Gardening by the Moon in August

FIRST QUARTER
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Garden: 
  • Loads of pricking out
  • Sow seed of peas, broadbeans, winter lettuce, Land Cress, Garden Cress , beetroot, coriander, onions etc  into trays now if you didn't do it last week
  • Sprinkle EF seedling innoculant (a huge range of beneficial microorganisms, bacteria and fungi) over seed trays when planting seed so that they are incubated and distributed over entire garden as seedlings are transplanted out
  • Foliar feed garlic and onion patch
  • Foliar feed entire newly planted garden area from now on throughout the spring, summer and autumn twice a month before and after full moon for maximum benefit. You can check that your foliar feeding is actually working using your refractometer. Take a Brix reading at say 3 in the afternoon. Apply a foliar spray then 2 hours later do the Brix test again. If the reading has gone uo then what ever foliar feed you aplied had a beneficial effect on your plants. The best all round Vegetataive Foliar spray on the market is EF Growth Foliar.
  • Spend a few nights this week checking out the slug and snail situation, maybe require night patrols with a torch and a container of hot water, before it warms up too much and the seedlings start going out. Quash  or the EF version is the slug bait I’m happiest to use. It is completely non toxic apart from large quantities in waterways for fish!
  • Bed preparation critical this month as soil allows
     
Orchard: 
  • Now is the time to either apply your last copper spray for the season or begin applaying a foliar and soil application that will encourage good soil and plant health, rather than inhibiting disease through the copper. We use EF Fruit Foliar.
FULL MOON
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Garden: 
  • Feed leaves and soil with your choice of nutrients and micro-organisms
  • Plant early potatoes now into trenches of  compost (that has been made with lime of some form  in it), seaweed or Natures Garden and Active Lime
  • Direct sow carrots and beetroot under cloches into well prepared soil
  • Place kumara tubers into sand boxes,( or Tapapa ) and put in a warm place to grow kumara tupu
  • Plant water chestnuts into seed trays with a plastic liner to keep very moist
  • Plant Chinese root ginger into large black containers that can be hilled up an xtra 50cm over the season, and place in green house
  • Begin sowing Jerusalem artichokes
     
Orchard: 
  • Continue plant and soil health maintenance program before and after full moon throughout the growing season
  • Prune autumn fruiting raspberrries
LAST QUARTER
Monday, 22 August 2011
Garden: 
  •    Prepare seed raising mix 1/3 sieved compost, 1/3 sieved garden
  •     soil, 1/3 sand - possibly 10% vermicast if available
  •    Pot up any cuttings that you took in May and are now shooting in
  •     the sand box
  •    Weed garden beds, make compost, double-dig or prepare beds for
  •     planting as they become dry enough last quarter
Orchard: 
  • Very last tree planting for deciduous fruit tree
  • Good time to plant citrus
  • Very last pruning
  • Mulching trees for the summer (if you didn't feed orchard earlier then feed now underneath the much)
  • Mulch all newly planted trees before the grass begins to grow
  • Very last chance to spray cutonic copper on dormant fruit trees, it will be too late for some
  • Apply rock phosphate and dolomite to any orchard/garden areas that need it
NEW MOON
Monday, 29 August 2011
Garden: 
  • Time to transplant early veggies under cloches, e.g. courgettes and beans
  • Do loads of weeding and compost making with all over wintered compost crops lupins vetch etc
  • Foliar feed 3 days before full moon
  • You should be seriously taking out all compost crops and preparing beds for major planting next month
  • Sow seed into trays of early pumpkins, Red kuri, Austrian Hulless, Green Chestnut, and courgettes Crookneck Squaaash and Green Bennings, early tomatoes for the cloche Henry's dwarf Bush Cherry, Scoresby Dwarf, Sweet William, and Southern Bush, cucumbers for planting under cloches Deka for pickling and Port Albert or Green Apple, , dwarf beans, marigold Sweet Hyssop, nasturtium, sweet pea, lettuce, coriander, parsley, rocket, peas ..wehave a stunning collection of NZ heritage peas.... Sow in a warm green house in trays ready to prick out when first leaves appear
  • Sow eggplants, peppers in an even warmer place. These seeds really need 20 degrees day and even nights to germinate well. I recommend you build a small plastic cloche, over a seed tray with these seeds in it, inside the green house
Orchard: 
  • Best time to establish orchard herbal ley from scratch or to renovate existing ley
  • Slug and snail control essential around newly grafted trees
  • Mulch all fruit trees – you can use the scythed grass from the orchard to do this a this time of the year