Flinging in the Rain

I'll never match Gene Kelly and his 'Singing in the Rain' routine, but I've just been dancing around our garden, flinging in the rain, and I feel just as good as Gene ever did.

You see, it's citrus fertilising time, and in recent years I've decided to abandon any pretence to sanity for this special occasion, and as soon as I hear the rain falling, I'm out in the garden with my bag of perfumed chicken poo, flinging it under our fruit trees, while the rain does the other important job – watering in the fertiliser while it gently soaks the skin of one slightly crazy old gardener.

As well as this 'Eureka' lemon tree we have
a 'Tahiti' lime and a Thai lime in a pot. They
all get a good feed now. For this lemon tree,
I give it about a dozen generous handfuls.
The potted citrus gets just one handful, but
I feed it several times a year, unlike its big
siblings planted in the ground.

For Australian (and I guess all other Southern Hemisphere gardeners) you should feed your citrus trees twice a year: at the end of summer (late February) and the end of winter (late August).

Now, as for what to use, your choices are many, but I go for chicken poo every time. Here in Australia it's sold under several brand names, but the biggest seller is Dynamic Lifter. Not all Dynamic Lifters are equal, though, so you should check out the labelling before you buy anything, as some products are "organic" and others are "organic-based".

Here's the "organic based" version, which I
spread around the garden this morning. As well
as the chicken poo, it contains non-organic
additives to boost its performance as a fruit
food. So, if you are ideologically pure when it
comes to organic gardening, it's a sin.
But if you are like me, and you practise all the
other organic gardening basics, such as using
compost and mulch to feed the soil and refraining
from the use of any nasty chemical sprays, then
a bit of organic-based rocket fuel to keep fussy
citrus happy isn't such a big sin. So there. 

However, if you are pure of heart and
purpose, an organic saint, there are forms
of manures sold which contain no additives,
and they're all great plant foods. Look for
the organic certification seals on the packet.
If it's the real thing, it should have them.

My excuse is that every second time round, I choose rocket fuel over standard fuel, and I think our citrus like that little boost to their diet.

The moral of the story, though, is that whatever you choose, use it now. You can do it in the sunshine and water the fertiliser in with a hose (the boring but sensible option), or you can do it in the rain, dancing around your garden like a slightly deranged, green-thumbed Gene Kelly. 

Lemons, limes and chicken poo

There's a farmyard scent in the air right now in our garden, so Pammy's gone out shopping for the day. Yep, it's citrus feeding time once again, folks, and the nostril-poking "wake-up!" scent of chicken poo fills the air. It only lasts a few days, but that familiar, twice-a-year smell imprints itself on my memory as powerfully as the colours of seasonal flowers. 

The memorably well-named chicken poo fertiliser product,
Dynamic Lifter, has been a mainstay of our garden for decades
now, but there's a new version that we're trying out, the
'reduced odour' Dynamic Lifter. Personally, I rank reduced
odour chicken poo up there with decaffeinated coffee and low-fat
cheese as a "why would anyone bother?" kind of offering, but
apparently some people like coffee without the drugs, and tasteless
cheese, and, unbelievably, chicken poo that doesn't stink.
Takes all types, thank goodness I am a tolerant liberal.

Anyway, on with the road test. It seems to me that the so-called 'reduced odour' chicken poo merely stinks to high heaven for a shorter period of time. It doesn't not stink, by any means. It just runs out of stink well before standard Dynamic Lifter does. So in that sense it's 'reduced odour' 

I use the souped-up version of Dynamic Lifter on my citrus trees. It's what they describe as 'Organic Based', rather than organic. That is, it contains a lot of chicken poo, plus some added extras designed to really get citrus fruiting.

The reduced odour Dynamic Lifter is labelled as 'organic'. That is, no fancy additives. I used the low-odour stuff in my vegie patch and to help a line of slow-growing gardenias along. The poor gardenias were planted in late spring and haven't enjoyed this hot, dry summer at all. They've grown just a bit, I've watered them a lot, and I'm hoping that the February rains plus the Dynamic Lifter will encourage them to grow a lot more this autumn. We'll see; if it works, then reduced odour Dynamic Lifter has passed its test.

As for the citrus, they'll bounce back from a yucky, over-dry summer. The general rule with feeding them here in temperate Sydney and elsewhere is to feed them twice a year, late summer and late winter. For me, that's February and August. I've used Dynamic Lifter for the last 20 years on my citrus trees and it'll do me.

I love that seasonal smell, Pammy doesn't, but it lasts just a few days.

Tangy weather

One of the good things about gardening in backyards is that the rest of the street can't witness the strange things you sometimes get up to: like gardening in the rain.

Now, all my Sydney gardening friends don't need a weather report – we all know it has been raining for the last few days, and that it's likely to keep on raining for a while longer yet. So most sensible folk might think "oh well, it's raining, might as well read a book/watch a video/bake a cake/clean the house, etc etc".

But no, not this little gardener. "It's raining, yippee, time to feed some plants!" And so that's what I did today: I fed my three citrus trees. As a matter of fact, rainy days are the ideal times to pile on the fertiliser. That's because the theory is that you should water the ground well before applying plant foods. Rainy days take care of that little job for me. And then you should water the ground well after applying plant foods, to get the nutrients down into the soil. Thank you once more, rainy day!

Here in our temperate climate at least, it's best
to feed citrus grown in-ground twice a year,
at the end of summer (late Feb) and early spring
(late August). This is my Eureka lemon tree,
healthy and happy, always willing to scoff a bit
more food and produce some more juicy fruit.

It's not the prettiest lemon tree, having had a
rough childhood, bullied by the roots of a nearby
 climber which is no longer there. But it has bounced
back since the bully left, although it does lean to the
left slightly, like that famous tower in Italy.

Also getting a feed today was this person, the Tahiti lime, which
is grown espalier-style on a frame of solid wires suspended
between two swimming pool fence posts. This loyal trooper is about
10 years old now and is soldiering on nicely. It needs regular
clipping back (about two or three times a year) to maintain
its thinnish, wideish shape, but it's too lush with foliage to ever
take on the classic leafy 'arms' look of the fancy pear and apple
espaliers that you see in the designer gardening books.

There's only one problem with Tahiti limes and
that is they bear their fruit in a big bunch in
late summer and early autumn, then for the
rest of the year there's very few to enjoy.

Even though I religiously thin out fruits where
I can to cut down the gluts, I always miss a few
clusters and I end up with these bunches. 

The exception to the 'late summer/early spring'
feeding regime is potted citrus, such as this
potted Thai makrut lime. It gets fed lightly
but more often, around once a month is ideal.

As for what to feed citrus and how much, there's a stack of different options, each with its own instructions on the pack that are well worth following to the letter. 

For the potted makrut lime I prefer to use a slow-release product such as Osmocote for Citrus, but every now and then I give the pot a small half-handful of chicken poo, sometimes a bit of cow poo, if I am fertilising other plants nearby in the warmer growing season, when I am watering the pot a lot and it's probably growing faster than ever and can cope with a bit of a treat. The main thing is not to apply too much food to potted citrus trees at any one time, but to keep on giving it little feeds throughout the year.

As for the in-ground plants, I prefer an organic-based product such as Dynamic Lifter for Fruit and Citrus (for no special reason other than habit and good results). Notice I say it's "organic based" and not "organic". That's because so many good, useful modern plant foods now fall into this "organic based' category. They don't qualify as a purist organic product but that doesn't bother me greatly. The Dynamic Lifter, for example, is basically chicken poo, but these days the manufacturer (Yates) has added in trace elements to boost its effectiveness. 

My commitment to organic gardening is more to do with avoiding sprays which kill beneficial insects; to use methods which slowly but surely 'feed' the soil over the years with compost, manures and mulch; and to encourage a little backyard eco-system where birds, beetles, lizards, spiders, worms and all sorts of creatures find a home to share with us, and each other.

Citrus feeding time again, folks

Here's a reminder for all the Aussie gardeners with citrus plants of any sort, especially those growing in the ground: it's feeding time again, folks. These greedy plants need feeding at the end of February each year, then again at the end of August. You don't have to slavishly follow that timetable, but late winter and late summer are the ideal feeding times, and a good feed every six months is what they need. So here's what I did about an hour ago.

First, I watered the ground under the whole canopy of each tree (pictured here is my Eureka lemon tree, laden with developing fruit – yippee!). The reason for the 'water first' rule is to make sure the plants slake their thirst just on pure water, and not on fertiliser-laden water, which isn't such a good thing for them.

Second, spread the plant food all around the area under the tree's canopy, and especially around the outer edge of the tree's 'dripline' (just imagine the rough circle on the ground where water rolls off the foliage on the tree's perimeter, that's the dripline). Here, I'm using Dynamic Lifter, which is pelletised chicken poo. Being organic, it stinks to high heaven for a day (and Pam says "That's it, I'm going shopping in town for the day".) The packet says to apply three scoops-full per square metre of area. So my lemon tree got six scoops, scattered evenly, as did my lime tree. There are stacks of different citrus foods around, but I like the organic chicken poo, and I am sure the worms in the soil like it too. Pam's not so keen on it, but as she likes shopping she has discovered that citrus feeding day has its attractions.

Third and final step is to water in well afterwards, to get some plant food down into the soil, and to help all the rest of the pellets to start breaking down. That's it.

There are only three citrus trees in my small backyard. The other one planted in the ground is my espaliered 'Tahiti' lime, which is covered in limes ready to use now. This regular feeding keeps the leaves green and glossy and seems to fortify the tree so it looks after itself quite well. It still gets attacked by small numbers of pests, but largely it's pretty trouble-free, and I'm sure that's because it's well fed.

My other citrus tree is a potted cumquat. These need a different feeding regime altogether. I feed this one lightly every month in spring and summer. Today, I watered it first, then slipped one scoop of Dynamic Lifter pellets under the straw, then watered it again. Other times, when I'm feeling lazy, I give it a liquid feed. And in the cooler months I drop back to feeds every six weeks.

The cumquat is cropping better and better as it grows (it's about three years old now), and this crop should ripen in midwinter. Next spring I plan to transfer it to a slightly larger pot, and to replace the potting mix at the same time.

Listen to a gardening talkback radio show and about a third of the callers are having problems with their citrus trees. It's true that citrus can get all sorts of pests, diseases and nutrient deficiencies, mystery ailments and crop failures. But I'm slowly discovering that if you feed and water them very regularly, grow them in well-drained soil in a sunny spot, and they're much easier to live with than you might imagine.

Lemons & limes

Greed is not good. Well, that's what some people say, but if you're a lemon, a lime or some other citrus tree you know that's bunkum. Greed is good as far as they are concerned. Well, if it's greed for fertiliser, sunshine and water you're talking about, then greed is good. August is citrus-feeding time here in Oz, and I fed mine early in the month, and aren't they happy little gluttons now!

The pinky hue says this is a lemon flower, so too does the light scent if you get up close (although a bee might have an opinion on whether your head is welcome or not in that particular branch). Baby lemons forming everywhere, too.

Clusters of blooms are covering my baby two-year old 'Eureka' lemon at the moment. Far too many in fact, but I'll let them go for another week or two – the flowering is such a delightful sight.

At the edges of every branch, new shoots are reaching out for the sun, and these guys are my priority at the moment. The plan is not to let fruits form, to encourage more plant growth. That's easier said than done, though. It's a fruit tree, for goodness sake, and it just doesn't seem right or look right to be bereft of fruit. And so I'll compromise and cut off most of the fruits, but I'll leave a token half dozen or so to grow on just to cheer myself up. Last year, in its first year, I let two lemon fruits develop, and they were superb, their juice squeezed over some Sydney rock oysters.

The all-white, almost scentless blooms of my lime tree are pretty things, too, and there are plenty of them on my happy and healthy, eight-year-old, well-established espaliered lime tree.

Just managed to spot this lime flower bud bursting open this morning. Looks like a dessert already!

All my lime tree requires from me is feeding in August and February each year, plus a constant supply of water. Given plenty of sunshine and clear blue skies, plus our merciful lack of frosts to bother it in winter, it supplies the best little green limes for making everything from margaritas to guacamoles and an assortment of tangy tarts and puddings.

All the Aussies reading this blog probably are all keen gardeners and already know that it's citrus feeding time, but just in case a stranger wanders past and puts his or her nose up against the window of my blog, here's your reminder. Go feed your lemons, limes or whatever citrus you have growing this weekend. August is citrus feeding time, so is February.

I mostly use chicken manure pellets to feed my citrus trees but any of the commercially available citrus foods are fine, and apparently rose food is almost identical to citrus food, and so if you have some of that lying around, give some to your greedy citrus trees this weekend. And don't forget to water the tree well before fertilising, then water well again after fertilising as well. Do this feeding routine again in February and many of the problems experienced by notoriously temperamental citrus trees will hopefully be a thing of the past, or at the very least not as bad as they once were.