Digger Dan’s Monthly Garden Tips August 2012

Planting Now

Planting Potatoes: Prepare the potato patch for your sprouted spuds: Dig Living Earth Organic Certified Compost through the potato patch, then dig a trench – the soil that is on the sides can be used to ‘mound up’ the potatoes as they grow. Varieties such as Cliff’s Kidney, Rocket and Jersey Benne are good early croppers. Plant potato tubers when the sprouts are at least 15mm. (If you experience frosts in this part of the ground delay planting for a month or so.)
Sow directly into the garden: carrots and radishes, sugarsnap peas, mizuna lettuce and coriander seeds
Sow under cover or indoors: tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum seeds
Winter Scent in the Garden: Daphnes, boronias, magnolias and some camellia flowers all have delicious scent wafting around the winter garden. And for perfume in small spaces pots can be filled with potted colour such as mini cyclamen (white is best), wallflowers and stock.

Plus, the little known, but highly scented Christmas Box plant, Sarcoccocca confusa, flowers around now. This is a great plant for dry shade.

Garden Care

Colour your hydrangeas: Now is the time to plan for your flowers to be the right colour this season! Sprinkle Aluminium Sulphate around the desired blues and lime around your chosen pinks. (White never changes, but is best in light shade – the flowers go pink in the full sun).
Spray Fruit Trees (and roses) – It’s the right time to spray copper fungicide to prevent leaf curl in peach trees and other fungal diseases in all the others.

Note: But if your fruit tree is already in flower, do not spray with copper

Frost Damage: Don’t trim too soon – blackened, melted foliage is the sign that a run of frosts last month dealt to pukas, rengarenga lilies and tree ferns. Once you removed the damaged leaves, it exposes the plant to any subsequent frosts, so maybe the end of this month, when it gets warmer, is the best time.
Weed Alert: Get the jump on emerging weeds by digging out or spraying unwanted plants. Their roots are still shallow at this time of the year, so by hand is easier.
Raised Garden Beds: Now’s a great time to start one (or more): Central Landscapes has kitset garden beds for you to install now and Living Earth Garden Mix to go in them, ready to grow fresh healthy food at home this spring and summer.

Raised garden

Raised Vegetable Beds can provide a good crop yield

And don’t forget to pick up your free Planting Calendar at your local Central Landscapes Yard!

Lawn Care

To keep your lawn thick and healthy fertilise with Garden Supreme. If the weather is mild you may find an increase in the growth of your turf, so it will be important to keep on top of your mowing.
In early spring weeds may start to pop up, if this happens you may want to use a selective herbicide to take these out. This is important as if left untreated they can dominate your desired species and take over.

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