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Garden Tips July 2016

Plant berries - currants, raspberries and strawberries can all go in now. They love rich soil containing plenty of good organic matter (Living Earth organic certified Compost is perfect).
Buy seed potatoes - appearing in garden centres now - and place them in a dry space - on a tray under the eaves or in the laundry is ideal. You're looking for the potatoes to sprout shoots around 2 centimetres in length, which will take until mid-August - an ideal potato planting time
Harvest a winter salad - there's a whole heap of young leaves on conventional vegetables such as young kale, beetroot, spinach and silver beet. Team with the cold hardy lettuces - rocket, cos, miner's and lamb's lettuce for a fresh green salad or to 'green' up a roast vegetable salad

Dig in all green crops - particularly lupins which are best dug before flowering.
Wrap up the worms: Worms are not immune to the cold - make sure there's a thick cover on the top of the worm farm - a piece of carpet or several thicknesses of old blanket are ideal

Condition bare soil - provided it's not water-logged, begin to prepare it for spring planting by digging in Living Earth organic certified Compost and, once done, avoid stepping on the area

Time to prune - all roses, most deciduous shrubs, apart from early spring flowerers. Shape deciduous trees while the branches are bare
But don't prune the following just yet - hibiscus, cannas and brugmansias need their shaggy last season's foliage for at least another month to protect them from cold weather
Feeding breeding birds - leave shrubs with berries, the last of the flowering perennials for the birds to grab what's left on them. Load bird feeders with seeds, or mix up a seed pudding - grab a bird seed mix from bulk bins at the supermarket and ad half a cup of honey to some melted lard - let it set in a ball and hang it inside a netting bag, high in a tree
Deal to the emerging thugs - weeds that seed prolifically in summer and autumn are germinating now, including onion weed, bear's breeches (Acanthus), agapanthus, moth plant and the stinking iris (Iris foetidus). The ground is soft enough to dig them out now, which is a great way to avoid using heaps of chemical weedkiller later on

Fertilise with Prolawn Garden Supreme to keep lawns strong and healthy. Garden Supreme strengthens the lawn's ability to withstand the cold weather and early seeding of broadleaf weeds
Sharpen mower blades - this avoids tearing the blades and do mow regularly