With the weather getting warmer everyone must be looking forward to the beach and plenty of BBQs. Make sure you have your garden in tip-top shape so that you and your friends and family can sit outside with the BBQ on, a glass of wine in hand and really bask in your surroundings.
Here are some summer gardening tips to get you underway:
- This is a time of rapid growth so ensure you pay attention to watering, weeding, feeding and spraying.
- Water all plants in pots daily to prevent drying out and feed with Seasol liquid fertiliser weekly.
- Place a layer of mulch around the base of your perennials, trees and shrubs to help conserve moisture; use compost, bark or peat.
- You can still sow seeds directly into the soil like beans, beetroot, parsnip, swedes, radish, lettuce, spinach and sweetcorn. Sow seeds every two weeks to ensure you have a continuous harvest.
- Plant seedlings of lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, tomato, sweetcorn, beetroot, pumpkin, courgette, capsicum, eggplant, melon, cucumber and gherkin.
- Feed tomatoes at least once a week with a fast acting liquid feed such as Seasol or Thrive. Remove laterals (side growths) on tall tomato varieties as they grow and ensure they are firmly staked. Water regularly.
- Apply a layer of mulch around vegetable plants to conserve soil moisture, compost works well.
- Plant hanging baskets and terracotta pots with flowers for summer. Use Debco Pot Power mix and Saturaid or Waterwise Water Storage Crystals mixed into potting mix to help retain moisture.
- Increase watering of all plants in containers or pots as the weather warms up, adding Miracle Grow or Nitrosol at each watering which will give you healthier plants and flowers.
- To maintain a lawn in dry weather, water with a sprinkler and don’t cut the lawn too short.
- Spray lawns with Turf Clean for broad leaf weeds and Prickle Weedkiller to control Onehunga weeds and be prickle free this summer.
- Water gardens in the evening or early mornings, especially plants in containers which will dry out quickly in hot or windy weather.
We’ve got plenty more advice for you, check out our extensive list of how-to-guides here or pop into your local Palmers store and ask one of our friendly staff.