Planting Guides - month by month - follow these proven tips  

 

OCTOBER

 

Nurture your soil

Prepare a heavily fertilised plot for the corn crop.

Manure, compost and mulch veggies. Liquid feed leafy greens with weak compost tea.

Re-pot or top dress perennial plants in containers.

Keep paw paws mulched to maintain moisture.

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Plant care

Leaf– lettuce, silverbeet

Sow direct and/or in seed trays

Cucurbits –cucumber,melons, pumpkins, zucchini  

Sow direct or in milk containers 

Root – beetroot, carrots, parsley

Sow direct

Allium - leeks, spring onions.Sow direct or in seed trays. Garlic bulbs

Solanaceous –tomatoes, capsicum, chilli, aubergine in seed trays

Sow direct or in seedtrays

Legumes – snake, bush and climbing beans

Sow direct or in milk containers

Corn- sow direct

Herbs – softwood cuttings- curry, lavender, mint, sage, thyme

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Plant seedlings :

Leaf – lettuce, silver beet

Root – beetroot

Allium – shallots, onions

Herbs – basil, coriander,dill,parsley, sage

Other - celery, globe artichoke, Florence fennel

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Plant:Tubers of potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, onion sets

Hand pollinate passionfruit.

 

Maintenance

Weed young vegetables and herbs and protect them from snails and slugs.

Fill snail traps with beer,

Put out DAK pots for fruit fly

Continue earthing up potatoes.

Check nets, stakes and ties

Make portable netted frames to keep birds off seedlings.

 

Harvest

Beetroot, cauliflower, broad beans, carrots, leeks, lettuce, parsnip, peas, rhubarb, silver beet, spinach.

Herbs

 

TIPS   Insect repellent plants

Ants- tansy, spearmint, pennyroyal

Aphids(Wooly)clover,chives,garlic,nasturtium

Aphids-red and orange nasturtium, chives, garlic, onion, mustard are decoys.

mint, parsley are deterrents

Bean beetle- white geranium,potatoes, onions, marigolds

Cabbage butterfly- marigolds, peppermint,tomato

Cabbage grubs-rosemary, sage, mint

Carrot fly- parsley, rosemary, sage

Cucumber beetle-radish, tansy

Harlequin bug- radish, turnip, onions

Japanese beetle- garlic

Leaf hopper - geranium

Moths- basil,lavender, sage, dried rosemary, santolina, wormwood, mint

Nematodes- marigolds, mustard, french lavender, stinking roger

Stink bugs- radish, jerusalem artichokes

Thrips-marigolds, nasturtiums, tobacco, basil

Whitefly – rhurbarb,nasturtiums, marigolds