Spring cleaning might be ideal indoors but autumn provides the perfect time for tidying and preparing the outdoors for winter.

Ideally, large block owners will have their hay supply – either from the paddocks or bought in – behind the baler, safely stored out of the weather.

Where gateways have become pugged and muddy, building up before winter can help improve drainage. Used potting mix, often available from propagating nurseries, is great for this task.

Erecting a temporary hot tape and feeding-out well away from gateways, can help prevent damage. In spring, old hay or the sweepings from the barn floor, can then re-pasture bare areas.

Kikuyu grass (pennisetum  clandestinum) grows  rampantly  during  the  late summer  warmth, especially if warm rain falls. Now is the time to get this  grass under control.

Imported from Africa in the 1920s, kikuyu has been a mixed blessing for farmers in northern New Zealand. A great survivor of summer droughts and a coloniser of sand country, kikuyu requires good management.

Northland farmers formed the Kikuyu Action Group to do their own practical, on-farm research into the best ways to make kikuyu more productive and nutritious.

Their findings, in a nutshell, suggested that kikuyu must be rotationally grazed year-round, with very hard grazing through autumn to allow clover and winter rye grasses to come through. Maintaining soil fertility is essential to retaining feed quality and regrowth.

Kikuyu is a pest on roadsides, driveways and, in plantings, it is quite capable of smothering small trees and shrubs. So, autumn is the ‘last chance’ to get a good kill, right down to the underground  rhizomes.

Roundup, in any of its commercial forms, will do a good job while the plant is still active.

When preparing for planting in thick kikuyu, a blanket spray of the area twice during the growing season, ideally November, then February/March, will see a good kill, with the dead grass fibre making a great planting mulch and the rhizomes rotted down.

Heavy mulching with old baleage has been a successful organic treatment of thick kikuyu mats. The organic spray, Hitman, can also be used on driveways and edges.

It is effective on most weeds controlled by glyphosate but works by breaking down cell walls so is best used on hot, sunny days. It will not translocate to root systems so 2-3 treatments will be required.

A final tidy of pasture weeds now will set you up for next season. And remember, a grubber is a great farm  companion. Many weeds can be chipped  out now that the soil is moist; persistant weeds  such as the Californian thistle, pennyroyal, will respond to an appropriate spray regime.

April is also a very good month for putting a liming or fertilising programme in place. This will  set you up for winter pasture.

Now’s also the time to attack any gorse or blackberry that has  “got away’ over summer. Just before dormancy the blackberry will rapidly take the herbicide through the root system, achieving a more effective kill than mid-season spraying. Picloram herbicide without penetrant is very effective; picloram or metsulfuron are ideal for  gorse with penetrant.

Pest plants such as flannelweed also respond rapidly at this time of year.

Larger plants are easily treated with Vigilant Gel or a homemade but messier version of Tordon mixed with diesel (equal  parts). Sturdy rubber gloves and a paintbrush are essential.

NB.All  sprays  should be  used  strictly  as  directed by  manufacturers with full growsafe handler precautions taken at all times.