June is a good month for doing maintenance work in your garden as we leave behind autumn and start thinking about preparing the garden for the winter planting. Let go of those summer plants that have expired and either put into a compost bin or use as a soil additive. Rake all the autumn leaves up and get your soil ready for the upcoming strawberry and garlic planting.
It is important to enrich your soil by turning over and adding all those needy ingredients like compost, humate and most importantly sheep pellets. Daves Garden Products has a wonderful product that contains both sheep manure and humate – these are our “Growth Booster pellets” and are the premium product in our fertiliser range. We make this product by blending the required amount of humate into the sheep manure prior to pelletising (at the rate of 4 parts of sheep manure to 1 part of humate) and listed below are just 3 of the most important benefits of this fabulous product:
- The plant is getting all the goodies from the sheep manure plus the added benefit of the humate.
- The humate soaks up the lanolin smell off the sheep manure which makes it more pleasant to use
- Humates also will hasten the breakdown of the pellet and allows the nutrients to be utilised more quickly.
Another great idea is mixing humate into your compost at a rate of about 10% – this increases the biodiversity of the compost as the carbon in the humate is a form of carbohydrate that sustains the fungi and bacteria greatly enhancing and fast tracking the total breakdown of your compost.
Other notes for JUNE:
- June is a great time to consider sowing crops from seeds such as: Asian greens, broad beans, mustard, kale, peas, silverbeet and spinach
- You can also plant from seedlings: Asian greens, broccoli, cabbage, garlic, kale, mustard, shallots, silverbeet and spinach.
- June will mark the shortest day of the year, which means a lot less sun for our gardens. The growth of our vegetables will slow down dramatically so keep this in mind when sowing and planting this month. Remember also that seeds will germinate faster when started in trays. Remember also that when using a seed tray, sprinkle some humate into the seed mix (about 5-10%) – this has measurable effects and will reward you with a much-enhanced strike.
- If your area is prone to frosts, keep your salad greens undercover and choose cold-hardy varieties, or sow other hardy leaves such as mustard.
Happy Gardening!