October Garden Journal

Tips & Tricks

* Use a compost worm to aerate your compost heap and accelerate the decomposition process.

* Spray roses with Rose Shield or Eco-rose fungicide to prevent black spot.

* Protect new flower shoots on emerging lilies from slugs and snails with a good, safe snail bait.

Jobs to do
* Water your hydrangeas with soluble sulphate of potash to encourage larger blooms. Water blue blooms with Yates Blueing Tonic and sprinkle the soil around pink-flowered plants with lime.
* Place a band of corrugated cardboard around fruit trees to trap marauding caterpillars.
* Water and feed iris, gardenia and roses, to encourage growth and flowers.

In the flower garden:

Plant water lilies
Plant water lilies into strong, plastic containers with a 30cm diameter x 12cm depth. Place three 10g slow-release fertiliser tablets, available at good nurseries, in the bottom of each container, then fill with good clay soil.

Soak sugar cane
Fill a garbage bin with liquid manure and soak sugar cane mulch in it. Just before summer, pack the now nutrient-rich sugar cane onto garden beds, to conserve moisture and stop weeds.

Train your wisteria
The stems of Wisteria longissima become almost as thick as tree trunks and can damage a wooden pergola post. Train your plant up a metal star picket instead, and have it flop over the top of your pergola.

Nurture flowers
Give rose, clematis, hydrangea, dahlia, pelargonium and bougainvillea an application of sulphate of potash to improve flowering. Dissolve 20g per 9 litres of water (one adult handful is 50g). Apply every four weeks during the growing period. This is one of the safest and most concentrated forms of potassium for encouraging flowering and fruiting in all plants, as well as promoting disease resistance.

In the vegetable patch

Try organic control

Spray fruit trees and vegetables with Eco-naturalure, as soon as you notice flies in your fruit fly monitor traps. This protein- and sugar-based bait contains the active ingredient ‘spinosad’, which has low toxicity for beneficial insects.

Grow spinach
True spinach is best grown in spring as it runs to seed quickly in warm weather. Plant it in large containers, at least 20cm x 30cm, as the roots need to be kept cool. Chard, often mistakenly called spinach, grows over a longer period and is more tolerant of hot conditions.

Feed citrus
Feed citrus once each season, except summer, and spray with Pest Oil or Eco-oil to discourage citrus leaf miner which distorts leaves leaving silvery trails in the leaf tissue. Repeat every two weeks.

Sow eggplant seed
Eggplant grows best in warm climates, 18 to 30° Celsius. Sow seed in situ in mid-spring, in a sunny, sheltered position in fertile, well-drained soil. In a cool climate, start plants in a seed tray or punnets on a warm window sill. Prick out into pots and transplant into the garden when the weather becomes warm.

Sow sweet corn
Sweet corn needs a long, warm growing season to succeed. Sow sweet corn into a trench that is 15cm deep x 10cm wide. Sprinkle fertiliser into the base and cover with soil. Press seeds into the damp soil and space 15cm apart. Thin weaker seedlings once germinated, after about 10 to 14 days.