Grant Douglas's Garden Diary

Week 18: First week of May

This is the time of year where leaf-spot on a variety of vegetables seems to be prevalent. Cabbage ring-spot on brassicas, Septoria leaf-spot on celery and other forms of spot on Silverbeet, Perpetual Spinach, Beetroot and Strawberries. If you are a non-organic grower there are a variety of fungicides that can be used to prevent these, but in our garden we need to resort to other measures.

Most of the leaf-spots don't seem to attack the plant until it is well-grown e.g. until Brocolli or Cauliflower is starting to head up and so it doesn't affect the crop too badly. In the case of Brocolli, to get a harvest of side shoots, I just pick off any badly infected lower leaves. The best prevention is adequate ventilation around each plant. This is also true with Silverbeet, Perpetual Spinach where the spot usually only affects the older leaves and so if you keep them picked off, you will usually keep it under control.

Septoria leaf-spot of Celery is much more difficult to control, but the best prevention is to provide the plants with an extremely humus rich soil (lots of horse manure) and a constant level of moisture, so the plants are never under stress. For the last two years, I have not had a problem with Septoria leaf-spot and wonder if it is because I am now growing a variety of celery called Elne - available from Kings Seeds.

Leaf-spot on Beetroot, once again, usually attacks on the mature plants and so even if it gets out of hand, the mature beets can still sit in the garden over Winter. With Strawberries, this is coming up to the time of year when you can clean up your plants, removing most of the leaves so that the crowns come away clean in the spring (remove old leaves from the patch, so that no debris is left).

If you have grown Pepinos this year, and you don't think you can over-winter them, before the frosts strikes take cuttings. Cut 10cm length peices from the tops or mid-stem, trim off the lower leaves, cut the leaves that are left in half and place in a jar of water on a warm window-sill. Change the water daily, to prevent algae build up, and in a few weeks they will have produced roots and will be ready to pot up for next summer.

Sowing or Planting this week:
Brassicas - Cauli, Cabbage, Broccoli, Broccoflower, Brocoflower (remember to choose Spring varieties of these brassicas eg Wintercross or Flower of Spring Cabbage, Snowmarch Cauliflower)
Garlic
Lettuce (Loose-leaf Fancy and Triumph Hearting)
Perpetual Spinach (Plants only)
Silverbeet (Plants only)
Spinach (winter varieties eg. Hybrid No.7)
Spring Onions

Sow Direct:
Chinese Cabbage and other Chinese Greens
Corn Salad
Mescalin Mix
Radish
Rocket

[ Return ]