Looking ahead to a “Labour” Weekend in the
garden
October
is probably one of the busiest months of the year for the garden especially
towards the end of the month with Labour weekend being the great traditional NZ
planting weekend. You can start sowing seeds well before then to be ready for
the big weekend. As you sow your first lot of seeds, kick off your succession
planting cycle by purchasing some punnets of well grown plants from your local
garden centre or store and get them into the ground.
Succession
planting is the practice of staggering your sowing or planting over the growing
season. We do this for a number of reasons, but mainly so that you don’t have your
crops all ripening at once. You want to avoid that in the family vegetable
garden especially with crops you can’t store or preserve. A good rule of thumb is to sow or plant
every 4-5 weeks or so. If you have
raised plants in trays, sow the next lot of seed the same day you plant out
your seedlings.
Some
of the more tender crops you can start under glass or indoors in a warm space
in early spring. This is important
here in the south to make the most of our growing season. Tomatoes for example
are easy to grow from seed but you need to get in early or they will not ripen
before the autumn days start to cool on us.
Jobs for this Month
Sow:
Peas, beetroot, swedes, turnips, lettuce, carrots, parsnips, parsley, broccoli, brussel
sprouts, cabbage, cauli, leeks, silverbeet.
Sow
under cover in a warm space: tomatoes, capsicum, pumpkin, courgettes, cucumber,
celery, sweet corn, beans
Plant:
Punnets of brassicas, celery, peas, leeks, silverbeet, lettuce, potatoes,
asparagus.
Cultivate:
Keep any weeds at bay with regular hoeing and mulching. Liquid feed growing
plants at least fortnightly especially your garlic crop.
Harvest:
Broad beans, silverbeet, asparagus, lettuce etc
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