by Wally Richards

SPRINGTIME

In many places throughout NZ it is a bit difficult to realise that September heralds the beginning of spring, starting another round of seasons.

It is certainly a slow start, weather-wise, to what we call lovely spring days, but plants do not work by weather, they work by daylight hours. So we have plants on the move but gardeners are slow to respond and wait for nicer spring weather.

But what we do in our gardens over the next 8 to 10 weeks will have a big bearing on the rest of the gardening year.

The question you have to ask yourself is whether you want a great, healthy garden for the next 9 months or not?

I remember when I was a boy, 70 years ago, that at this time of the year gardeners would be busy digging in their green crops, mucking out the chook house and spreading this wealth of manure over their gardens along with material from the compost bins.

Lime and potash would also be applied to gardens and all worked into the soil with a garden fork.

The hundreds of worms that would be exposed briefly as these actions proceeded, were amazing to see.

Hardy plants would be planted out, followed by the more tender plants around Labour Weekend. By summertime the gardens would be bursting with produce and flowers. It was a wonderful sight having great tasty vegetables and fruit for the table along with flowers for the vases.

Reflecting back and comparing with many gardens of today, we find a few things missing in those times, lack of diseases such as blackspot, rust and botrytis. No sprayers in the garden shed, no bottles of chemicals to rescue plants falling sick, and no bags of man-made fertilisers.

In fact the garden shed only comprised of a few garden tools, a lawn mower and other garden accessories such as stakes. The soil was healthy, teeming with microbes and worms, the plants were healthy and so were we!

Sadly it changed over the following years.

Super-phosphate was introduced along with man-made fertilisers and everything went downhill.

Sure plants still grew, often faster than before, but these plants were inferior and required chemical sprays to keep them from succumbing to a number of diseases.

Super-phosphate kills the soil life and in my opinion should be banned because of the harm it does to our food chain. (Super phosphate is produced with acids to break down the natural rock phosphate hence the harm to the soil life.)

All the man-made fertilisers contain super-phosphate in some form including the Nitrophoska fertilisers. Chemical herbicides only make matters worse.

This spring you can make a difference if you wish, by using only natural products in your gardens similar to the ones we used in the 1950’s.

Wallys Real Blood and bone, sheep manure pellets, Wallys Calcium & Health or a soft garden lime, gypsum, dolomite, animal manures, bags of compost and natural liquid plant foods.

Avoid if possible chemical weedkillers, especially around food producing plants and preferred plants such as your roses. A natural alternative would be a cheap cooking oil or vinegar as a spray.

The amount of water to the cooking oil ratio you will need to experiment with, start with say half and half. Place say 500 ml of warm water into a sprayer and then 500ml of oil with dish washing liquid,(to emulsify the water and oil) shake well so they mix and then spray the contents over weeds on a sunny day when the ground is on the dry side.

Used in full sun the spray dehydrates the weeds and any other plant that may be sprayed by accident.

The vinegar spray is 500 grams of refined salt (table salt) and 4.5 litres of vinegar. Add the salt to a small amount of hot water to completely dissolve then add to the vinegar with 5 ml of Raingard.

This spray does have a residue and may for a time affect growth in that area. The alternative is weeding by hand, or with a Dutch hoe or ‘weedeater’ which is best overall.

Wallys Ammonium Sulphamate is used to aid the composting of organic material which can be used to compost weeds where they grow.

When we use chemicals or man-made fertilisers, we kill the beneficial soil life and some of the pathogens, but a lot of the pathogens survive to do damage to your plants in the form of diseases. The good microbes that control the undesirables are not there to do their job.

Insect pests are also attracted to the weakened plants causing you more problems.

If a soil test is performed in the average garden one will find that there is a lot of man-made fertiliser and contaminates locked up in the soil.

You can release these and remove them by drenches of Magic Botanic Liquid (MBL) and Mycorrcin. Place the products into a watering can and water across your rose bed, vegetable garden and flower gardens.

Do this once a month for two or three months and see how the plants respond. Use the same products to spray the foliage of the plants growing in those gardens also. This will give the plants a natural protection from diseases.

You can also further strengthen the health of the plants by supplying them with all the minerals possible. This is achieved by sprinkling some Ocean Solids and Unlocking Your Soil over the soil and watering in.

The program for your vegetable plot and roses (plus any other area you wish to treat) is to apply a little garden lime, dolomite and gypsum (3 forms of calcium plus sulphur and magnesium) along with some Real blood and bone, Fruit and Flower Power (Potash and magnesium) sheep manure pellets or animal manure.

Sprinkle a little of Ocean Solids and Unlocking Your Soil then water in with the MBL and Mycorrcin. The beneficial microbes in the soil will grow and control the pathogens. Plants such as your roses will have all the elements and minerals they require along with a lot of excellent natural food.

As the days go by you should begin to see the healthy difference. (As some gardeners have discovered by spraying MBL onto their roses weekly, flowers produce perfumes that they did not previously.)

A recent e-mail I received confirms this program;

“Since reading your book – a garden-changing experience in itself – and following your advice that leads to ‘Healthy soil, healthy plants, healthy you’, I have made dramatic changes in the way that I garden and the results speak for themselves.

“Our garden is a picture of health. We supply all our own vegetables from our small patch on the outskirts of Tauranga, and hand plenty of produce over the fence to our neighbours. It has been an absolute joy to watch the soil take on a new lease of life.

“Even our lawns are more verdant – and lawns in the heat and humidity of Tauranga are difficult to control. I am hoping that another year of MBL and Unlocking Your Soil will have the lawns in pristine health.

“So I want to say a big “Thank you” for sharing your knowledge, for your regular newsletters and for your prompt service, all of which leads towards a healthy environment full of healthy people.

“With kind regards, Mary”

It’s very satisfying to hear these comments and great to know people can get back to enjoying their gardens.

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

The vast bulk of of the increases have, needless to say, come from the Third World, encouraged and accepted by Leftists and Globalists, although not by normal people. Unsurprisingly, a huge number of Ukrainians have fled Nato’s prime battleground with Russia, although Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Serbia and Bosnia have also lost people as have Russia and Greece to a small extent.

Citizens of Kiev flee Nato’s war on Russia at the central railway station. The war has more than halved Ukraine’s population.

The one on the right is a real English cop; on the left is terrorist Osama bin Laden in the same garb.

I’ve just left a dairy shed in Bunnythorpe, where Nicole McKee and I launched ACT’s rural campaign and our plan to Make Farming Fun Again, alongside local farmers and a fair few members of the media who I suspect were in a milking shed for the first time.I got into politics because confidence in rural New Zealand was at an all-time low.

For years, farmers had been smashed with one new rule after another. Freshwater regulations, Significant Natural Areas, winter grazing rules, emissions pricing proposals, the ute tax, rushed firearms laws, health and safety paperwork, and layers of resource management red tape all added cost and uncertainty to running a farm.

I had spent more than 20 years farming and had seen first-hand what happens when people in Wellington who don’t understand farming try to regulate every part of it. Things are much better now.

The ute tax is gone. He Waka Eke Noa is gone. Agriculture has been kept out of the ETS. Freshwater farm plans are being simplified. The methane target has been halved. We have stopped the expansion of Significant Natural Areas, cut back unworkable winter grazing rules, restored 90-day trials, and are replacing the Resource Management Act with new laws based on property rights.

But there is much more to do. That is why today we released ACT’s full plan to Make Farming Fun Again

READ ACT’S RURAL PLAN

I don’t know any farmers who got into it because they loved paperwork. ACT’s plan is about bringing practicality and common sense back to rural New Zealand. To be frank, without the economic activity rural New Zealand has carried over the past few years, we’d be Stuffed.

The plan also covers rural crime, school buses, healthcare, workforce shortages, access to agricultural technology, wilding pines, illegal dumping, homekill rules, and the other practical issues that make a real difference to people living and working outside the main centres.It also includes a new commitment to provide an additional $4.5 million a year for rural catchment groups, maintaining total funding at $13.5 million a year, with scope to go further where groups can show they are getting results.That is the sort of environmental policy I believe in.

Farmers and rural communities know their land, their waterways and their local conditions. They are already doing the work to improve them. Rather than another one-size-fits-all rule from Wellington, we should back the people getting practical results on the ground.

Labour and the Greens have supported putting new costs on farmers through new taxes and regulation. As I’ve said before: if I could pay a tax to control the weather, send me the bank account.

Instead, our plan backs practical environmentalism while letting farmers farm.

Replacing the RMA is a major step forward, but the next decisions still matter. National Policy Direction and detailed standards under the new system will have a big influence on what farmers can do with their land. Freshwater rules still need to be rewritten. Te Mana o te Wai needs to be removed. Climate policy needs to reflect the different warming effects of methane and carbon dioxide, and the fact that New Zealand farmers produce food with some of the lowest emissions intensity in the world.

I’m also acutely aware that rural New Zealand needs certainty. Farmers make long-term decisions about land, stock, machinery and staff. You cannot sensibly invest when the rules keep changing underneath you, when government keeps adding new costs, or when politicians start proposing insane interventions in rural businesses like Fonterra.

I want my daughters, if they choose farming, to have the freedom to farm well without the red tape I’ve faced for the past 20 years.

Farmers do not need another politician telling them how to farm. They need backing to do the work they’re already doing to protect and enhance the natural environment, respect for property rights, and otherwise the freedom to get on with it.That is what this plan is about.

READ THE FULL RURAL MANIFESTO

Cheers, Andrew Hoggard Dairy Farmer

“If you dig deep into the AIDS virus, you’ll find it was manufactured by the US Government.”
~General Mike Flynn

“Our government manufactures diseases and then manufactures drugs that are supposed to help — when in fact they DON’T help, just like the COVID vaccines we have now.”… pic.twitter.com/K6mAUlRHSU

— Valerie Anne Smith (@ValerieAnne1970) September 19, 2026

by Andrew Korybko

Polish political figures Donald Tusk (left) and Radosław Sikorski (right)

Article 5 of the NATO treaty doesn’t mandate the use of military force in support of an ally, and it certainly wasn’t meant to be exploited by false flags (or even genuine accidents) like Poland’s Leftists seem to want to do.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico recently made headlines for telling his compatriots that he’ll do his utmost to keep their country out of war with Russia, including if it’s asked to participate in such a conflict through Article 5. During the same event, he also warned that European NATO and Russia are closer to war than ever, adding in reference to those of his counterparts who just visited Ukraine that “I am deeply concerned that they are merely looking for a pretext for a major conflict between NATO and Russia.”

This is especially true as regards Poland’s ruling Leftists, who appear to be plotting a major escalation against Russia, but only if they can manipulate the conservative president into going along with it. Leftist Prime Minister Donald Tusk has been fearmongering about a Russian attack since spring but has ramped up his rhetoric to the point of hysteria this month while Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski provocatively claimed that “Russia is at war with Europe” already. They might thus manufacture a false flag with Zelensky.

On that topic, former conservative Polish President Andrzej “Duda Belatedly Confirmed That Zelensky Tried To Manipulate Poland Into War With Russia” when speaking last year about late 2022’s Przewodów incident after leaving office, which saw an errant Ukrainian air defense missile kill two Poles. At the time, “Ukraine Tried To Trick NATO Into Starting World War III After It Accidentally Bombed Poland” by lying that it was a Russian missile, but Duda didn’t take the bait despite some thinking that he would.

Likewise, September 2025’s accidental Russian drone incursions into Poland (likely caused by jamming veering them off course) didn’t result in his successor Karol Nawrocki taking the bait either after Tusk’s government lied that a Russian missile destroyed a house when it was an errant air defense one. The Polish deep state’s failed attempt to manipulate Nawrocki into war with Russia just one year ago serves as the precedent for reasonably suspecting that something similar might be attempted yet again.

Nawrocki’s spokesman recently accused Tusk of pushing “a fabricated lie to electrify public opinion” after claiming to have received a CIA report warning about an impending attack by Russia, and Trump confirmed that Nawrocki has the situation “under control”. The US is also reportedly planning a huge European military drawdown, which it wouldn’t countenance if it seriously expected that Article 5 might soon be tested by Russia. Neither Nawrocki nor Trump is therefore expected to fall for any false flag.

On the off-chance that they did, and Sikorski’s previously proposed plans to either intercept Russian projectiles over Ukraine or impose a no-fly zone there are approved by Nawrocki at the credible risk of sparking World War III, then Fico wants his people to know that Slovakia won’t be dragged into the war. After all, Article 5 doesn’t mandate the use of military force in support of an ally, and it certainly wasn’t meant to be exploited by false flags (or even genuine accidents) like Poland’s liberals seem to want to do.

Last week’s Lithuanian drone incident was likely a Ukrainian false flag as explained here, and when that’s coupled with the latest fearmongering about Russia from the European elite led by the Tusk-Sikorski duo, there are reasons to expect that a false flag is being planned in Poland. So long as Nawrocki stands firm, especially if Trump (to whom he tends to defer) wavers, then the major escalation that’s being planned against Russia at the credible risk of World War III will be averted. It might all come down to him alone.

*Mopar, originally meaning ‘motor parts’, became an affectionate nickname and umbrella term for any vehicle or part made by the Chrysler Corporation and its parent company Stellantis (including Dodge, Plymouth, Chrysler, Jeep, and Ram).

About 40 cars from the 1950s–1970s came to assemble outside the automotive workshops in Parata Street — and a great display it was too, the glory years of the American auto industry!

Users of Zoom know that you can choose either the actual background of the room you’re in, or a picture of what you like.

An award-winning senior police officer is facing fraud charges over offending worth nearly $18 million.

Police said the man – who was suspended from duty in December 2025 – had been charged with 70 offences under the Crimes Act and Companies Act, which occurred over a 10- year period.

Counties Manukau District Commander Superintendent Shanan Gray said the offending was not related to the officer’s role in police.

He said two women and another man – who were not police staff – had also been charged with serious offences under the the Crimes Act and Companies Act.

Gray said police would be unable to provide further comment while the matter remained before the courts.