Having been part of the horticulture industry for most of my working life I have noted many changes and one which I and others find most annoying is that potting mixes are now of very poor quality followed by poor quality compost purchased in bags.
One of the reasons for such poor quality in potting mixes is the lack of them using peat moss which has increased in price and restricted in harvesting because of possible CO2 released into atmosphere.
In fact I thought it was not available anymore till I did a web search and see that you can obtain it at a price.
Bark fines which are a by product from the forestry industry are cheap and that is what most potting mixes have that as their base material these days, often along with bits of the trees as well.
Compost is not much better. Compost made from green waste should be good stuff, that is except that people using herbicides and taking the grass clippings and herbicide affected plants to the green recycling places means you get a nice dose of chemical herbicide to affect plants in your gardens.
Put that around your roses, tomatoes, beans and potatoes and see the funny feathery new growths that appear.
That effect is not noticed on many plants or vegetables, but certainly another poison in your food chain.
Potting mixes for your indoor container plants you need to make your own out of suitable materials such as sphagnum peat moss or coco coir.
Recipe:
- 2 parts pre-moistened peat moss or coco coir
- 1 part perlite or pumice
- 1/4 – 1/2 part vermiculite.
You can purchase some or all the above from either Garden Shops or Mitre 10 gardener places.
You can also purchase online.
Then you need to add some nutrition for the plants to grow on.
The likes of worm casts, kelp powder and Wallys Neem Tree Powder which also helps control soil insect pests such as root mealy bugs.
Another one is to add a little sieved garden soil to your potting mix that you make.
To do this get a sieve; the one you use in the kitchen will do and put about a hand full of dry soil from a vegetable garden into the sieve.
Place over a bucket and work the soil through the strainer. You should have soil fines as a result then discard the soil left in the sieve.
There maybe some small weed seeds that also escaped into the bucket so best keep the sieved material a little moist for a couple of weeks to see if any germinate.
Soil can be added to your home made potting mix at the rate of 1: 10 to advantage but no more than that.
In days gone by nurseries sending out plants in bags or containers used to add one tenth of clean top soil to their container mixes.
They stopped doing that when freight costs went up and the extra weight increased the cost of shipping.
Making a batch of home made potting mix and keeping it in a plastic rubbish tin with lid for future use is a good idea.
This week I purchased from Egmont Seeds a special cucumber that I love to grow called Cucumber Iznik Mini F1 Hybrid, which I have now planted in one of my glasshouses.
I have grown this cucumber in the past and found that it will preform very well giving finger sized to medium size cucumbers well into winter.
If picked at finger size they are a lovely crisp, crunchy cucumber with a tangy flavour.
If allowed to keep growing you have a medium size cucumber to slice for eating.
If you have a glasshouse and a 20cm or larger container like a black plastic bucket then plant the 5 seeds (thats what is in the packet) and enjoy cucumbers in a couple of months time.
Last week’s article on Serious Stuff brought a number of confirmation replies from gardeners that have also noticed that things in the garden and sky are not what they used to be.
Only one gardener complained that she had joined the gardening article list for ‘SENSIBLE’ gardening information not what I had written about.
This is amazing only one person where in the past I would have at least a dozen or more jump up and down if I wrote about something that they did not approve of.
Maybe more people have started to realise that things over the past few years are not what they should be and are starting to question what is happening.
One reader emailed me with the following:
Hello Wally
I read your last newsletter with interest. I have noticed some strange things happening here in Kaeo, northland where I live.
We get hammered with the trails here and some days our eyes flare up and feel like sandpaper, we can taste the metals in the air.
One strange thing I noticed about a month ago and I wish I had marked it on my calendar the day it happened.
We have a huge cicada problem on this property due to a past owner planting multitude gums and Macrocarpa which they love.
The cicadas here in summer are so deafening you can’t even talk to another person outside. They would start on day break and not stop until dusk.
Visitors would complain and I was glad to leave the property at times.
About a month ago they stopped… Over night… Just like a switch… Was so strange.
I have noticed some “normal” clouds this last month or so, it’s actually been so long since I’ve seen a normal sky I can’t stop staring up when they do come.
We have also had a myriad of traffic accidents here, people driving into shop windows (Kerikeri), accidents all happening within a short time frame, like they have turned up a switch or something.
Bees are very few here even with hives on the farm next door.
Our white butterfly’s have been in plague numbers, I’ve never had so many aphids and our capsicums and tomatoes this year look like they have some deformity.
Shriveled up stalks and leaves.
We have a glasshouse now and have covered a lot of our gardens with plastic roofs and water from a spring due to the multitude of unknowns falling from the sky.
We make our own compost and have a worm farm it just doesn’t seem to be enough.
Our chickens are also feeling whatever is going on as the egg numbers are way low on last year and we have young chickens coming thru as well.
The wheat we normally sprout for them is rank and the chickens no longer want to eat it, it MENT to be GMO free.
It seems people are falling asleep at the wheel with so much happening at the same time we have lost the will to stand up for ourselves and mother earth.
Anyway I thought I would share my experience with our sudden cicada experience. I find your newsletters interesting, thank you for the effort you put in to write them.
Regards Chantelle
This morning (Sunday a reader emailed me a link to an editorial in a Northland Newspaper which is interesting, in the fact that some journalists actually do question and write about what is happening. (They are as rare as hen’s teeth.)
We need more mainstream media to actually do honest reporting so more people will start to realise things are no longer what we would consider normal.
This article raises some important questions and why our government obviously allows it over our skies and yet denies it is happening?
Dimming the skies increases UV heat and prevents that heat from escaping into the atmosphere so it creates global warming but not having direct sunlight means plant’s growth suffers which is putting the global food chain into jeopardy.
Image credit: Markus Spiske
Order from www.0800466464.co.nz.
Products mentioned are from Wallys Range of products and can be found in some garden shops or by Mail Order on www.0800466464.co.nz
Problems ring me at: Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz
