How To Dig In A Green Manure Crop, Make A Codling Moth Trap And Prune A Feijoa Tree
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- Опубликовано: 8 окт 2017
- Digging in our lupin bed:
It’s best to dig in a green manure crop when no more than 10 per cent of the plants are flowering (or any time earlier). If you leave it any longer, the plants become woody and take too long to break down.
Remove netting and hoops if you had nets on, pull the plants out by the roots and lay them back on top of the bed.
Use a spade to chop up the plants. It may be worth sharpening your spade first to make the job easier. Use a sharpening stone at a 45 degree angle in a circular motion over both sides of the blade.
After chopping the crop up, work over the bed with a fork, lifting the soil to aerate it. Then apply lime and leave.
There’s no need to dig the green manure crop in completely. Within 2-3 weeks, the crop will have broken down and the bed will be ready to plant up shortly after that.
Making codling moth traps for apple and pear trees:
It’s time to get traps on our apple and pear trees to catch the codling moths which will start flying shortly. You need to get the traps on before bud burst.
In a bucket mix ½ cup molasses, 1 cup cider vinegar, 5 cups water, small squeeze of dishwashing liquid and a few drops of ammonia. Mix well together.
Using a craft knife or pair of scissors cut a hole of around 30-40mm in diameter on either side of a 2-litre milk bottle. Pour the mixture into the bottle to about 5 cms high. This recipe will make 3-4 traps. Secure the lid back on the bottle.
Tie from the handle of the bottle onto the V of two sturdy branches using soft-cloth ties so that the trap dangles securely in the middle of the tree. Depending on the size of the tree you may need up to 3 traps in each tree.
Pruning a feijoa tree:
Before your tree bursts with new growth and flowers, it’s time to give it a prune. Feijoas are pollinated by birds rather than bees, so you need to have the tree as open as possible for them to fly through.
We start by removing low growth which creates a problem for the lawn mower and it restricts light to the understorey plants (comfrey and cleaver in our case).
Using loppers, remove spindly growth and inward-growing branches. Think of how you want the tree to end up and work towards that. You may need a small pruning saw to help you with larger branches.
Never worry about over-pruning as it will grow back and feijoas only bear on new season’s growth anyway.
After pruning, add an animal manure and rock dust to the dripline (the circumference of the tree, which is where the tree feeds from). 
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Thank you for the coddling moth trap how-to, ive struggled with them for a few years but i made some and put them in the apple trees and caught hundreds of them! Im so pleased, thank you !!!!
Are you still active on here?
That is a great explanation for the codling moth traps, thank you soo much! I lost almost all my apples on my 3 year old tree last year!! Never heard of those bloomin critters before!
Where on the planet are you?
Iona UK
Hi Iona We are not putting many more videos up, but we are active with blog posts. We are in New Zealand, and have a Southern and Northern Hemisphere newsletter that you can subscribe to on our website organicediblegarden.co.nz 😊
Great channel bro.
Subbed.
Adding dates to the tittle would be helpful e.g. mid sept, especially for those new to gardening
Does the trap attract honey bees and bumble bees also? as I dont want to hurt those guys...Have you seen wasps or bees in the trap?
Very helpful. Our feijoas and guavas are rendered virtually useless by the Queensland guava moth. Feremone attractant and sticky strips catch many moths but the individual females that are not caught still do the damage. Any ideas along the line of your codling moth traps? :-)
These traps will help catching the guava moths. Other methods are applying neem granules around the base of the tree and hanging neem granules in breathable bags in the branches. The smell repels them. Also spraying with Btk (bacillus thuriengiensis kurstaki) - a biological control for caterpillars. And Rob says this is very effective at his place... www.lifestylefocus.co.nz/buy-online/pestrol-outdoor-dominator-guava-moth-trap/www.lifestylefocus.co.nz/buy-online/pestrol-outdoor-dominator-guava-moth-trap/😊
Great video. Could you explain the tree fertilizer application a bit more. The drip line or circumference is located where exactly? Is that the outside edge of the branch line where a straight down rain would reach? Also do the moth traps also trap bees?
Hi Becky Sorry for the very long time it's taken to see your question!! Yes, the drip line is exactly that - where the rain would fall if it dripped off the external branches. It indicates where the ends of the roots of the tree are and where fertiliser will benefit the tree the most. We haven't caught bees in our traps before. 😊
Good videos but kill the music - makes watching more than one video painful
I disagree. The music works good as a filler. But probably have the volume a bit lower
How long would you wait before planting that lupine bed with potatoes? I am asking because you cautioned against adding lime to potato beds. Thank you!
Yes, that's a great question. We would wait a whole year before putting a crop of potatoes in the bed that's had lupins in it and had lime added to help break down the lupins. Lime is definitely not good for potatoes as it can cause potato scab.
A few questions about your moth trap. What month do you put them in the garden? Will the trap attract a Wax Moth.Wax moths destroy honey bee hives in the summer and I would love something to kill them before they get into the hives. Do they fly into the bottle and can't find their way out or does the solution kill them?
We put our moth traps in the garden in early spring, just before bud burst. We don't have Wax Moths in our part of the world, so can't comment on that sorry. Yes, they fly into the bottle, attracted by the smell of the ammonia and molasses and can't find their way out.
Thanks for getting back. I give this a try.
Much easier to cut them while standing and get much smaller pieces.
Thanks for the advice :)
This is a sad sight. You should never pull out green manure crops, and you should never dig them in. A proper cover crop is rolled over when flowering, because any annual like your lupins will die if rolled over during flowering. You can use a wood plank like I do to squash them. They never grow back. And the soil is used to eating decaying roots IN the ground and decaying litter ON the ground. I know that for years people have said that you should dig in green manure, but it's just stupid. You're killing worms, mycorrhizae and overall damaging the soil by doing this. If you roll the cover crop over, this becomes your new mulch, and you get great soil life. Perfect for sowing peas, beans or squash, or to transplant tomatoes, cucumbers or peppers. No need to dig.
Interesting. Can you explain 'rolling over' a bit more please? Do you mean just squashing the plants with something heavy?
@@organicediblegarden9061 Yes that's what farmers all around the world do in no till cover crop systems. They have a tractor with a big roller on the back. For gardeners, a plank or snowshoes, or if you have a big garden, your car, can be enough. You do not have to cut the plants down. Any annual plant in flower or in seed will die if you roll it over. That's what you need to take advantage of. I invite you to look at videos such as this one : ruclips.net/video/4w5uG62SjRM/видео.html
@@nicolasbertin8552 Thanks for this. We've watched the video. The machine does the 'rolling' while it sows the harvest crop, but they say you can cut or mow it if you're not working on this scale. Will try it next winter here.
@@organicediblegarden9061 the issue with cutting over rolling, is that you take the risk of the plant growing back. Take rye for example : roll it over, it will die and decompose. Cut it, it might send a new shoot up, which may disturb your planting. That new shoot will never be the size of the previous one, but it's still annoying. Plus if you cut, it doesn't produce as nice a mulch. The last hurdle for me is to have a cover crop mix with plants that flower at the same time so I can kill them at the same time. Coz some can become weeds if you let them go into seeds, such as buckwheat. Cover crops are essential in modern agriculture, but they can be difficult to master.
@@nicolasbertin8552 OK fabulous information. Keep in touch :)