by Wally Richards
GARDENING BITS
Your gardens should be doing very well by now, but cucumbers and a few heat loving plants may still be a bit slow growing or in some cases sulking until the temperatures stay more constant.
I heard a while ago gardeners talking about using ‘Grow Bags’ to grow vegetable plants in and in particular ones such as tomatoes, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkins etc. Then dependent on the size of the bags two or more salad plants could share the same bag or say several carrots or radishes.
I purchased by mail order 20 bags which are 56.78 litre capacity or 3 gallon for just under $30.00 so that’s about $1.50 each and they about the size of a good size bucket, made from black material which means they attract the heat from the sun and thus warm the growing medium. There is a handle on each side so good to move around if need be.
I used my favorite brand compost to fill the bottom of the bag to about one third then I placed a layer of my chicken manure, then sprinkled over that used Wallys Calcium & Health for the lime (note if you are growing tomatoes use dolomite or for potatoes, gypsum) then some Wallys Ocean solids, a little Biophos and a sprinkling of Wallys Unlocking your Soil.
If you do not have your own chickens then use any animal manure or sheep manure pellets; I see Tui have them combined with chicken manure. Also I saw the local Mitre10 had bags of dried blood and also bone flour from a company in the South Island that mainly has seed potatoes.
I thought those two products were hard to come by these days. Now I am using the grow bags mostly for growing my different types of pumpkins putting one pumpkin plant into each bag. I like to trail the pumpkins over smaller trees and shrubs so they are out of the way instead of running all over the place.
A gardener asked me recently when should one nip off the pumpkin runner and ideally it’s after a couple of fruit have set. (It’s best to hand pollenate the female flowers to ensure a good crop)
When you take out the leader then plants will side-shoot which means energy goes into side runners rather than the fruit, so it’s best to nip off all the side runners where they are attached to the parent runner.
The grow bags mean I can sit the pumpkins near shrubs and train the runners up and over them.
On my grapevine which is about its third year growing I have a great set of fruit and to ensure that the fruit obtain all the growth, I nip off the leader after one or more bunches of grapes have set so that again the goodness will go into the fruit rather than into extending the leader. Of course, within a few days the vine starts producing side runner — every few days I check the vine and nip them off where they are coming from the leader.
Spraying the foliage every week with Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) has produced bigger leaves which means more energy captured from the sun.
The same principle can be applied to fruit trees and other fruiting plants by nipping off any new growths that form beyond the fruit that has set,
On roses don’t forget to remove any dead flowers which we call ‘Dead Heading’ — this encourages the plant to produce more flowers. Even better, nip off below the branch where the dead flower is which will encourage new growths and more buds and more flowers.
Also you need to keep a check on your tomato plants and remove side-shoots which are called laterals; otherwise the plant becomes a jungle and fruit size will be smaller.
I also like to progressively remove the bottom leaves as they age and doing so often reduces any insect pest problems on the plants.
If the laterals taken off are 60 mm or longer you can strike them to obtain new plants for growing and extending your harvest season.
Another thing to watch out for with any grafted fruit trees and maybe roses that has shoots growing from below the graft or suckers coming out of the ground where roots are: you need to remove the side shoots otherwise there is a chance that the fruit tree will die and you will only have the grafted tree which is not much good. Nip suckers also off where they are coming from.
Strawberries should be fruiting now and a weekly or even a twice weekly spray of Mycorrcin will make for bigger berries and longer fruiting season.
You can also sprinkle some of Wallys Secret Strawberry food onto the soil by the plants.
Wallys Secret Tomato Food with Neem Granules and Strawberry food are very similar and can be used for plants and also for other plants flowering and fruiting such as capsicum, chili, egg plants, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc. They will make a difference to all those plants and a with weekly spray of MBL over the foliage you will have plants to be proud of.
For growth of cucumbers and pumpkins you can give the plants a weekly drink of Wallys Super Cucumber booster.
Watering should be done regularly like every day it does not rain and ideally done by hand so the soil is kept moist for growth and while watering, you can remove a few weeds, and see if any plants have a problem with insects or diseases.
Watering is best done during the day rather than late in the day so the moisture dries and that helps prevent leaf diseases.
If your garlic has got the dreaded garlic rust or if your stone fruit have got a crop on but a lot of curly leaves then there may not be enough energy from the sun to swell the garlic bulbs or hold the stone fruit from falling.
Mix one tablespoon of molasses into one litre of hot water and spray as often as you like the leaves. The more carbs you get into the garlic or the stone fruit the better the result will be.
You can add MBL in the mix but if not all used, open the sprayer to breath as there are microbes in the MBL and with the molasses will multiply rapidly.
Problems ring me at 0800 466464
Email wallyjr@gardenews.co.nz
Web site www.gardenews.co.nz