Urgent jobs in the garden for November
- Put out Queensland fruit fly lures and protein traps. Queensland fruit fly is already here in Macleod this season.
- Net your fruit trees with fine net, weighing the hem down with something heavy e.g. mulch, bricks, wood, to prevent Queensland fruit fly entry and to protect from birds.
- Put out lures for codling moth in apples, pears and quinces. Use Tree Guard made by Go-Natural as we are finding this much more effective than cardboard or hessian. Change the masking tape onto which the Tree Guard is painted every 4 weeks or change and burn cardboard or hessian traps that have been placed around tree trunks every 2 weeks.
- Prune fruit trees in November and again in February (spring and summer) to keep them low and prevent rapid vertical, unchecked growth.
- Check fruit trees for aphids especially cherry tree tips and spray with home made white oil*.
- Spray citrus to prevent gall wasp attack with Kaolin clay (also marketed as ‘Overhaul’)) fortnightly, from now to end of second week in December. Cover the entire tree including green branches and fruit. Gall wasps won’t stay on the gritty kaolin long enough to inject eggs into the soft stems.
- Check pear and cherry trees for pear slug and treat with ash thrown onto damp leaves.
- Garlic: water and weed, and spray any aphid attack with white oil*, and rust with eco-fungicide. Start counting how many lower leaves have withered. When 4 – 6 have withered, pull your garlic up and hang it to dry with leaves on. Check carefully as withered leaves disappear quickly.
- Spray summer vegetables with a weak seaweed solution.
- Water, weed and mulch all beds to keep maximum moisture in the soil.
*white oil – 1 cup vegetable oil and 1/2 cup detergent. Shake and it turns white. Use 1 Tablespoon per litre of water
By Robin Gale-Baker