October growing guide
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With spring in full swing, October’s a great time for growing in your garden.
Veggies
October is the best time to sow pumpkins from seed. All pumpkins are great for kids to grow, and even better when they get to eat them! Pumpkins love being in full sun with lots of space (over 1 square metre) for their vigorous vines to spread. Form a slightly raised mound in prepared soil to encourage good drainage and sow three or four pumpkin seeds on top of the mound. Water in well and keep the soil moist.
Sweet corn is easy to grow, and easy to eat. Like pumpkins, corn loves the sun. Grow at least 10 plants together in short rows to ensure better pollination.
Need a bit of spice in your life? Now’s the time to grow chilli in your garden or in pots. They love a sunny sheltered position in rich soil full of compost. If you’re not a seasoned pro, it might be best to start with a milder variety like Bird’s Eye before you attempt the world’s hottest chilli, the Carolina Reaper, measured 70 times hotter than the hottest Tabasco.
Pinch the tops out of basil plants to stop them forming flowers instead of leaves. This will help the plant to stay bushy and lush.
Remember that crop rotation is very important, so avoid planting vegetables from the same family in the same spot in successive seasons. Keep all your veggies watered well and fed regularly.
What to plant in the veggie patch
Seed potatoes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, basil, beans, beetroot, broccoli, burdock, cabbage, capsicum, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chicory, collards, coriander, corn salad, cress, cucumbers, eggplant, endive, fennel, kale, kohl rabi, leeks, lettuce, melons, okra, parsley, pumpkin, radish, sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, salad greens like mizuna and mitsuba, and zucchini.
Fruit
Grow a living homage to your grandparents by planting a choko vine before it gets too hot. They like to be kept mulched, watered and well established.
Mulch strawberries and rhubarb now and cut off any rhubarb heads that are going to seed. Mulching now prevents leaf disease later.
Olive trees are increasingly popular both for their tasty fruit and as a landscaping plant with beautiful evergreen silver-green foliage. If space is limited, there are amazing dwarf varieties such as Garden Harvest, perfect for pots. Who said patios have to miss out on the plant action?
Plant citrus, mango, avocado, tamarillo and pawpaw trees now in warmer areas, ensuring you prepare the soil with plenty of rotted manure and compost.
In all but the coldest and hottest climates you can get mulberries, figs, persimmons, feijoas, and pomegranates in to your garden. Try berries, stonefruit, grapes, nut trees, pears and apples in cooler areas.
Natives
Hold onto colour as long as you can — many native daisies will repeat flower if given a light trim to dead head them at this time of year. Watering with a general-purpose liquid fertiliser will really encourage extra flowering through the summer and autumn.
This is a fantastic time to plant waratahs, with lots of fantastic new cultivars becoming available. If you don’t have well-drained soil, then a large container is a perfect alternative, particularly for smaller gardens.
Gymea lilies are finishing their flowering period now and will benefit from the removal of the spent flower stalks (unless you wish to save them for their seed). It is also a great time to divide large clumps if you wish to increase your numbers. Cut the foliage back by about a half and tease the clumps apart by hand to avoid excessive damage to the crowns. Remove damaged foliage completely.
If you have a big garden and an interest in bush tucker, plant a plum pine for its interesting edible fruits that are particularly good for jam making. It also has lovely foliage and a beautiful trunk. An all-round stunner!
Flowers
Gardenia got you glum? Yellowing foliage may suggest your plant is suffering from a magnesium deficiency. Try watering them with Epsom salts dissolved in 4 litres of water.
Plant out some annual flowers for summer colour if you have any spaces to fill. Torenia, alyssum, impatiens, petunia and catharanthus are all easy to grow in our climate. Cleome is a wonderful tall annual that can be grown from seed.
As spring-flowering shrubs and climbers finish blooming, they can be pruned to encourage compact new growth. Examples include azaleas, brunfelsia, callistemon, camellia, eiosma, eupatorium, lavender, jasmine, rrunus, rondeletia, spiraea, viburnum and wisteria. They can be fertilised and mulched after they are pruned. If you have a passionfruit vine, this is a good time to prune it, too.
Divide and re-pot cymbidium orchids now. Remember that these plants need lots of sun to flower well so place their pots in a sunny position, with perhaps a little protection only from the hot afternoon sun in summer. Start a fertiliser program now for good blooms next winter, using an appropriate orchid food.
Plant sunflower seeds to brighten up any garden and add another food source for yourself and the birds. Some grow over 2 metres tall and have flower faces more than 40cm wide. WOW!
Improving your soil
If you have an area that needs a rest, plant a green manure crop that can be slashed and made ready for January plantings - broad beans, sunflowers, buckwheat or even radish work fabulously as long as you cut them before the bulbs form.
Pretty much every plant needs a feed at this time of year so compost, compost, compost. And throw around a bit of manure and pelletised fertiliser as a treat. Do it just before it rains to help wash away any stinky smells.
Chickens
If your chooks aren't laying well, check their water — fresh running water means more eggs. A stagnant puddle may keep your hens alive, but they won't thrive. Hens won't lay in very hot weather either. Scatter branches over the chook run for some shade and plant some trees, preferably ones like mulberries, tree lucerne or avocados, that can provide chook food. This will also make your chicks feel less vulnerable to predators.
Pest watch
Aphids are out in force feasting on fresh spring growth, so keep a look out for them and control with Pest Oil, a soap spray, or simply hose them off. Be careful not to do this in the hottest part of the day, or your leaves may end up a little crispy.
Snails are also around, so apply a pet-friendly bait - sprinkle spent coffee grounds, squash them or try a beer trap. Or even better, encourage frogs or a blue tongue into your garden to gobble them up! Delicious.
Hang codling moth lures in your apple trees as soon as the blossoms start to appear. If you catch any moths, you’ll need to spray with an organic caterpillar control.
As humidity and temperatures increase, so do fungal problems such as black spot on tropical fruits like mango, causing black sunken patches and fruit fall. Spraying an organic fungicide is necessary from the end of flowering until you harvest the fruit. Spray every four weeks, though during extended periods of wet weather you’ll need to up that to fortnightly.
Work smarter, not harder — no matter which pests are bugging you, try not to do anything about them for at least two weeks… see if natural predators will start doing the job for you.
General gardening
This is a good time to establish a new lawn, or to aerate and fertilise an existing one.
If you haven't applied mulch to your garden, do it now, especially after rain has fallen, so the soil will be moist when the mulch is applied. A thick layer of mulch will help to control weeds and retain moisture in the soil. Great for harsh Australian summers.
Weeding is a great job for this time of year. Tidy up your patch to cut down the competition between your tasty treats and these space invaders.
Head out to the shed on non-gardening days, and sharpen, clean, oil and maintain your garden tools. It’s really rewarding and will save you money and plant problems in the long run.