Hello everyone and welcome back to the Vasse Community Garden. It has been some time waiting for the wheels to turn, and get the various approvals and paperwork sorted between State Departments and Busselton Council. We are pleased to tell you we are getting close! The lease for the land will hopefully go before Busselton Council on 22nd June. Cross fingers it will be approved on the 22nd and we can finally sign the lease and get moving. A few things have been happening in the background. As part of engaging with the community and community organisations, we have a proposal for the Lions Club Partnership. The Lions Club are reviewing that now. There are some sponsorships waiting in the wings and these are dependent on a Lease being signed. When Council has approved and it’s signed, we should really see some things begin to move along. Leading up to the end of the financial year, we need to have an Annual General Meeting (AGM) and organise committee members and get ready to take on all the work coming our way. Thanks to those people who have waited patiently for us to get to this point. I think we are almost there and we will soon be working hard to build our lovely community garden. In this newsletter, we have provided some winter planting ideas, so if you have a little plot at home, this may help with some ideas of what to plant. Also some jobs which are tagged for autumn such as controlling wintergrass in lawns as well as some care for your Citrus, but I reckon we could still get some of these done too. An upcoming event you may be interested in: DIY Eco cleaning workshop Saturday 2nd July 2022 - Monday 18th July 2022 Check out the link here: https://www.busselton.wa.gov.au/events/diy-eco-cleaning-workshop/788 Autumn Citrus Care As the citrus harvest season starts, help keep your trees healthy, well fed and protected to promote the best quality fruit. Here are our top citrus care tips for autumn. Pest Watch Check your citrus trees for signs of pests. Common insect pests include scale, which appear as raised white, brown or pink coloured bumps on stems, leaves and fruit, and aphids. Masses of tiny aphids enjoy feasting on tender new leaves and stems and cause leaves to curl under. Scale and aphids are both sap sucking insects and excrete a sweet sticky substance called honeydew. Ants are attracted to honeydew and if you see ants moving up and down your citrus tree, it's likely to be a sign of a sap sucking insect like scale or aphids. The disease black sooty mould, appearing as a black film over the leaves, is another consequence of honeydew. Living off the honeydew, the black sooty mould will disappear once the sap sucking insects are controlled. Another citrus pest during autumn is citrus leaf miner. The adult citrus leaf miner moth lays her eggs on new autumn foliage and the eggs hatch into larvae that create silvery tunnels in the leaves and cause leaves to twist and distort. It's easy to protect your citrus trees from aphids, scale and citrus leaf miner with regular sprays of white oil or other commercial natural pyrethrin and oil spray, it's a ready to use spray that will control common citrus pests like aphids and scale and help prevent citrus leaf-miner damage. Feed your citrus trees Feeding citrus regularly is the key to promoting bucketfuls of juicy fruit. Citrus are very hungry plants and lack of nutrients can lead to a decline in fruit quality. Any complete plant food that has been specially formulated to provide citrus with the nutrients they need will work to promote growth and fruiting. Apply liquid plant food around the root zone of in-ground and potted citrus trees every 1-2 weeks during autumn, while citrus trees are busy maturing their fruit. Be fruit fly alert In fruit fly prone areas, citrus fruit can be vulnerable to attack by fruit flies, even from when the fruit are still small and green. To control the adult fruit flies before they get a chance to lay eggs, which turn into destructive maggots, apply a commercial Fruit Fly Control as a band or spot spray onto the trunk or lower foliage of trees. There is no need to spray the actual fruit. It’s important to re-spray the plants each week (or sooner if there has been rain) to maintain effective protection. Retain moisture in the soil In addition to nutrients, having access to sufficient moisture is important for fruit quality. Citrus trees have a shallow root system and can dry out rapidly. Keep the soil or potting mix moist with regular, thorough watering. Applying a commercial soil wetter around the root zone of in-ground and potted citrus will help water penetrate evenly and effectively down into the roots and spreading a layer of mulch around the root zone will help retain moisture. Winter Grass Wintergrass (Poa annua) is a common weed in many lawns across Australia. It is a lush lime green tufted weed with boat shaped leaf tips. Generally identified by lawn lovers due to its different growth habit and colour in comparison to their normal grass, and when it sets its small creamy white seed heads. Wintergrass is a prolific producer of seed and with so many seeds being produced there is subtle naturally occurring variations in each one. This differentiation has allowed Wintergrass to adapt to a huge range of conditions, how it grows in the gaps between concrete slabs is a testament to its ability to grow, but this also makes it a very difficult weed to control. Although it is commonly called “Winter” grass it can persist year round in the cooler areas of Australia and usually germinates when the soil temperature reaches around 12 degrees. For most areas of Australia this is in both Autumn as the soil cools and again in Spring as the soil warms up. Established Wintergrass sets its seed in late Spring as temperatures begin to warmup. However, due to its variability in biotypes, if you have had it in past years you may found a type that sets seed year round. How to control Wintergrass in your lawn? So how to deal with a pest that is so genetically variable. The first and one of the best ways to combat Wintergrass is to reduce its chances to infiltrate your lawn. Ensuring you have a thick dense lawn reduces the chances for new seeds to germinate through the lawn. Keeping your lawn healthy by fertilising 3-4 times per year can drastically reduce your numbers. No matter how hard you try there is often going to be thin areas of turf that are shaded by either your house, fence or trees and hedges. These shaded areas are slower to dry out, creating the perfect environment for germination of Wintergrass. You can get winter grass under control with a commercial wintergrass killer. They generally contain propyzamide, which is both a pre-emergent (prevents) and post emergent (kills) herbicide and works by binding with the soil and being taken up and killing new winter grass roots as the seeds germinate. Apply in early autumn to prevent winter grass seed from developing or during autumn and winter to control winter grass seedlings. Please support our sponsors.
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