What to do in your garden this week: After-care for spring bulbs and feed your tomatoes
27.12.2022What to do in your garden this week: After-care for spring bulbs and feed your tomatoes
Spring in your step: Use bone meal or a good general organic fertiliser
AFTER-CARE FOR SPRING BULBS
Spring bulbs are well and truly over by now.
As they will have used up so much energy in flowering, it’s a good idea to reward them with a feed. Use bone meal or a good general organic fertiliser, which should be sprinkled around the bulbs and lightly forked in. If the ground is very dry, give the plants a good watering, too.
FEED YOUR TOMATOES
If you’re growing tomatoes in your greenhouse you need to feed them weekly with a high-potash fertiliser. You can make your own tomato food using comfrey — simply put lots of comfrey leaves in a bucket of water and, after about five weeks, you will have a wonderful but very smelly liquid with which to water your tomatoes.You can also use a shop-bought organic tomato food, 중계티비 or a non-organic one like Tomorite. Peppers and aubergines also need weekly feeds with the same fertiliser.
STOP GREENFLY
This is the time of year when roses are most prone to attack from greenfly.
Instead of using chemical sprays, try rubbing the greenfly off with your fingers, or spray the affected leaves with a mixture of water and a tiny amount of washing-up liquid. You could also try using water mixed with insecticidal soap. After a few weeks, the infestation should be under control as the greenfly’s predators take over.
PROTECT YOUR STRAWBERRIES
This is the time to remove runners from your strawberry plants; if you allow them to develop, the plants put too much energy into the runners and not enough into producing fat, juicy fruit.It’s also a good idea to protect the fruits by putting a blanket of straw under your plants. This stops the fruit rotting as it comes into contact with the ground. You can use special strawberry mats, stocked by garden centres, instead of straw.