Hello Gardeners!
Well I don't know where 2023 went, but now we're heading into spring, which will roll us straight into summer and 2024!
I hope you've spent your winter wisely 'cos it's about to get a lot more busy in the garden.
Top-line important things for this month:
Prepare your gardens - evict the weeds, check your compost bins and worm farms if your garden beds need a top up.
Finish pruning, start spraying fruit trees - this is your last chance to get in on winter pruning. Some tips for spraying are below.
Last month for planting strawberries.
Outside: planting potatoes, establishing and maintaining your asparagus, last rounds of brassica, plant more peas. Sowing carrots, onions, radish, lettuces, silverbeet, and beetroot.
Indoor: sow your summer seeds ready to go out in October and November.
Asparagus
Time to plant asparagus! You might find these as seedlings, or as crowns at your local garden center. You can also buy crowns online. Some varieties are also available as seeds.
Crowns are the most expensive option, but they will give you a harvest sooner than seedlings. If you plant crowns, then you'll want to let them grow and establish this year, but you can harvest a few spears next season.
If you grow or plant seedlings, you'll need to wait two-to-three years until you begin your harvest. A crown has already had its initial growing season with the grower.
Newer disease-resistant varieties will cost more then the heritage ones, which might be more susceptible to fungal diseases. Remember that asparagus is a perennial crop. The initial up-front investment is one of the last times you'll need to buy asparagus at all!
Established beds should start seeing spears this month so keep your eyes open!
Potatoes
I don't buy a lot of eating potatoes, but I can really see the effect of the floods earlier this year in grocery stores. Especially in my favourite potato products! It makes me glad most of our potato supply is grown in our garden.
If you have an early crop in, they will need mounding. Giving them extra layers of soil or mulch helps protect them from frost, which will really zap them!
If they're too big for more mulch and you feel a frost coming, get a frost cloth, sheet, or other cover over them to keep them safe.
But don't worry, there's still another month or two to plant early potatoes. Planting them in mid-late October should mean they're ready for the Christmas table if you haven't got around to starting yet.
In the meantime, if you're like me and your entire gardening timetable partially revolves around growing potatoes, it's time to source your main crop seed and get them chitting ready for planting once soils are a little warmer.
Main crops are the ones you can store. Earlies are best eaten straight out of the garden. That's the big difference really. Earlies can be grown anytime in the season. Main crops are better planted in warmer conditions we'd expect to start receiving from late October.
I think I'm going to plant my main crops in November this year. I've had better luck with harvests in warmer soils. January plantings seem to do much better for us than the earlier ones.
Really any time from now to about December-January is the perfect time to plant some spuds. They'll take 2-4 months to mature, depending on your variety.
In the garden
Sow beetroot seed straight into the garden. It can be sown alongside silverbeet, onions, and lettuce seed if you'd like a nice mixed bed.
Carrots and parsnips can also be sown straight into the garden. They pair up well with peas and radish, which can also be sown at the same time.
It's the last-call for the larger brassica like broccoli or cauliflower, unless you can find summer varieties that resist bolting. Get seedlings in this month.
Spinach lovers should also get some going either by sowing seeds or planting seedlings.
Sow indoors
Anything you sow this month will benefit from any extra warmth and light you can give them.
Eggplant, chilis, capsicum, tomatoes and basil seeds can all be started indoors this month.
Putting one or two courgette and/or cucumber seeds in a pot this month will get your season off to a good start too.
You can get your pumpkin or melon seeds going this month - but I'd wait towards the end. They can both struggle going out into colder temperatures, and waiting til early October usually works better in my garden. Soak these larger seeds in slightly warm water in a warm place overnight before sowing into individual pots.
It's time to sow celery. Just incidentally, if you've struggled with celery in the past, why not give the herb parcel a nibble next time you're at the garden center? It is a reliable perennial that I swear, tastes more like celery than celery itself!
Spraying fruit trees
If your fruit trees suffer from fungal or pest issues, now - before new growth begins - is the time to start fighting them.
If you want to go the fully organic route, then I recommend checking out Kath Irvine's post on Biological Fungicide. The product she recommends, Botryzen, might be a game-changer for you if you're sick of spraying copper about without seeing results.
Also in the organic family, Conqueror or Enspray99 are both horticultural oils that you can use to smother pests such as scale, aphids, and mites. The best time to spray these is in the evening just before the sun sets. The oil will work overnight and dry with the morning dew.
Be careful about what you're spraying while your trees are blossoming. Bees will about and you don't want to kill them or have them taking home poisons to their hives.
Spring sales
Keep an eye on garden centers for the next couple of months. As well as some great spring bargains, you're also going to find bags of potting mix, seed-raising mix, and slug pellets with '25% extra free'.
I always try to pick up a couple of these super-sized products to make things stretch a little longer. But they really will go away after a couple of months (and come back again next spring), so grab them when you see them!
Good luck in your garden this month - the secret to a great garden is to do a little bit, regularly. So go get your fingers in the dirt!
If you have any questions, feel free to throw them in the comments.
Until next month,
Kat