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Tuesday, December 24, 2024

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Home and Garden

Gardening with Wally Richards: Pollinating fruiting flowers

Pollination can be a problem for gardeners when it does not occur naturally. Various plants use different ways of being pollinated from attracting insects such...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Gardening bits

Your gardens should be doing very well by now, but cucumbers and a few heat loving plants may still be a bit slow growing...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Simple things

Sometimes it is the simple things that can make a big difference to your plants and gardens. In recent times we have explained the virtues...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Going bananas

(Not that fund raising thing for kids but actually growing bananas at home.) I remember years ago when one of the house plant nurseries put...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Herbicide damage

I am very concerned about the number of gardeners that have asked me why their tomatoes/beans/potatoes are growing funny this season. When we say 'funny'...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Increasing tomato flavour

Recently I have been asked how to obtain the best flavour from tomatoes. A good question, and there are many types of tomatoes each with...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Plant diseases

Plants like ourselves catch a disease or fungus problem when they are in stress; like we are more susceptible to a cold or other...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Beetles and spraying

This week I have had two readers asking about damage that's happening to a hibiscus and a citrus tree. In both cases the leaves were...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Getting more from your home grown fruit

We can spend a lot of time growing fruit; feeding, spraying, looking after and harvesting but are we getting the best results from our...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Reproduction

Plants have one objective in life and that is to reproduce. Reproduction is mostly done by seeding (spore in ferns) but can be also achieved...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Some gardening tips

This week I thought it would be a good idea to pass on a number of gardening tips which are useful at this time...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Alternative weed controls

Chemical weedkillers aren't the only option available. There are a number of other things which are handy weedkillers but which don't do as much damage...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Secrets to growing tomatoes

Tomatoes are the second most popular plant for gardeners to grow after Roses. The key to very successful tomato growing is to give them full...

Urgent warning issued by EPA to stop using Dacthal herbicides due to risks to unborn children

The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has issued an urgent warning for the public to cease using weedkillers containing Dacthal or DCPA herbicides due to...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Famine

Throughout history there has been two events that has cause great suffering and that is Famine and Plague, likely in some cases a famine...

Gardening with Wally Richards: How to feed your gardens

You can go out and purchase expensive man-made fertilisers which I do admit they feed your plants but at a nasty cost as they...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Savings

Currently there are people struggling to make ends meet and that makes life unpleasant and stressful. In situations like this I remember the old saying,...

Billionaire abandons Lake Wanaka luxury lodge build

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel known for co-founding PayPal and his early investments in Facebook, has scrapped plans to construct a luxurious 330-metre-long lodge overlooking...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Spud growing time

Growing your own potatoes may take a bit of garden room, for those with smaller sections, but the advantages of having your own freshly...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Fruit tree planting time

Now is the time of the year that sees the arrival of this season's deciduous fruit trees, into garden centres. There is a very good...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Replacing lost minerals and elements

There are 114 natural minerals and elements known to our scientists and these are found in perfect balance in the non polluted blue waters...

NZ urged to ban engineered stone over Silicosis risks

A group of unions and public health experts is advocating for a ban on engineered stone, citing the material's links to the lung disease...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Soil diseases

Soils contain diverse communities of microscopic organisms some of which (pathogens) are capable of damaging plants. Pathogens may grow in the soil feeding on the...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Around the corner

We have started into a new growing season now that the shortest day is behind us, sunlight time increasing slowly minute by minute till...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Early season start

Each year in the winter I have been chaffing at the bit to get an early start to the new season because the earlier...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Plants in winter

Before we get onto this weeks subject; a question that was asked this week from a gardener who has wood ash from a fire...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Start of a new season – Your food and your health go hand in hand

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Hippocrates, father of medicine, 431 B.C. Now there is nothing simpler than that statement and...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Getting started

If you're a gardener like me we are chaffing at the bit to get started for the new season. Now with only 4 weeks to...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Strawberry time

May is the traditional month when new seasons strawberry plants become available in garden centres. The nurseries that grow the plants lift them after the...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Winter clean up time

In the house we do spring cleaning but in the garden we are best to do a winter clean up. There are many aspects of...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Bryophytes

Bryophytes is a name that you are not likely familiar with but if I was to say moss or liverwort you would know about...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Garlic

Many years ago you could put a few cloves into friable, free draining, fertile soil with their points upwards and their bums down, some...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Confirmation

I have in my articles and books for some years stated that our commercially grown food chain is poor in nutrition but high in...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Minerals from the ocean

A reader recently asked me to write an article about the advantages of using pure salt from the ocean in the garden for its...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Winter is coming … get ready your gardens

Firstly those reading this during Easter; I wish you all a happy Easter and travel safely. If not traveling then enjoy your garden and get...

Gardening with Wally Richards: The Invisible Rainbow

Firstly I give you fair warning this weeks article is not directly about gardening but it is very important to all living species on...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Camouflage

The dictionary definition of camouflage is a condition in which the appearance of someone or something when placed against a background makes the person...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Potting mixes

Having been part of the horticulture industry for most of my working life I have noted many changes and one which I and others...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Serious Stuff

On Saturday mornings I normally write my gardening article for emailing out on Sunday, after proof reading it. Being doing this for so long now...

Gardening with Wally Richards: Gardening for high health nutrition

Anyone can grow some food crops for their health without having to be a active gardener, in fact anyone can grow a range of...

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