In The Garden WITH BROWNIE
– Grow any herbs now – except for basil (it’s too early) and coriander (it’s too late).
• Grevilleas will be flowering away. Cutting flowers for inside the house will promote new growth and better plant health.
• Pruning of edible fig trees can be carried out. Be very vigorous – one-third can be cut off. Figs are only produced on new wood of the new season’s growth. Give them a good feed of general fertiliser.
• It could be a few months before we get good soaking rains and the drying September winds will suck the moisture from bare soil, so mulch your gardens to keep in the available water.
• Dig up and divide canna lilies. Water them in well with a seaweed solution.
• It’s a good month to start the fruit orchard – plant mango, pawpaw, avocado, custard apple, carambola and sapodilla.
• Spray your flowering mangoes with Mancozeb or a copper-based fungicide to prevent the disease anthracnose.
• Watch out for rampant lawn weeds – especially bindi-eye, clover and flatweed (or cats ear).
• Test the pH of your soil. Excessive acidity or alkalinity will interfere with uptake of nutrients by plants. You’re generally aiming for a pH level of 6.5 to 7.5. Remember never to apply lime at the same time as fertilisers as this leads to a loss of nitrogen, caused by it converting to ammonia and off-gassing. Allow 3 weeks between liming and fertiliser applications. Never add lime to a compost heap as this also leads to a large loss of nutrient into the atmosphere.
• A wide range of fertilisers are available, with the word ‘organic’ being used rather freely. A good choice for the home gardener is an ‘organically certified’ poultry manure in pelleted form. Use up to 300g to the square metre in the vegetable garden, only ever apply to moist soil. Blood & Bone is a popular choice with organic gardeners, it is much higher in nitrogen (N) and phosphate (P) than pelleted poultry manure but it can be lower in potassium (K).
• Custard Apples will be losing their leaves this coming month, so it’s time to prune. Don’t forget to mulch around them afterwards.
• Repot your indoor plants. Mix in some water saving crystals and slow release fertiliser into the potting mix.