You’ll hear some pseudo animal experts saying that you should not put food out for wild birds. They say that this does them harm. Research around the world has shown that the vast majority of wild birds that are fed by people survive better and breed better. In...
Today’s furphy is that all plants need tender loving care. Most plants like to be looked after with water and fertiliser but some don’t. Most native plants do best when left alone. Water and fertiliser can poison them or make them grow too fast, causing a shorter life...
More Old Husband’s Tales today. Many people will insist that placing plastic soft drink bottles filled with water on the lawn will prevent dogs defecating on the lawn. This is utter nonsense – in fact one university did research on this and proved that it was just an...
The classic Old Husband’s Tale is that azaleas and camellias hate lime. This is not true. This myth comes from England where many of the soils are alkaline – that is, full of lime. So in England (or the Mediterranean for that matter) you don’t add lime around...
Today’s Old Husband’s Tale is that it’s fine to put fresh lawn clippings onto the garden around your plants. This is just a bad thing to do. The grass clippings shed water, keeping the soil underneath quite dry. They also give ammonia and other gases which can harm...
More old husband’s tales and furphies today. You must top dress your lawn every year. This is what people used to do religiously. Well it is not a good thing to do. Most top dressing soils are alluvial silts that quickly compact and don’t permit water to enter the...
Today we’re looking at more Old Husband’s Tales. We all know that putting bits of broken crocks or stones in the bottom of the pot improves drainage don’t we? Well, this is nonsense. Adding stones or broken crocks to the bottom of the pot actually harms your plants....
Today we’re looking at Old Husband’s Tales The myth is that when you are growing carrots they often fork underground into 2 or 3 separate distorted carrots and that this is caused by hard soils and rocky soils. That is, that if you had prepared your soil better by...
Winter is the traditional time to prune most deciduous trees. It’s done in winter mostly because it’s easier to see what you are doing after the leaves have dropped. Most fruit trees are pruned so that the tree height is reduced to make picking easier and safer. So...
It’s very common for your chooks to cease laying eggs over winter. Most chooks tend to have their annual moult in late autumn & into winter. This is a stressful and tough time for the chooks, hence they cease laying eggs. During this time the chooks need extra...