What's going on in your garden (2018-2022)?

Status
Not open for further replies.
I washed my lemon tree. We've had next to no rain since the start of the year (Jan 144mm, Feb 23mm, Mar 64mm) and with my chooks dust bathing underneath it, the top side of everything (lemons, leaves, stems and flowers alike) was covered in a thick black dust. I had been thinking it was a black soot mold but I fenced off the tree in mid February to watch to see what happened and all new growth has remained clean... so I rigged up the water pump to the water tank and the tree has had a very good wash (I also fed it back in February so that has been washed into the ground as well. ) hopefully it will start to perk up a touch but I'm going to visit the rural supplies store tomorrow and get an antifungal treatment for it just in case.

And I picked the rest of the coriander seeds from the veg plot, so I won't run out anytime soon. I've about ½kg of them!
 
Mango update from the garden: there be baby mangoes!
20220328_095156.jpg
 
I've just sprayed the 2 olive trees (black scale mite & leaf miners) and the lemon tree (anyone's guess really but aphids possibly, which has attracted ants and caused black soot mold) with an environmental friendly insecticide. Luckily there are very few flowers and the visitors to these flowers are nectar feeding birds so no bees will be harmed, but it's all out war on the aphids, mites, miners and anything else affecting the tree including ants.

Once life warms up a touch more i may venture into the garden to do some veg plot work and get some chicken manure mixed with sugar cane mulch dug into the veg plot.

The alternative is hovering the house.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I've just sprayed the 2 olive trees (black scale mite & leaf miners) and the lemon tree (anyone's guess really but aphids possibly, which has attracted ants and caused black soot mold) with an environmental friendly insecticide. Luckily there are very few flowers and the visitors to these flowers are nectar feeding birds so no bees will be harmed, but it's all out war on the aphids, mites, miners and anything else affecting the tree including ants.

Once life warms up a touch more i may venture into the garden to do some veg plot work and get some chicken manure mixed with sugar cane mulch dug into the veg plot.

The alternative is hovering the house.
Click to expand...
We had a problem with ants. Borax fixed that.
Wife has brassicas planted out.
Apparently veges are going to be expensive soon.

Russ
 
rascal said:
Apparently veges are going to be expensive soon
Click to expand...
No soon on that. Already $8 for a cauliflower. $7.50/kg for courgettes...

The ants are not really the actual problem. They are just attracted to the lemon tree because of the sweet secretions of the aphids which is also the cause of the black soot mold.
Treat the aphid issue and the other symptoms will clear up naturally. And to be honest, in Australia you have to learn to live with ants. They are literally everywhere in huge numbers.
 
I have some planting to do. The plants in the tray are purple petunias they are going in the hanging baskets, hopefully we can recreate last year's wonderful splash of colour.
I love sunflowers but not the ugly stems so hopefully these little ones will be more flower.

83396
 
Lullabelle said:
I have some planting to do. The plants in the tray are purple petunias they are going in the hanging baskets, hopefully we can recreate last year's wonderful splash of colour.
I love sunflowers but not the ugly stems so hopefully these little ones will be more flower.

View attachment 83396
Click to expand...
I remember growing sunflowers for the very first time. I didn't get giant ones but they were giants. I had planted them outside of the study desk window on the ground floor and the matching side window for the sitting room (it was one big room divided by a fireplace). The largest reached the gutter above the first floor, the smaller ones all reached the windows on the first floor so we got to view them from the bedroom instead of the study and we were not looking down on them but up! We never did anything special, never watered them or anything but by heck they grew well. I didn't plant them in the herb garden again after that!
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I remember growing sunflowers for the very first time. I didn't get giant ones but they were giants. I had planted them outside of the study desk window on the ground floor and the matching side window for the sitting room (it was one big room divided by a fireplace). The largest reached the gutter above the first floor, the smaller ones all reached the windows on the first floor so we got to view them from the bedroom instead of the study and we were not looking down on them but up! We never did anything special, never watered them or anything but by heck they grew well. I didn't plant them in the herb garden again after that!
Click to expand...

We have only planted them once, the stems looked so ugly we didn't bother again. This year we are aiming to be as wildlife friendly as possible so they seem like a good idea plus big yellow sunny faces.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom