Weekend gardener: chill time for tulips
Tulips
Tulips need a cold period of at least 10 weeks if they are to flower properly, so chilling the bulbs in the fridge to emulate their natural environment is especially important in districts which are unlikely to experience at least five frosts over the winter.
Put the bulbs in a paper bag and start chilling before the end of March. Do not store in a plastic bag or other unbreathable container or else they may rot.
Avoid storing fruit such as apples or bananas in the fridge at the same time as they release ethylene gas which damages the developing flower bud in the bulb.
Ornamentals
Now is the time to take hardwood cuttings of roses.
Choose this season’s growth, selecting stems that are pencilthick and firm, between 15cm to 20cm long.
Trim beneath a leaf bud and remove most of the leaves. Squash the lower few centimetres of stem to weaken the cambium layer just below the surface, which will encourage faster rooting.
Dip into hormone-rooting powder and insert into deep pots of gritty compost so one third of the stem is below the surface of the soil. Expect new shoots in spring but do not plant them out for another year.
Cease dead heading roses, thus letting them cease flowering which will lead to healthier and more floriferous plants next year. This action will also allow the development of hips, one of the glories of autumn.
Edibles
Should you have had clubroot in your brassicas, dig in dolomite lime to lower the ph of your soil.
Get winter crops in now to give them time to establish before the temperatures drop and plant growth slows.
Don’t forget to pick your autumn raspberries, and if yours are only summer fruiting, make a mental note to buy other varieties once they come into the garden centres.
By picking half-ripe tomatoes, the fruit left on the vines will mature more quickly. Store this picked fruit in a paper bag in a warm spot to aid ripening.
Save seeds from your best tomatoes. Place on a tissue or paper towel on a sunny sill and when dry store in an airtight container till spring.
Sow green manure in any empty beds in the vegetable garden for digging in in late winter. As well as saving essential nutrients from being leached away over winter, the green crops will give back vital organic matter to the soil.