* If you are intending to move any large plants this winter, start the wrenching process without delay. This initially involves making cuts to the roots on two sides of the plant. Calculate how large a rootball you can reasonably move (the larger the better) and cut from there. In a couple of weeks, follow up on the other two sides, and underneath if you can and then carry out the removal operation two weeks later. All this is to reduce stress on the plant and to encourage it to start the process of forming new roots where you have cut. You don’t need to bother with small plants.

* As you do the autumn clean-up round in the ornamental garden, get a layer of mulch onto all the garden beds possible. Any mulch suppresses weeds as long as it is thick enough (3cm or so). Our standard mulch here is home made compost which also provides nourishment and texture to the soil. Mulches of bark chip, gravel, stones and the like (fortunately the dreaded scoria seems to have disappeared) do not do anything for the soil. Pea straw is very fashionable and very expensive (so we do not use it) but is ideal as a mulch, if rather intrusive visually. Last year’s calf shed wood shavings are excellent but don’t put it on too thickly. Sawdust can be used if not tanalised but needs considerable caution. Don’t dig it in. Only people of no aesthetic sensibility use weed mat as a mulch and we hope in this day and age that nobody who reads this column would even contemplate using black plastic.

* If you covet a politically incorrect green velvet sward, you can fertilise your lawn at this time of the year. Use a cheap NPK fertiliser or Bioboost.

* Anything planted in the vegetable garden from here on is more likely to be ready for harvest in early spring, rather than the depths of winter. All the usual candidates – brassicas, winter greens, spring onions, carrots, broad beans, beetroot and even leeks (from plants not seed) – can be put in now.

* If you have a favoured warm, frost free position, you can put in an early crop of potatoes. Pick a quick maturing variety such as Swift or Rocket. For some unfathomable reason, being able to dig a very early crop of potatoes earns maximum brownie points amongst serious gardeners. Make sure the potatoes are well sprouted before planting and do not waste your effort unless you can be sure of protecting them from winter frosts.

* Although the potato hails from South America, apparently 90% of the world’s potato production occurs in Europe. In the somewhat harsh climate of much of Britain, it was the prime source of Vitamin C in the two world wars, thereby holding scurvy largely at bay. The modern diet of the very thin potato crisp may not be sufficient to achieve the same outcome.

April 9, 2009 In the Garden

· As predicted, the autumn rains started just prior to Easter but before you relax, have a little delve down in your garden or lawn and see how far the water has penetrated. That said, it should be safe enough to sow new lawns this weekend and to over sow bare patches in existing lawns. If the worst comes to the worst and we get very dry again, you can give the new areas a water but it isn’t likely to be necessary.
· The autumn rains will bring an explosion of freshly germinating weeds. Be vigilant on these varmints. With leaf drop just starting, using fallen leaves as mulch will suppress weed germination and there is a surprising amount of goodness as well as useful humus in rotting leaf litter. Frankly it is no longer acceptable on this planet to burn fallen leaves. Compost them or disperse them through the garden.
· Hellebores (winter roses) will be coming into growth soon. Cutting all the old foliage off means you can see the charmingly understated nodding flowers of helleborus orientalis. Heavy aphid infestations in the spent flowers in spring are a good reason to deadhead these plants (so too is their habit of seeding promiscuously), but we have also found quite heavy aphid occupation on the old foliage this year, which is another reason to cut it off and cart it all away to the compost heap. If the foliage is clean, you can leave it lying as a mulch. If you don’t remove the old foliage, the flowers tend to hide beneath the big leaves. If you leave it any longer, you have to trim around each plant taking care to avoid the new shoots but done this early, you can slash and hack your way through with little precision. Some have even been alleged to use the motor mower (but not here). Hellebores are excellent bedding plants for open woodland conditions but orientalis does not like being lifted and divided (will sulk, sometimes for years) so if you want to build up numbers, do it from seedlings.
· In the vegetable garden, make the autumn clean up round a priority for Easter. Most gardens will have mildew and bug infested crops well past their best now. Don’t leave these to rot where they are. If you make hot compost, bury the diseased crops in the middle of the heap, or feed them to your worm farm. Good hygiene and tidy habits can reduce pest and disease infestations in the future.
· Peas prefer the cooler weather so you can be sowing them now. Inland gardeners may be wanting to sow their first crop of broad beans. While the yield on peas for the home gardener can be disappointingly meagre and the frozen product is actually very good and cheap, the opposite applies to broad beans which can crop extremely well and are infinitely better than the bought product.
· Get any bare areas of the veg garden sown down with a green crop as soon as possible. Oats, lupin, vetch, phaecelia, mustard or even plain rye grass are all options.
· If it rains incessantly over Easter, take heed of John Lubbock, aka Lord Avebury, who wrote: There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

· It is countdown to the autumn rains. These will arrive soon; we are just not sure which day but some time around Easter would be a safe bet. As soon as the rains come, it is a sign that you can be out with the grass seed to sow new lawns or to over sow bare patches in existing lawns. In preparation for this, get out again with the push hoe once again to level any weeds on the site.

· Autumn is the better planting time for trees and shrubs than the more usual spring schedule, but you need to wait for the rain to penetrate the soil first and this will take a couple of days of steady precipitation. At this time of the year, you may well be planting last season’s stock and there is nothing wrong with this as long as you handle it properly. Plunge the whole plant, pot and all, into a bucket of water and weight it down. Leave it for several minutes at the very least, and longer if bubbles are still rising. If the plant is very rootbound, cut the pot or bag off and look at the roots. If they are coiled round and round, you need to make about three or four vertical cuts down the sides. If they are folded in like a parcel at the bottom, cut these back. We don’t recommend trying to tease out fine roots, or indeed any roots. You are more likely to cause damage. If the root system looks too small for the top, prune the top. Plant into well cultivated soil with plenty of compost, water and mulch. Plant once and plant well is the rule of thumb here.

· There is still a good month of warm growing weather in April, a little longer for those who live in mild, coastal areas so there is time to get winter vegetables into the garden. But don’t delay or you will get a disappointingly patchy harvest later. If you are a beginner, you are likely to have more success now with leafy greens and brassicas because it is late for slower growing root crops.

· Non gardeners may like to try sowing micro greens or mesclun into trays. You can be cutting salad greens in a matter of a few weeks. You need trays with drainage holes (we are still recycling polystyrene mushroom trays) and about 12cm of depth. Our preference is to use a layer of soil, then the main layer of compost with about 2cm of potting mix on top of the seeds. Or you may find buying seed raising mix is easier. Once planted, keep the trays in full sun, give them a light water each day and keep them up off the ground to escape slugs and snails, let alone cats who may think it is kitty litter. The barbecue table can be a good spot for the trays or a sunroom or conservatory.

· If you are saving your own vegetable or flower seed, save seed from the very best plants only. In the veg garden, this may mean sacrificing the best specimens of crops like carrots and beans so that they can set seed. Others, like tomatoes, melons and capsicums, can be gathered in the kitchen as you prepare the food. Spread the seed to dry on a piece of paper and store in old envelopes. It is only a matter of months before you will be sowing them.

· If your flower borders are looking a little worse for the wear, take heart from Sara Stein: “I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error.”

• If you see white butterflies hanging around your vegetable patch, odds on they are laying eggs on your baby brassica plants. Early intervention means you can usually rely on digital control (don’t be squeamish – squash the caterpillars) but if you let them get away on you they will either ruin your crop or you may have to resort to chemical control. Covering the plants with fine netting can keep the white butterflies away but you really need to build a temporary frame to hold the netting away from the plants and to get rid of any eggs and caterpillars already present. There is nothing more likely to discourage children from eating broccoli than coming across boiled green caterpillars in it (the voice of experience here) so it is worth trying to keep the plants clean. You can still be planting brassicas and other leafy greens for winter harvest.
• Celery and leeks are two vegetables which are better with pale stems (the greener they are, the tougher they get) so if you have them in the garden you can earth up around the stems to blanch them.
• If you are digging carrots with holes in them, the culprit may be weevil or carrot fly. Sometimes slugs will also have a go at getting in on the act. It is too late to solve the problem now and we just cut the bad bits out. You can’t do anything about weevils and dealing to carrot fly is hit and miss where recommended treatments tend to be heavy duty insecticides like Diazinon. Late plantings tend to escape carrot fly and look for varieties which are marked as resistant. Well cultivated soil discourages weevils in the longer term.
• Readers who have nice tidy hedges bordering garden beds may pale at the prospect, but rootpruning close to the hedge is advisable. This is just making a deep cut with a sharp spade to stop the hedge roots making inroads to the garden beds. It is even more important if you have a cutsie potager with small beds, because all that hedging robs the goodness from the soil. Really organised or experienced gardeners know to lay a barrier of non rusting iron or similar just below soil level when they first plant the hedge, so containing the roots. But most of rely on the occasional root prune.
• While the dry weather continues and there is some heat in the sun, get out with the push hoe for weeding and to till the top layer of soil. If you rely on spraying weeds with glyphosate long term, you end up with soil which becomes compacted and often develops a top skin of moss or liverwort. Breaking this up with a push hoe aerates the soil as well as giving a more cared-for appearance. Once the autumn and winter really set in, the push hoe is not as useful because you also have to rake up the debris (the sun isn’t hot enough then to dry it for you). Mark, who is on crutches this week and therefore developed cabin fever by the second day, is pondering whether he can attach the push hoe to a crutch and remain active that way.
• Random information from the Curious Gardener’s Almanac: the honeybee kills more people around the world each year than all the poisonous snakes combined, but the creature responsible for the most human deaths worldwide is the mosquito, by a considerable margin.

• We are getting back into the ornamental garden here, after the summer hiatus. No planting of woody trees and shrubs yet (wait for the second lot of good rain in succession) but replanting bulbs, lifting and dividing grasses, trimming the formal hedges and repotting some of the container plants. We are even starting the major autumn clean-up round.
• Continue preparing ground for new lawns by levelling the area and push hoeing off the waves of germinating weeds that will attempt to colonise the bare earth. Don’t be tempted to sow grass seed until we get some consistent rain that penetrates more than a centimetre or two.
• Avoid feeding existing lawns in dry weather because fertiliser will kill the grass in sunny, dry conditions. Watch the weather forecast and wait until it is certain that we are in for a wet spell before heading out with the fertiliser. As always, remember that more is not better. If you are using a proprietary product, follow the instructions and err on the mean side, not the generous one. An overdose of fertiliser can cause all sorts of problems, including burning and death.
• Delay no longer on getting the winter vegetable garden in because you are running out of time and good intentions will not fortify you against high winter fresh veg prices or the somewhat dreary alternative of frozen vegetables from the supermarket. You can still get in plants or seeds of cabbages, cauli, broccoli, peas, winter spinach, silver beet, Florence fennel and winter lettuce. Most of the root crops (carrots, parsnips, swedes etc) take longer to mature and you will only get baby specimens if you put them in this late.
• Leafy green vegetables tend to be gross feeders so if you didn’t add plenty of compost, fertiliser or manure to the garden before you planted them, feed them now to encourage plenty of growth.
• If you are using manure, sheep, cattle and horse manure can be added directly to the soil but be a great deal more cautious with chicken manure (or mushroom compost for that matter). If you want to err on the safe side, put them through the compost heap to dilute them before you use them. Chicken manure is very high in ammonia and can burn plants in its fresh state. Seaweed is another natural resource which can be used directly onto the soil or composted as you wish. It does not need to be washed in fresh water first.
• Should you have a patch of common nasturtiums, if you can be bothered gathering the seed pods, when pickled they are almost indistinguishable from expensive capers. If you are desperate to be self sufficient, you can apparently dry the seeds and grind them up as a pepper substitute.
• The quote of the week is sure to appeal to middle aged gardeners and comes from Samuel Butler: “Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers, we more than gain in fruits.”
A reassuring thought to one who had an unwelcome birthday last week!