Tips for asparagus season
Edibles
Plant seedlings of asparagus, celery and salad greens.
Plant asparagus crowns in soil rich in compost and seaweed. Plant 40cm apart, 10cm deep, with fine soil on top. Resist picking for another year to give the plants a chance to establish some vigour.
Sow coriander. At this time of year, it can be sown in a sunny spot. However, in the full blast of summer it will bolt unless given shade from the heat of the midday sun.
Direct sow carrots, beetroot, leeks, lettuce, parsnips, peas and silverbeet.
Sprinkle lime onto soil before sowing peas. Sow 5cm deep, about 7cm apart in rows 25cm to 40cm apart.
Plant yams in a sunny spot with blood and bone and sheep pellets added to the soil. As the shoots grow, the plants should be mounded up with soil, much as is done with potatoes.
Fast-growing leafy fruit crops such as passionfruit, strawberries and tamarillos will adore a nitrogen-rich dose of well-rotted horse or sheep manure, sheep pellets, blood and bone, fishmeal or worm castings around their bases.
Bulbs
Cut dead heads off tulips, daffodils and other bulbs. By preventing seed production, the bulb’s energy can go towards next year’s flowers. Snipping off just the flower itself does the trick but it may be more aesthetic to cut the whole flower stem off. After deadheading, feed with a liquid food.
Should you be intending to let your daffodils naturalise, do not deadhead.
Tulip bulbs, especially, often do not flower as well in subsequent years if left in the ground, so they are best lifted once the foliage yellows. Then, clean off soil, discard diseased or damaged bulbs and dry – preferably in the sun – before storing in a warm, dark, airy place, such as a garage or shed. Replant in autumn.
Do not remove or mow any bulbs’ foliage until it yellows and dries off.
Indoor hyacinths can be planted outdoors after flowering. Plant in sun to part shade, 10cm deep in well-drained, friable soil. Work compost or bonemeal into the soil before planting. Water at planting then hold off till flower buds appear in spring.
Ornamentals
Keep an eye out for aphids on new rose shoots – squish or wash off with the hose.
Don’t let the weeds get away from you – as they can easily do this time of year as the soil and air temperatures rise. Vigorous weeds, such as cleavers and scrambling fumitory, can easily overpower young seedlings or perennials as they send up tender new growth.
– Mary Lovell-Smith