RE: Garden Journal Weekly, 19th October 2022
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Also here in the southern hemisphere of South America @minismallholding , several hours apart from Australia's time zone, spring began almost exactly a month ago. Although so far it has been a strange spring. With little heat, little rain, relatively cool days and plants that have not yet finished exploding in all their green buds, shoots and flowers.
I have some fruit plants in which the flowers have already closed (navel orange tree, the well-known seedless navel oranges, a delight for the palate due to how sweet they are) and the first fruits are already beginning to be seen.
The rest of the garden and the orchard go in slow motion. They need rainwater and not risk water.
A warm hug and my congratulations to all organic growers. I have read some of your articles and many of your practices I also carry out. In other cases I have learned new things.
Until next time!
I've just finished taking the last of my navel oranges off the tree and it's in full flower ready for the next crop. So I think it's a little behind yours. I love the smell of the flowers! 😊 I've got plums and cherries starting to grow, though. Next to flower will be the apple tree.
This year I have had to do a fairly rigorous pruning of the citrus plants that I have in my garden (a navel orange, a common orange and a mandarin).
They had been heavily attacked by a plague that we call white cochineal and that attracts a lot to that type of small ants that roam all over the plant, without making an ant nest on the ground. And they attack the fruits.
I have talked about them in previous posts explaining all the work done. For this reason the foliage this year has been scarce but, at least, it is totally healthy and free of pests.
Once a week I continue spraying the plants with a spray that is a solution of potassium soap and neem oil, which has given me good results so far.
The oranges still look very small but I am satisfied with the amount, actually I thought the plant would give less. I think the flowers are over and there will be no more. We are going through a fairly long period of drought and irrigation water is not the same as rainwater.
The oranges ready for consumption will be ready for the month of May of next year approximately.
I'm glad you got the plague under control. It sounds worse than the scale I get on mine! I also need to trim mine a bit, but more because it's in the chicken run so I can't let it get too big.
Nothing is quite like rain water for plants, it's it? Most of our summer is irrigation from the mains and the plants never do as well.