Gardening Guru By Peter Wayman of Palmers Bethlehem

So far this year, the rose foliage is looking good and clean, but you need to keep them sprayed regularly with fungicide and insecticide to keep them looking good all season.

Most things in the garden are growing well at the moment; the temperatures are up and plenty of moisture leads to abundant growth, so keep a good eye out for pests as they will soon be abundant as well.

One pest that has been getting worse year by year is the tomato and potato Psyllid. This damaging pest arrived in New Zealand a few years ago, how it got here, no one knows, but it can devastate your crops.

It can also affect peppers, chillies and other plants in the solanaceae family. The damage comes mainly from bacteria that it transmits and can totally reduce the yields to marble sized potatoes or with tomatoes the plants can totally collapse. It is still not been agreed as to the best method of control. The pests, that look like a miniature cicada, live on the underside of the leaves where it is difficult to spray with a contact insecticide. I believe that the best method of control is good husbandry to look after the beneficial bugs in the garden that will help to control the Psyllids and grow your crops in small blocks. I have found that the early crops seam to evade the pest, but later crops succumb to larger numbers of pets as the summer progresses, so avoid later crops.