Ruud Kleinpaste: Vigilance and early action

Had a great “break” around Christmas? No doubt a fabulous, lazy time with whanau and grand kids. 

The problem is: often some pests and diseases sneak into the system without you knowing! 

Codling moths in your apples 

After flowering, when the apples set fruit (the tiniest fruits that grow into apples!), this is the time when codling moth adults lay their eggs. During the X-mas growth the caterpillars will tunnel into your “codlings” (small fruits in old-fashioned English language!) and your task will be to try and get them out of those fruits.

Good luck with that! 

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Prevention is quite simple and effective: 

After flowering, spray your apples with Madex 2 (or Madex 3 if you need to use a lot); it’s organic and safe and contains the infectious particles of a virus that only kills codling moth. 

Spray every two weeks until Christmas and no caterpillars will enter your fruit! 

Green Vegetable Bug (Stink bug) 

They are slowly increasing in your garden right now; Adults are green, juveniles are black with reddish spots 

They suck juices out of a long list of crops, causing plants to reduce in vigour. 

Scouting is the term for your warfare: go out early in the morning and later in afternoon/evening to intercept these sap-suckers. 

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Squash them till they smell somewhat like coriander and drop their bodies under the host plants they are feeding on. In no time you’ll find a lot of live bugs drop to the ground as well (that smell is a warning smell that makes them jump and lie-down very quietly). Knock them all off (the warning smell gets stronger and more bugs will jump!!) 

In no time you will have reduced the population to a fraction of what was there. 

Powdery Mildew Fungus lurking around the garden already! 

You might not see it just yet, but it surely is on your crops (Gherkins, courgettes, melons, cucumber and later apple and other fruit too) 

The infection started in late November and early December, when you were doing the Christmas shopping!!! If only you could have sprayed your susceptible plants then !!! You would have certainly reduced the trouble that you’ll face in a month or so. 

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Copper and sulphur mixes (Nature’s Way Fungus Spray) are simple organic fungicides that will knock the mildew back; you can also use some hard-core fungicides if you like, but the idea is to be as early as possible! Have a look at the brilliant story in a recent NZ Gardener by Keith Hammett 

Oh, by the way… those yellow-and-black ladybird beetles on the mildew-infested leaves are not a great help at all: they actually eat the mildew and spread it around your garden! 

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