Citrus bushes need organic spraying again
Yeah I thought a morning session on the computer today. The showers will likely be sporadic. If it fines up in the arvo I'll go outside anad do chores.
I have need to spray a little more with "white-oil" (aka Winter or Summer oil) the organic gardener's friend
I just make up my own, 1 % canola cooking oil whizzed up in an old blender reserved for the purpose with 99 % water, and one drip of dishwash liquid......used within 5 minutes on the various citrus variety trees.....they get scale insects during the cooler months, ants actually "farm" the scale insects by finding them throughout the garden and carrying them off onto susceptible plants, like my citrus ("Mandarix" and Tangelo etc).
The ants stroke the back off the scale insects and eat the sugary-sappy residue they exude. Obviously one or 2 scale insects don't mind but numbers can build up and they sap the trees energy by sucking the sap.
A second problem is the scale insects secretions, which allow a "sooty mould" black discolouration on the leaves, doesn't matter that it LOOKS unsightly but it obscures the green leaf from doing photosynthesis in the sun, and feeding the plant energy
Normally I spray 2 or 3 times per Autumn-Winter-early Spring season. Obviously this year my plants did not get the Autumn or Winter sprays because I was a few thousand kms away in NZ at the time.
No fancy equipment necessary I just have one of those one dollar finger trigger spray bottles available in supermarkets, holds 500 ml and a few days ago I sprayed a couple of plants. I'll need to do another one spraybottle's worth on some other plants and touch up the Tangelo shrub and things should then be 100 % ok until next Autumn (the scale insects pretty much all cark it during the hot dry weather)
I have need to spray a little more with "white-oil" (aka Winter or Summer oil) the organic gardener's friend
I just make up my own, 1 % canola cooking oil whizzed up in an old blender reserved for the purpose with 99 % water, and one drip of dishwash liquid......used within 5 minutes on the various citrus variety trees.....they get scale insects during the cooler months, ants actually "farm" the scale insects by finding them throughout the garden and carrying them off onto susceptible plants, like my citrus ("Mandarix" and Tangelo etc).
The ants stroke the back off the scale insects and eat the sugary-sappy residue they exude. Obviously one or 2 scale insects don't mind but numbers can build up and they sap the trees energy by sucking the sap.
A second problem is the scale insects secretions, which allow a "sooty mould" black discolouration on the leaves, doesn't matter that it LOOKS unsightly but it obscures the green leaf from doing photosynthesis in the sun, and feeding the plant energy
Normally I spray 2 or 3 times per Autumn-Winter-early Spring season. Obviously this year my plants did not get the Autumn or Winter sprays because I was a few thousand kms away in NZ at the time.
No fancy equipment necessary I just have one of those one dollar finger trigger spray bottles available in supermarkets, holds 500 ml and a few days ago I sprayed a couple of plants. I'll need to do another one spraybottle's worth on some other plants and touch up the Tangelo shrub and things should then be 100 % ok until next Autumn (the scale insects pretty much all cark it during the hot dry weather)
posted by Catherine Jemma at 9:35 am
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