Gardening: Labour Weekend time to plant summer vegetable and flower seedlings - Gareth Carter

Now is the time to get your pots and hanging baskets planted for a stunning display for Christmas and summer, writes Gareth Carter.

Gareth Carter is the general manager of Springvale Garden Centre in Whanganui.

As Labour Weekend arrives, we are at the traditional time for planting out cold-sensitive summer vegetable and flower seedlings.

A windy and cold spring has meant many gardeners have found that early plantings of soft summer vegetables have struggled to thrive. Now we mark the most famous weekend in the gardening calendar. Night temperatures should now (hopefully) remain above 10C so the cucurbits (cucumbers, gherkins, pumpkins and many others) will actively grow.

Seeds to sow and plantings that can now be made include beans, capsicums, chillies, cucumbers, eggplants, kamo kamo, melons, pumpkins, squash, sweetcorn, tomatoes, zucchinis and more.

Vegetables that are indifferent to cold snaps include beetroot, broccoli, carrots, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, peas, spring onions, radish, rhubarb, silverbeet and more.

If you haven’t yet planted any potatoes, it is not too late. Potatoes planted now will be ready for harvest in late January or February.

If you have potatoes growing already, regular mounding needs to be maintained as this increases the length of stem covered on which the potato tubers form. A side dressing of Ican Potato Food around the plants before they are mounded will help growth and tuber development.

It is important to soon start spraying your potato crop with Yates Mavrik or Yates Success to protect against potato psyllid.

The potato psyllid can go undetected for a while but will later show up with plants stunting and yellowing of the growing tip. The edges of the curled leaves often have a pink blush. The stem may have swollen nodes and show a browning of the vascular tissue. After a while, infected potatoes develop a scorched appearance and plants collapse prematurely. Potato plants that are infected at an early stage end up with small underdeveloped tubers.

The same psyllid affects all plants in the Solanaceae family, which includes tomatoes and tamarillos. Using the same spray treatment as for potatoes is effective.

The same warmer conditions that summer vegetables need are desired by summer-flowering bedding plants. Impatiens and petunias are two of the most colourful and vibrant, and plantings can now safely be made.

Now is the time to get your pots and hanging baskets planted for a stunning display for Christmas and summer. Growing flowers in pots and hanging baskets is a wonderful way to garden and continues to gain wider popularity.

Today’s lifestyle, often with emphasis on the full use of limited space, has led to the acceptance of any means by which plants can be used.

Almost any plant that will grow in a container can be grown in a hanging basket, creating new visual perspectives even in a small courtyard, balcony or veranda. Luxuriant mini-gardens can be developed without taking up valuable ground or floor space. In cities around the world where people live in confined spaces, hanging baskets and wall troughs are frequently used for growing vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Hanging baskets are often an answer to interior decorating problems. For example, a basket containing a large green hanging fern will soften harsh walls or attractively fill an empty corner.

A combination of a shrub or perennial along with flowering annuals can make for a long-lasting, eye-catching display.

For those looking for flowering annuals to add colour to pots and hanging baskets, some suitable varieties include impatiens, marigold, nasturtium, ageratum, begonia, lobelia, nepeta (catmint), pelargonium, petunia, portulaca and zinnia (dwarf).

Fuchsias are one of the finest flowering shrubs for a shady situation with stunning displays in summer and autumn. They have a magnificent affinity with hanging baskets and their branches will cascade over the side of the basket.

There is much to admire and many choices to plant to have a colourful spring garden.

Many rhododendrons are looking amazing in full bloom. The intensity of a blooming rhododendron is impressive as the flower trusses hide the leaves and the stylish green structure becomes eclipsed by a mass of colour.

Protect apple trees from codling moth

Codling moth caterpillars burrow into the fruit of apples and make holes in them. They can also affect pears, quinces, English walnuts and sometimes plums. Once inside the fruit, the insect is relatively safe and will burrow towards the pip cavity and consume the seeds.

The insect “overwinters” as a fully-fed caterpillar in a silken cocoon beneath pieces of loose bark on trees or in other sheltered positions it can reach. In the late winter or early spring, the overwintered caterpillars transform to pupae and the first moths generally appear during October-November and can occur into January and February. The best method of control is an integrated pest management approach. This involves using pheromone traps being hung in a tree. Closely follow the instructions given. Check weekly for population numbers caught in the trap and, when larger numbers are recorded, a spray with Yates Success is recommended to provide a reasonably complete control.

For more gardening information visit www.springvalegardencentre.co.nz.