This weekend’s garden tasks: give lemons a drink
Edibles
Keep lemons well watered. Lack thereof can result in small fruit, fruit dropping prematurely, or dry fruit. After watering mulch well. Lack of juice can also be caused by too much nitrogen, so avoid nitrogen-rich fertilisers. Thick skins can be a result of too much phosphorus, so a commercial citrus fertiliser is often best.
Summer prune fruit trees. Trim back leaves on grapevines above the bunches of fruit to let the sun encourage ripening.
Continue sowing brassicas, lettuce, dwarf beans, spring onions, silver beet and carrots.
Any fertiliser applied to winter vegetables should be rich in potash which will harden leaves and stems and make them better able to withstand frosts. Fertilise asparagus beds.
To get melons and pumpkins a decent size, feed fortnightly with liquid fertiliser and water well.
To maximise water on vegetable beds, draw a furrow between rows, water in furrows, then cover with a mulch, such as peastraw or compost.
Sow crimson clover, a nitrogen fixer, around fruit trees. As well, it attracts beneficial insects.
Ornamentals
Divide bearded irises if crowded or more plants are sought. Cut a clump up so each piece of at least 15cm has a fan of leaves. Discard withered rhizomes. Trim leaves to about 15cm and trim roots a little. Plant immediately – on the surface of heavy soils and deeper in light sandy ones – about 30cm apart in a sunny spot, and water in well. Dig a hole, large enough for the rhizome and roots, mounding the soil slightly if this makes placing the rhizomes easier, but otherwise working between the roots. Siberian or Iris unguicularis, can also be divided now if flowering is compromised.
Cut back spent perennials, especially those with powdery mildew. Dead-heading will suffice for many perennials, such as dahlias, scabiosa, penstemon, to keep them looking fresh.
Keep on top of weeding – rain and warm weather have combined for optimum growing conditions. Pull out or decapitate them before they go to seed.
Increase stocks of perennials. Propagate pinks and carnations by layering. Choose a long healthy shoot, remove any dead leaves on it, and push it into the soil (without separating it from the main plant). It should take root in a fortnight or so when it can be severed from the old plant and potted up or planted out.
Take cuttings of aubrieta, dianthus, geraniums, geraniums, osteospermum, pelargoniums.
Treat grass grub in lawns.