Easy-care stars of the garden
Succulent summer
Hot, dry weather reminds us that there are good reasons to grow succulents.
1. They don’t need much water: you won’t return from holiday to find dead plants in the garden.
2. They’re cheap to run: you don’t need to pay for superior quality potting mix – something freedraining that’s a bit gritty will suit these plants.
3. They have attractive textures: their foliage comes in many colours and intricate symmetrical shapes.
4. They look great from all angles: crassulas, echeverias and sempervivums make fabulous patterns when seen from above.
5. They reproduce easily: remove pups that are formed around the crown of the plant with a bit of attached root and pot them up or propagate from cuttings.
Keep picking and planting
Regular picking encourages tomatoes, cucumbers, chillies and beans to produce more fruit. Keep mounding up main-crop spuds, so they produce more tubers too. Check courgettes every day or finger-sized fruit will turn into monster marrows behind your back.
Courgette plants with powdery mildew can still be productive. If you must spray, make sure you use one that has no withholding period. Try baking soda (1 tablespoon to 2 litres of water plus 1 teaspoon of cooking oil and a drop of dishwashing soap) or milk (1⁄3 milk to 2⁄3 water) or Grosafe Enspray 99, a high-purity BioGro-certified organic spraying oil that can be used to control sap-sucking insects and as a fungicide. Be aware that spraying new leaves to slow down the infection rate won’t magically cure those already covered with mildew.
Sow basil, coriander, dill and parsley now. Either sow straight into the soil or start it in trays (apart from coriander – it hates being transplanted, so always sow it direct). Add herbs to bring in the good bugs too, like phacelia, borage and calendula.
Start cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli in trays now for winter (protect seedlings from white butterflies), and sow beetroot, carrots, celery, onions, spinach and silverbeet directly into the soil.
Don’t cook your worms
Black plastic worm farms get very hot in direct sunlight so keep them in a cool spot where the bin is shaded, especially at the hottest time of the day.
Worms in the ground would naturally retreat to deeper soil to keep cool, but they don’t have the option to withdraw when confined in a bin. Help them out by giving them some extra layers of damp newspaper, corrugated cardboard or pizza boxes for insulation against the heat. Placing these layers on top of the food scraps allows the worms to feed underneath where it is cool and moist.
Don’t stint on the water either. Run the hose into the bin to keep it damp and flush out excess acidity. Keep the tap open and collect the run-off for use on your plants.
In-ground worm farms aren’t quite so vulnerable to heating up but they can dry out, so give them a drink when you’re watering nearby.
– compiled by Barbara Smith