Portstone September Newsletter
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Spring Spring Spring
- Warmer Days means warmer soil. September is the month to enjoy preparing your vegetable garden, watch the growth in your flower garden.
The Edible Garden
If you haven't already now is the time to prepare and plant your Strawberry plants
are in store this month so now is the time to prepare your strawberry bed.
Buy a bag of Portstone’s own composted deer manure and lightly hoe it into the top layer of soil.
Once you have planted your strawberries, then put a layer of our peastraw ($8 bale) round the
plants to keep the ripening fruit off the damp soil which would make them go mouldy. The peastraw
also suppresses the weeds, and puts nitrogen into the soil as it breaks down. Hanging baskets are
ideal for strawberries; they’re easy to pick, they don’t rot on the ground, the birds can’t get them,
and of course they look great. Strawberry plants will produce best if you treat them as an annual.
Hanging baskets are an ideal for strawberries, as they’re easy to pick, they don’t rot on the ground, the birds can’t get them, and of course they look great.
Mycorrcin watered into the soil or sprayed over the plants as a foliar feed, will greatly improve the yield, quality and flavour of your strawberries.
Vegetable Seedlings of broad beans, lettuce, parsley, silverbeet and brassicas can still be planted. Some of these may not grow much over winter, but will be well established to take off quickly when the soil warms.
Fruit Trees really are the ultimate in trees, providing spring blossom, summer shade, autumn colour, winter structure, and of course yummy fruit. A basic spray programme for pip and stone fruit is to apply a dose of copper immediately after leaf fall, one at bud movement (just showing a tiny tip of green), then again 10 days later. Wally Richards Liquid Copper is the easiest to use. Prune out dead, damaged and competing branches, then seal the cuts with Heal n’ Sealto prevent infections entering the tree.
Coriander is easier to grow i
The Flower Garden