being natural.

Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at  www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz

New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Part II of the Act covers a broad range of Civil and Political Rights. As part of the right to life and the security of the person, the Act guarantees everyone:

1The right not to be deprived of life except in accordance with fundamental justice (Section 8)

2The right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment (Section 9)

3The right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without consent (Section 10)

4The right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment (Section 11)

 Furthermore, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees everyone: Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion.
This includes the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief,
INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO ADOPT AND HOLD OPINIONS WITHOUT INTERFERENCE (Section 1)

Image by kalhh from Pixabay

Gardening, News

Spring in the garden: things we might miss or forget (Wally Richards)

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It is an very interesting spring and start to the new season.

Most of us are saying where is spring? It is already into October and not much springy in the air.

Mind you before the Polar Blast that had us adding another layer of clothes and lighting the fire we did have some not too bad days.

Hopefully those mild days were sufficient to bring some of the pests out of their winter hiding places to be stuck dead by the cold blast.

If in spring we have an early start with sunny days and warm temperatures, then it turns to custard with a few days of bitter cold then all the pests that came out will shiver to death and our pest problem will be significantly reduced.

It then will be into the new year before their numbers multiply and cause problems.

It is now not long before Labour Weekend arrives and that is the New Zealand Traditional time for planting out the tender plants such a tomatoes and Impatiens.

More tender plants such as cucumbers should not be planted till the weather really settles otherwise they just sit there and sulk.

If you do early plantings of non-hardy plants then only do a couple or so and then two to three weeks later another little planting.

Follow that pattern and you cant go wrong.

It is a timely reminder to check grafted fruit trees, ornamentals and roses.

Grafted means they are growing on a similar family plant’s root stock.

This is done for several reasons such as preventing suckering, giving what is supposed to be a better plant such as High Health in Roses and also to determine the end result size of the tree.

The root stock can and often does start producing foliage and if that is allowed to grow then the energy from the roots is grabbed by the root stock’s development and likely at some time the tree that is grafted onto the root stock will fail and die.

Normally it is fairly easy to see the union where the tree is

connected to the root stock.

So any foliage that appears there on the root stock should be rubbed off or cut off to prevent it growing bigger.

Sometime the foliage may appear from under the soil near the trunk. Once again remove.

I have come to understand that grafted stone fruit trees are very likely to have curly leaf disease as the graft is a weakening aspect of the tree’s health and vigor.

I learnt this week an interesting thing; apparently if a person receives a transplant organ then over time that person may start to develop characteristics and even memories of the donor.

Which make s me wonder if a grafted tree starts to show aspects of the tree it is grafted too?

Dwarf stone fruit are the worst to have curly leaf problems.

If you grow a peach, nectarine or plum from a stone then apparently because it is on its own root system it will be far less likely to have curly leaf disease and maybe also less or none of other problems.

With roses we some times see what is often called a water shoot which is a strong upward shoot from near the base.

I think the recommendation is to cut them off but on one occasion I let it grow and with some cosmetic pruning over a couple of seasons turn a bush rose into a standard.

A reader today asked about her compost bins which are made out of tanalised timber.

She asked ‘Would the tanalised timber be harmful to the compost and would it be ok to use the compost on the vegetable garden’?

Tantalized timber has some nasty chemicals in them (Ask any older builder that has worked with tantalized timber for years about how they are faring)

I also learnt from a building inspector that tantalized fence palings that I screwed to my steel warehouse

(To attach steel cages onto for gas bottles and instant gas hot water unit) would overtime eat into the steel and cause corrosion.

So if the chemical can do that to colour steel what are they going to do to your food crops that will take up the chemicals that leach into the soil/compost?

Not a healthy outlook for sure.

The answer is to give the tantalized wood that has been cut to the right size a couple of coats of acrylic paint before assembling to seal the chemicals in.

This is also applied to raised gardens when using tantalized timber.

Container plants indoors and outdoors over winter required much less water but now as the day light hours increase and temperatures rise they will require more moisture.

A problem arises though in that the growing medium, when it became dry causes tension that does not allow the water to penetrate.

So when you water not all the mix/root system gets any moisture and you have a dry spot.

Water rather than staying in the mix a lot of it will run out into the saucer.

There are two ways to solve this problem.

Container that are not too large should be taken and plunged into a tub of water submerging the whole pot. It will start to bubble away which is the air being forced out of the medium as the water replaces the dry air pockets.

When the pot stops bubbling lift up and let the surplus water drain out before returning to its saucer.

That means next time you water the plant will get all the benefit.

If you have a large container that you cannot plunge into a tank of water then what you do is this.

Fill your watering can with warm water and then give a good squirt of dish washing liquid into it.

Lather up with your hand to make the water nice and soapy.

Water the soapy water into the container mix and this will break the tension and allow water to wet the whole mix till the same happens again.

Hanging baskets are prone to having tension and not getting a proper drink. This is especially so with hanging baskets outdoors.

Plunge into a tub of water and watch them bubble. During the summer outdoor baskets should be plunged once a month.

Another big problem with container plants is root mealy bugs and the easy way to fix is to sprinkle a little of Wallys Neem Tree powder over the mix then cover with a little more potting mix.

The powder with become mouldy as it breaks down and look unsightly.

Under a layer of fresh mix you will not see it.

Something extra which  I received this week that you may find interesting/shocking?

https://www.debtclock.nz/?utm_campaign=20221007_newsletter_jordan&utm_medium=email&utm_source=taxpayers

Someone has to pay for this and its not the ones that have caused this debt.

Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at  www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz

New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Part II of the Act covers a broad range of Civil and Political Rights. As part of the right to life and the security of the person, the Act guarantees everyone:

1The right not to be deprived of life except in accordance with fundamental justice (Section 8)

2The right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment (Section 9)

3The right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without consent (Section 10)

4The right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment (Section 11)

 Furthermore, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees everyone: Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion.
This includes the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief,
INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO ADOPT AND HOLD OPINIONS WITHOUT INTERFERENCE (Section 1)

Image by Eszter Miller from Pixabay

Food, Gardening

Tomato Time (Wally Richards)

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If you are like me, your fingers are itching to get the new seasons tomato plants under way.

The earlier you start the sooner you will have ripe tomatoes to eat.

I think most garden centres will have a few early varieties already to buy and grow on.

This last week after the cold spell the weather has been fairly warm in most areas.

This is likely because of the rain brought down from the tropics which caused so much damage also brought with it, warm air.

As I write this in Marton at 10am on Saturday the temperature outside is 18 degrees and starting to feel a bit more like some spring weather.

If you have a glasshouse or similar then no problem in getting your first tomato plants started either in the ground or in containers.

If you do not have a glasshouse there is no reason not to plant one or more tomato plants into 20cm containers to grow on for planting out into your garden later on as a well established plant.

You just need to have the containers in a sunny sheltered spot and if the weather turns to custard or looks like a frost then bring them inside (porch, carport, shed, kitchen) they will be ok then till weather improves and back to their spot outside so they get ample sun light.

Firstly lets look at planting your purchased tomato plants, whether in the ground or into a container: make a hole that will be deep enough to bury the plant up to the first leaves.

The reason for this is that the plant will produce roots all the up the trunk making a bigger root system compared planted shallow where the original roots are.

More roots, bigger plant and better results.

Place about half a teaspoon of Wallys Secret Tomato Food with Neem Powder at the base of the hole and just cover with a little of the growing medium.

Also sprinkle Wallys Secret Tomato Food onto the growing medium surface but not against the trunk of the plant.

Not only are you giving your tomato a great food but also the Neem Powder helps prevent insect problems.

In a glasshouse also sprinkle Wallys Neem Tree Granules as the smell of the granules will further disguise the smell of your tomato plants so whitefly will not know they are there.

Hang Wallys White Fly Sticky Traps in the glasshouse near the door and vets as well as above your tomato plants.

These will catch any adult insects pests that find there way into the glasshouse.

The biggest problem that many gardeners had over the last season or longer is the dreaded psyllid.

These little pests lay their eggs on to tomato plants, potatoes, Tamarrilo (these three are the worst affected) but they will also attack chili, capsicum okra and pippino.

The nymphs when they hatch out are very small and you need a magnifying glass to see them.

They are sucking the goodness out of your tomato plant and even worse injecting a toxin into the plant.

The results seen are the plants lower leaves may turn yellow prematurely, be distorted, fruit will become progressively smaller and the end result will be a fungus mold up and down the trunk before the plant dies.

Eggs hatch 3-9 days after being laid and nymphs pass through five scale-like stages in 12-21 days, depending on temperature.

In greenhouses, tomato-potato psyllid development proceeds rapidly between 15-32 C, and the lower temperature threshold for development is about 7 C.

It is the mid range temperatures that are best for the psyllids and for breeding.

Lower and very high temperatures reduce their activity and that is why very early and late in the season, while temperatures are mild they are not much of a problem in open air gardens.

Late self sown tomato plants will do well till winter knocks them out.

From personal experience I found that once you have a psyllid population in your back yard that each season it will be far worse than previous up until growing of tomatoes, potatoes and Tamarrilo is a waste of money and time.

For instance Opiki (between Palmerston North and Levin) was a great commercial potato growing area a few years ago. Now there are none grown as the chemicals needed to control had to be applied so frequently and the costs too high to be economical.

Sprays such as Neem Oil or chemical ones will help control a bit but the populations become so great that they just don’t control sufficiently to be any thing than a waste of money.

Confidor (the bee killer) would be the best to work as a chemical spray but of course now no longer available to the home gardener as it is a bee killer which we do not want that.

About two years ago the psyllid problem in my big glasshouse had got so bad that I went out looking for a safe means of control.

I found the answer in silicon which if used to treat the tomato plants from seedlings to maturity not

only prevented psyllid damage but actually got rid of them completely from my glasshouse and gardens.

So for other gardeners I bottled 3 products the first is Wallys Silicon and Boron Soil Drench which is watered into the soil where your tomato plant is to grow either before planting or after planting.

Another drench is applied 2 weeks later.

Then you mix Wallys Cell Strengthening Spray and Wallys Silicon Super Spreader together.

The Super Spreader forces the Cell Strengthening spray into the plants.

This spray can be started once your tomato plant has foliage and repeated every week as it grows.

Once it gets to flowering and about a metre tall then spray every two weeks.

Once you start harvesting fruit spray once a month.

Add Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) to the cell strengthening spray.

I make up the spray into a one litre Trigger sprayer and leave by the plants out of direct sunlight to used again till all contents finished as it keeps ok. Just shake the bottle in case of settling.

You will not only have lots of tomatoes as it used to be but also the fruit will be bigger and tastier as the leaves of the plant will love the silicon spray and grow to about double their normal size.

The plant will get more energy from the sun having larger leaves and the plants will be the best tomatoes you have ever grown using the Wallys Secret Tomato Food and the Silicon cell strengthening products. Even if you do not think you have a psyllid problem it is worthwhile to use the cell strengthening products as you will have better tomatoes as a result.

These products also work well on preventing or reducing the damage to garlic from the garlic rust problem.

You could try the cell strengthening spray with MBL added on your favorite plants such as roses and see what happens.

Problems ring me at 0800 466464
Email wallyjr@gardenews.co.nz
Web site www.gardenews.co.nz

Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at  www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz

New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Part II of the Act covers a broad range of Civil and Political Rights. As part of the right to life and the security of the person, the Act guarantees everyone:

1 The right not to be deprived of life except in accordance with fundamental justice (Section 8)

2 The right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment (Section 9)

3 The right not to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without consent (Section 10)

4 The right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment (Section 11)

 Furthermore, the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 guarantees everyone: Freedom of Thought, Conscience, and Religion.
This includes the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief,
INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO ADOPT AND HOLD OPINIONS WITHOUT INTERFERENCE (Section 1)

Photo: pixabay.com