Ruud Kleinpaste: Protecting your soil from severe frost

You’ve heard me talk about the winter months for Yeeaaars! The big message is one of slowing things down and protecting your soil from heavy frosts.

Keeping everything protected end give the earth a rest.
Seeing most plants are now absolutely dormant they have shut down the growth; That means: no more taking up fertilisers (N-P-K) into the root systems – and no more transporting these goodies into the leaves to help with photosynthesis.
Besides: the sun is basically low over the horizon which reduces the amount of energy that comes down on earth and onto the plants.

But there are some plants that are forming flower buds right now: Cymbidium orchids have taken in a heap of nutrients during summer and early autumn – especially Nitrogen. It resulted in new bulbs and new stalks, from which the flower spikes will grow. 
Now’s the time to turn everything into flower buds and a little bit of K (Potash) will keep the buds in good shape, ready to blossom in late winter.
An Orchid Flowering fertiliser (high in potash) will ensure a decent display in a month or so.

A few of the most common questions I get on talk-back radio are about this “potash”.

Question 1. “why is my fruit tree not producing any fruit?”
The answer is found in the make-up of fertiliser regime: The Potash (K) is used by the plant for reproduction; it lets the plant grow Flowers and subsequently Fruit.

That means that many of our flowering and fruiting plants would really appreciate a dollop of Potash in spring and early summer. I often suggest a fertiliser with a higher percentage of “K”; stuff such as Tomato fertiliser or Flowering fertiliser.
The Wet & Forget “Seaweed Tea” is a liquid fertiliser that brings the potash in an easy to absorb formulation.

Question 2) “Can I use the ash from my fireplace to deliver Potash?”
Yes indeed you can! 

  

The origin of the word ”Pot-ash” indicates that the ashes from your fireplace and Ultra-Low Emissions Burner is quite high in Kalium (the word for “Potassium Carbonate” used in Germanic Languages in the 17hundreds).
It’s a long and chemical story, but we ended up naming Kalium “potash”.

 

The way to spread the potash over the soil underneath flower-bearing or fruit-bearing plants, shrubs or trees is literally by spreading it on a windy day when the tiny particles are dispersed. Make sure you don’t put a too heavy load on the soil, as the white powder could “set” like a very thin, brittle concrete layer.

So: little bits at-a-time; and before a good rain shower would be perfect timing! The droplets will wet the potash and push it lower into the topsoil. A good dose of water from your hose will also spread it around.
Potash doesn’t stay in the soil profile for very long periods of time, I understand, but 3 months is all you need for the roots to wake up in spring to start feasting on the Kalium

 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Rude climb past as our man in the garden killed
her cura.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Jack, Is everything all right with your TOUI?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Everything is going very well with the toy, thank you.
In fact, I'm actually I'm actually leaving town for a
couple of days. So here's what I've had to do
with the bird feeders. I'm leaving town for five days
this week, and so I figured, I'm worried that I've
created a dependency for both the tohoe that the silver
Eyes and the toy. So I've been trying to wean
them off it. Not not not wean them off it completely,

(00:42):
but just try and reduce the dependency. So I've been
putting out a bottle every second day this week.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
What do you think, Oh, good on you. Well, you
don't have to go that far. Honestly, they can cope
with that because they'll have other Jack teams in the neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah, of course, I know, But I just I didn't.
I would, you know, hate to hate to have them
starving while I'm away.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
They were they were now, But honest I see my
my bell Berts and teh doing the same thing. They
do a circuit circuit literally around the neighborhood, and if
somebody goes on holiday or goes away or something like that,
they just go to somebody else, but they will always
come back to check you, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
Just to make sure, like to check if it's there,
you mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, to make sure that you haven't hung something up
sneakily somewhere where they didn't know. It was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, I love it. It's so so nice and just
one of those little things you can do during the
winter months. And of course that's what you're focusing on
this morning. Is this winter drags on?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah, I do, in fact, yeah, and I'll talk a
little bit more about birds another day in a couple
of weeks time. But yeah, right at the moment, of course,
because it's winter, everything is slowed down and there is
basically not much growth going on, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. Plants are dormant, which actually helps because it
means that you can actually transplant them or or or

(02:07):
cut them, you know what I mean, trim them and
do all that sort of stuff without causing a lot
of troubles, and a lot of people know that this
time of the year it's actually not a fabulous time
to go and fertilize them because they're not going to
use the fertilizer. That's that's as simple as that. So
the np K that we normally use in spring and
summer and autumn is no longer if you like required

(02:31):
as much. But here comes the thing. I often get
questions at this time of the year. For instance, why
is my lemon tree not fruiting that? Well, why isn't
producing fruit? And you get it for other trees of
course in the in the other times of the year,
and and and that sort of you get those sort
of questions. And now now you get the questions, I've

(02:53):
just been burning my fireplace or or or you know,
your ultra low emissions burner. Can I use that particular
ash as pot ash which is the k of n
p K.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Ye, yes, yes you can, absolutely can, but don't go
over the top. I would say, that's really not what
you need to do. So yes you can use it.
And basically what I do with my U L e
B I I scrape off the ashes from the from
the base if you like, from the base of the

(03:30):
of the of the the heater, and I take it
into the garden and I literally spread it very thinly
over the root zone of the plants that are going
to be using flowers and fruit in a couple of
months time. If you would put it on too thick,
it almost acts like a what do you call it,

(03:53):
a layer of of of something that sticks to it.
It's it's not nice, it's what do you call it? Well,
it's yeah, it's almost like cement, but it's not like that.
It's not too thick.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, right, okay, that's good.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Okay, So that's number one, the ash from the fireplace. Yes,
you can use that. And that is of course the
K by the way, pot ash. Potash, which is the K,
by the way, case stands for carlium. Did you know
that kaleum. That's the Latin word for that particular K
in the periodic system, And it's actually only the English

(04:28):
and some other people have decided to call it potash,
but still use the K as the letter for the material.
That's an interesting thing to have a look at. Sodium
is another one natrium, But anyway, spread it around your
garden and do it when it's quite windy, so it
actually goes like a dust all over the place, and
slowly when it rains, it'll soak down into the ground.

(04:51):
And by the time comes October, September or even August,
sun plants and they start to the plants start to
look for nutrients, they suddenlyas are surrounded by the potash.
And that is going to be really cool for your
spring flowering and spring fruiting. Expectally what it's about.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Oh very good, Oh, thank you, that's great.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Good?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Hey, yeah, very good.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Hey are you a David Beckham fan?

Speaker 3 (05:17):
I certainly am because I always watched the soccer like
I did of course last week.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
O good, yeah, very good. Okay, Well, the reason I
asked is I think we've got the book for you
after eleven o'clock this morning. Rude. Yeah, we're going to
be catching up with our book reviewer Catherine and she's
chosen a book that she says it's all about money,
sex and power, the Beckhams. So we're going to tell
you about that. That'll be one for the Christmas stocking maybe, rude, well,

(05:43):
out for you, Thank you very much, sir. Catch you
soone as well as that after eleven o'clock, our sustainability
expert with her top tips on reducing the amount of
plastic in your home. That'll be really interesting.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to News talks ' B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio