Organic gardener Kath Irvine returns to share some tips around spring gardening and to answer your questions.
This week her topics include building your own compost and ensuring healthy citrus trees.
Irvine runs workshops from her permaculture home garden in Ōhau, in the Horowhenua. Her practical guide to growing organic fruit and vegetables The Edible Backyard, has recently been published.
Kath recommends making a compost pile with all your spring clean up material. Photo: The Edible Backyard
Now is the time to get the citrus in, but it is important to build a strong foundation, Kath told Kim Hill. And they enjoy a good feed in Spring.
“For me that feed has got to be compost, there's nothing better than and application of that as opposed to an artificial fertiliser.
“If you go into the garden centre you'll see hundreds of bags of every different brand out of fertiliser - tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries cetera.”
Artificial fertilisers make the plant dependent, she says.
“All those natural responses in the soil go to sleep. And this is a real advantage of using things like compost and seaweed and manure, because all the biological processes fully understand them.
“And they can easily integrate them into the soil and you build this really strong, living soil from where the plants can source whatever nutrients they need and acquire.”
It’s no myth weeing on citrus is good for them, she says.
“In general, it’s an all-round amazing fertiliser.”
As with all plants it’s all about the soil, she says.
“The success and health of your citrus and the health of all your plants depends on first of all, making sure you've planted them in the right place.
“So free-draining soil is super important for citrus, if you're in some heavy clay you’re never going to have the good mineral exchange going on, which is what happens when leaves discolour, there's some kind of problem or blockage in the whole mineral exchange.”
Citrus also need some shelter, she says.
Photo: Catherine Cattanach
“So you want to have free draining soil for starters, and you want to have a nice sheltered spot. You want to make sure you're not where frost is going to sit for instance, and you're not in the face of strong wind at all.”
Then make sure that the soil is good before you plant your citrus, she says.
“One of my favourite ways to start off is to actually build a lovely pile of compost on the spot where you decide you're going to put your citrus and let that rot down.
“And then in spring, which is the very best time to be planting citrus, unless you happen to live in the winterless north, … you're on to a really good win, you're getting out ahead of the curve by ticking all those boxes first.”
Many of the problems that come with citrus are because the setup hasn't been good, she says.
“You’ve got to lay that good foundation to get them off on a win.”
The best pest management is diversity, she says.
“In so many cases with pest management the answer actually is to A get your soil right, and B to increase the diversity in the immediate area around the plant.
“Increased diversity brings in an increased range of soil life below ground and it also increases the beneficial insects operating above ground to parasitise and predate.”
A mixture of plants with different types of roots is ideal, she says.
“Plants love to live in community and we've come out of this age of making sure that each plant has got this huge amount of space around it, to now acknowledging the wonderful team spirit that's happening in our gardens and that plants are far better off.”
Photo: Public Domain
You can’t really rush composting, she says, so plan ahead and have as any haps on the god as you can.
“I do feel that I make the best compost now of all my life and I stuff around with it way less than what I used to.”
Pile up a mixed bag of material and heap it up - tall and narrow is best, she says.
“Chop up anything that's flopping over the pathway or getting a bit too big for its boots, or maybe it's finished for now. Basically just get as big of a mixture of stuff as you possibly can.
“And that's where it’s great if you've got vigorous plants like borrage, and comfrey and yarrow and things like that growing together beneath the fruit trees, because you always have a supply of ingredients.”
She doesn’t bother with layering anymore, she says.
“I used to and it never really worked. And then I was always tuning it and worrying over it and one day I just had that ‘aha’ moment. Why don't I mix it all together before I pile it up?
“You want it to be as tall as you can get it, so as a minimum about a meter height, better to be narrower and taller, then wider and shorter.
“And pile it all up and put something yummy on top of it like some of your homemade liquid feed. If you don't have any. Just make sure it's nice and moist. And chuck a cover over it. “
You can’t rush the process as it breaks down and biology comes into the new soil, she says.
“You just have to be so patient, if you can make compost because your homemade compost is really your very best bet for fertility.”
