Growing Gardens

with Anita Morton

Save our seedlings

Now that autumn is here, it's time to plant seedlings of winter vegies. They'll grow quickly in our sub-tropical climate, which unfortunately also favours huge numbers of seedling-eating insects. This year I decided to do something about it, so I've made a set of cloches out of wire and flyscreen.

These cloches are easy to construct. All you need is some heavy gauge wire, thin tie wire, and a few metres of fibreglass flyscreen. I moulded mine over an upturned bucket, so they're a tapered shape that stacks together well. Cut lengths of the heavy wire sufficient to make two circles that fit the top and bottom of the upturned bucket. Use the tie wire to bind the ends together.

Now cut two pieces of heavy wire about 75cm long and straighten them out as much as possible. Bend them (using the bucket as a form) into two U shapes, then cross them at the top and secure. Slip the large circle of wire down over the crossed wires and tie it off about 5cm above the ends. Then fit the small circle at the top and wire it securely. You might want to put a blob of hot-melt glue on the joints.

Now lay out the flywire and roll the framework across it, marking the edges with chalk. Also mark out circles to cover the top of the cloche. Cut it all out, and 'sew' the flyscreen to the framework with tie wire. Make a few cuts from the bottom edge of the flywire up to the lower circle - these allow the mesh to fan out across the soil surface when you push the 'legs' into the earth.

And there you have it - a safe haven for any seedling, where it can grow unmolested by grasshoppers and grubs.

Lismore Garden Club News

We had record attendance at the Lismore Garden Club march meeting/social outing. A giant sized birthday cake was produced and we celebrated Bob Ramsey's 90th birthday. The April meeting/social outing will be held in the beautiful garden of Charlie and Dot Cox on Thursday, April 7, at 1.30pm at Boorie Creek. Visitors are most welcome. For further details phone Charlie and Dot on 6621 4100.

Now is the time to prepare the soil for planting of your autumn garden. In our part of the country we are usually blessed with near perfect conditions for planting in late March and early April. However, soil preparation must be done now.

First step is to pull out spent annuals and consign them to the compost heap. Remember the smaller you chop them up, the quicker they decompose. Then pull out the weeds and pop them into the organics bin. The last thing we want is to make them into compost, seeds and all. The next step is to spread the garden with about 8cm of compost or well-rotted animal manure. (Now comes the arduous bit). Turn the lot in - but don't plant yet. Cover the garden with a 10cm layer of mulch and leave it to rest for two weeks before planting. Lastly, water the garden deeply. This will activate essential micro organisms and earth worms.

Happy gardening
Ron Burns