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Gardening down under

Steve  (Maritime...) wrote:
>BTW, we have some gardeners from the southern hemisphere on this list. 
>We haven't heard any reports from them about how their season's going. 
>What about it, folks?

Here on the West Coast of New Zealand we are in the middle of a slightly
cooler than usual summer which has delayed some things in the outdoor
garden. However, the roses seem to be enjoying themselves and our
greenhouse crop (tomatoes, cubits, zucchini, eggplant, capsicum and basil)
are doing fine.

Thanks to all the people who helped me with suggestions about garlic spray.
It does work as a good deterrent spray and I've included it in my limited
organic arsenal.

I also placed buckets of crushed garlic and water in the hottest parts of
the greenhouse to fill the air with a robust, but pleasant enough, aroma
which rapidly cleared out all manner of flying insects, such as fruit fly.
After a week the garlic water seemed to be starting to go stagnant so I
tipped over the outdoor veges on the asumption that if it did no good it
probably would do no harm. That was three days ago and I tonight noticed
see some winged insects have made their way back into the greenhouse, so I
guess I'll be crushing up a bit more garlic tomorrow.

Another experiment that is still in its infancy, but which might interest
the group, is an attempt to graft top tomato growth back onto the stem
base. The idea is not to waste all that root development by starting a
second crop from scratch. So far I have had a measure of success getting
the grafts to take, despite the hellish conditions for such a task
presented by the greenhouse. But, it will be some time before I know
whether the results justify the bother compared to the easy process of
rooting cuttings from the existing plants.

Regards  Ian Gill

Check out Westland at  http://www.minidata.co.nz/nztour/
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