Citrus Care and Maintenance.
Have you ever wanted to grow your own citrus?
So you can pop outside at any me and grab a fresh lemon for your fish or mandarins for the children or a lime for your cooking?
Well it's not hard if you follow a few basic rules of gardening. A healthy citrus tree should be evergreen with dark green leaves right through the canopy. Once a year it aims to cover itself in heavy juicy fruit.
For this to be made possible the tree needs to have A LOT of food available.
Trees need to be fed a well-balanced diet in July, November and February. What to feed, where to feed and how much to feed? These are all important questions.
Most garden centres will have easy to find ‘citrus specific’ fertilisers. There are organic and inorganic options available that have been formulated with trace elements to meet all the requirements of citrus; choose organic as it will also feed your soil.
If you prefer to use manures, composts and blood and bone, be on the lookout for pale leaves as this will indicate deficiencies in trace elements.
If your fruit is sour you can sprinkle sulphate of potash and water with Epson salts (2tsp in 10 litres). Apply the feed around the drip line of the tree as this is where the feeder roots can be found.
Avoid spreading food or compost close to the trunk - follow the directions on the pack as over feeding will be to your detriment and no advantage to the tree. If you are using compost and manures: 4kgs for the first year and then up to 20kgs for a mature tree.
Avoid using nitrogen rich fertiliser as this promotes leaf growth that will be suscepࢢble to aack from leaf miner and scale. Both of these can be controlled with white oil, but best if you can avoid it.
Citrus trees do not like sharing their growing space, this includes weeds or grass or ground covers, and they also do not like having their roots disturbed so regular weeding is not recommended.
It is best to remove all weeds prior to planting, and keep them away with mulching or layers of paper. Remember to keep the mulch away from the trunk.
Finally, or what you should think of before you plant a citrus tree is that citrus need an open sunny spot, with at least six hours of sunshine a day and good drainage. If you can tick all these boxes, you and your tree are on the way to years of good health.
To learn more about care and maintenance of your citrus trees; come down to Jimboomba Community Garden and see what we are doing with our orchard.
We have Michael Wardle from Savour Soils coming to the garden to deliver some worthwhile advice on how to care for the soil, the planting of trees and continued growth, are limited so look up our event on Facebook and pay online to attend. Cost is $15.00