Autumn Organic Gardening
Organic gardeners can create a healthy and productive garden with a few simple tips and products from Yates.
Autumn’s mild conditions are wonderful for growing a deliciously diverse range of vegies. Here are some autumn vegie care hints to keep your patch or pot wonderfully productive.
Seedling saver
- Tender new autumn seedlings are irresistible to snails and slugs. Not only do we provide the snails and slugs with delicious food (the seedlings), we also supply them with ample moisture (which snails and slugs need) as we help the young seedlings establish.
- Snails and slugs can devour entire seedlings overnight, chew in to stems causing the seedlings to fall over, or eat most of the seedling’s foliage, leaving just a skeleton.
- These slimy fiends are easy to control with a light sprinkling of Yates Blitzem Snail & Slug Pellets around the plants, which attract and kill snails and slugs.
Peas
- Climbing peas, like snow and sugarsnap, are the ultimate space saver vegie. They can be grown along a trellis on a fence or up a tepee or tripod in a vegie patch or in pots, taking up minimal horizontal space.
- Yates Snow Peas produce crisp, sweet pods that can be eaten whole and Yates Sugarsnap Peas have juicy, sweet flavour packed pods that can be eaten whole when young or shelled when mature.
- Sow pea seeds in a spot that receives at least 6 hours of sunshine a day (in cool zones wait until June to start sowing climbing pea seeds). Sow seeds direct where they are to grow, beside a trellis or support, into damp soil. Don’t water again for a few days as pea seeds can rot if they’re too wet. Seedlings should pop up in around 10 days and you can start harvesting in around 8 – 10 weeks. Snow and sugarsnap peas are prolific croppers, so you should have lots of tasty peas for several months.
- To encourage a great harvest, as soon as the seedlings are established start feeding each week with Yates Thrive Flower & Fruit Soluble Fertiliser which is boosted with extra potassium to promote flowering and pod development. Keep picking pods regularly too, which helps prolong the harvest.
- Watch out for powdery mildew on peas, which appears like a dusting of talcum powder over the leaves. Control with sprays of dual-active Yates Mancozeb Plus Garden Fungicide & Miticide.
Asian vegies
- Asian leafy vegies like tatsoi, Chinese broccoli and Chinese cabbage are tender and flavoursome and ideal either fresh or cooked in both salads and stir fries.
- It’s easy to grow a gourmet selection of Asian leafy greens by sowing Yates Asian Stir Fry Mix Find a sunny or partly shaded spot and sow seed directly where the plants are to grow, in a vegie patch or pots. Individual leaves can be picked from just a few weeks, leaving the rest of the plant to grow.
- Keep the soil or potting mix moist and feed each week with a nitrogen rich plant food like Yates Thrive Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food to promote fast and healthy growth.
- Leafy Asian greens can be prone to caterpillars. You may not see the caterpillars themselves, just chewed leaves or droppings. Control caterpillars by spraying the plants every week with Yates Pyrethrum Insect Pest Gun. It contains pyrethrin, a natural extract from the pyrethrum daisy, and will control a wide range of insect pests, including caterpillars.
Garlic
- It’s time to plant garlic cloves, that will be ready to harvest in around 8 months time. Find a sunny spot in a well-drained garden bed, or you can also grow garlic in a 30 cm diameter pot.
- Mix some Yates Dynamic Lifter Soil Improver & Plant Fertiliser into the garden soil or potting mix. This helps increase the amount of organic matter in the soil which attracts earthworms and soil microbes, helps retain moisture and nutrients in the soil and promotes better soil structure. Yates Dynamic Lifter will also provide the garlic with slow release organic nutrients as it establishes.
- It’s best to buy fresh garlic cloves from a garden centre as garlic purchased in a supermarket may have been sprayed with a sprouting inhibitor and may not grow.
- Plant the garlic cloves around 4 cm deep with the pointy end facing up, leaving around 10 cm between each clove. After planting, water the garden bed or pot well and apply a 5 cm layer of mulch like sugar cane or pea straw. This will help keep the soil moist.
- When the first garlic shoots emerge through the mulch, keep the soil or potting mix slightly moist and feed every 6 weeks with Yates Thrive Natural Vegie & Herb Organic Based Pelletised Plant Food to promote healthy leaf growth as well as good sized garlic bulbs.
Baby leaf spinach
- Prized for their nutty flavour and smooth texture, baby leaf spinach leaves are a popular addition to mixed salads, pasta and stir fries.
- Baby leaf spinach can be grown in the vegie patch or in pots, in a sunny or partly shaded spot. It’s a quick vegie to grow and you can start picking individual leaves as you need them from just 6 weeks after sowing.
- The best tasting leaves will be from plants that are grown quickly, so ensure to keep the soil or potting mix consistently moist and feed each week with a fast acting liquid fertiliser like Yates Thrive Vegie & Herb Liquid Plant Food.
Autumn Gardening - Seasonal jobs
Autumn is a wonderful time of the year for gardening, being kinder to gardens and gardeners alike. Mild autumn afternoons are also perfect for relaxing on a lush green lawn, so pop some simple lawn care tasks in your gardening diary too.
Create Autumn Colour in your garden
As the hot and harsh summer days wane and autumn gently glides into our gardens, there are some beautiful flowering and foliage plants that are in their element. To brighten your autumn, let’s take a closer look at camellias and Chinese pistachio trees.
Anthurium
Bring a taste of the tropics indoors with anthuriums. Their large glossy leaves & their vibrant coloured flowers make a wonderful display.
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