Gosh we made it to the new page with no dramas! Hooray! It is lovely to see you all still here. Although it would seem there were a few dramas in some of your gardens. The weather this season as been completely unkind with barely a chance to soak in vitamin D from the sun before the next deluge or windswept nightmare. Those of us up in the north have really had it rough. Those in the south with a normal summer, do you best to make the most of it for our sakes! We love seeing ‘normal’ summer photos.
We had a nice Christmas and then headed to a Coromandel beach for some down time. Initially the weather was lovely, but we came home early before that first storm hit. My garden did suffer a bit in the heat while we were away as my house sitter didn’t water as well as I would have, but luckily the storm helped hydrate things and most of the plants have bounced back – and being bounced around by the wind didn’t do too much damage. I have mostly restored order, but now we face yet another storm…
The important thing is, it is what it is, and we need to make the best of it. I recently went back through all of my records, and it would seem the summer of 2012 was a wet one, that resulted in dramatic headlines such as ‘worst summer ever’ and ‘what happened to summer’. There is always an upside to every situation and in that summer, while my tomatoes were a complete washout, I had the best celery I’d ever had. So, here’s to a fab celery harvest this season… although I only planted 2 plants this year as I don’t really like celery.
I’ve seen on social media that fluffy bums and their grown-up passion vine hoppers are rampant this year, and I know, I have them in my garden, along with white fly and the dreaded Tomato Potato Psyllid. For a mild infestation I would recommend Yates Nature's Way Organic Citrus, Vegie & Ornamental Spray, but if things get out of control and you need to bring in the big guns then Yates Mavrik Insect & Mite Spray will sort things out. It is a little easier to tackle immature passion vine hoppers as the adults can just fly away when they see you coming.
This humid weather will also increase the risk of all the fungal diseases so keep a watch out for any signs of trouble as these are also easier to treat in the early stages, but unfortunately we can’t change the weather, so this season expect to do some kind of battle.
Surely it can’t be nasty the whole time, so here’s to sunnier days….
Happy gardening and as always – if you want to get in touch leave a comment below.
Sarah the Gardener : o)
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