September Produce Swappers Gardening Tips
September and October are still transition months for us here in the Macedon Ranges: although Spring has arrived we still have to wait to plant our frost-sensitive summer veggies out in the open. It’s an important time for prepping the veggie garden and planning the layout for summer crops, as well as getting some of the less frost-tender veggies in the ground. Remember to rotate your beds and avoid planting the same plant family in the same bed for more than a season or two, try to plant light feeders to follow heavy feeders and so on and so on. Here’s a good overview if you are new to the idea of (or a bit confused by) crop rotation.
Frost-hardy herbs and perennials can use a haircut now to reinvigorate them for a new season. Herbaceous plants reshoot from the base so if you have a look beneath last season’s growth there should be new foliage appearing by now. Once you see that new material coming through you can cut older stems back to the ground. Thyme, in particular, can be rejuvenated by cutting right to the ground now, applying a handful of dolomite lime and watering it in well. You will be rewarded by lush growth before too long.
Prep beds for heavy-feeding crops such as tomatoes, capsicums, corn, pumpkins, cucumber, etc by adding aged manure, mature compost, dolomite lime for calcium and magnesium, worm castings if you have them and blood and bone (optional).
Keep an eye on moisture levels around the garden as veggies can dry out during this time if we get a period of no rain. Also, once you have prepped a bed ready for summer vegetables it’s a good idea to lay down some straw mulch and start watering it every few days to get the microbes going and bring the worms up into the new soil. This also prevents the soil from developing a crust or becoming hydrophobic.
Short term ‘gap-fillers’ can also be planted around the edges of these beds such as bok choy, Asian greens such as mizuna and mibuna, radishes and spring onions. Spring onions can be harvested when young if needed, or can be left to grow as companion plants for many summer veggies.
Now is a great time to sow a crop of carrots so, as promised last month, here are some tips:
Carrots don’t do well in overly rich soil, so the best option for growing them is in a garden bed that has previously had a heavy feeding crop such as tomatoes, brassicas or leafy greens. Weed the bed, clear up any debris and take off any remaining mulch from the past season. Loosen the soil with a fork and add dolomite lime at one handful per square metre and blood and bone at roughly the same rate, then water in thoroughly and again go through the bed with a garden fork loosening up and aerating the soil. *If you are starting from scratch with a new bed then I would dig the bed over thoroughly, removing any rocks or lumps of soil, then add a bucketful of mature compost per square metre (no manure) and apply lime and blood and bone as described above.
Thoroughly soak the garden bed before you sow your carrot seed. Carrot seed is very fine and can be dislodged easily so soak the bed first and then give a light, careful watering after sowing without disturbing your rows. This is a tip I got from a market gardener and it really makes a difference when sowing root veg generally, but especially carrots.
Mix your carrot seed into a few handfuls of sand (I raid my kids’ sandpit for this!). This makes it easier to spread the seed out into your rows without sowing too thickly
NOW THE MOST IMPORTANT TIP: Once you have sown your carrot seed and watered them in, cover the bed in a layer of wet cardboard and put bricks on top to weigh it down. Carrots like firm contact with the soil and they also need to stay constantly moist during germination – drying out during this phase is the most common cause of failure of carrot crops for home gardeners. Once they have germinated they are actually very easy, fuss free veggies to grow.
Leave the cardboard on for seven days, lifting and checking occasionally to make sure that it is still moist underneath (and giving a light top up water if needed). After the seven days take the cardboard off and continue to water until your carrots come up.
*Remember to thin your carrots to 5cm spacings– this can be very painful once all of your gorgeous seedlings come up but steel yourself! It’s gotta be done! (Ok, ok, if you really can’t face it then at least thin out baby carrots as you go) Use your thinnings to make carrot top pesto – yum!
*Carrots can be bought in punnets as seedlings but I wouldn’t recommend it. This interrupts the growth of the tap root and usually leads to distorted, smaller carrots in the end as they also resent the disturbance of being planted out.
The instructions above can be followed for parsnips also and now is a good time to get them in. In addition to these tips, for parsnips you really want fresh seed (I have some if anyone needs any – feel free to email) and my best tip is to soak seed overnight before planting.
Plant now (Seedlings): Beetroot*, Celery (Best with protection when little), Lettuce, Leeks, Kale, English Spinach, Onion, Pak Choi, Mustard greens, Spring Onion, Silverbeet
*Beetroot is one exception to the rule of sowing all root veggies by seed. They grow extremely well from seedlings and also enjoy, in my experience, higher levels of nutrients than other root veg so I generally plant them with some slow release organic fertilizer.
Sow now: Beetroot, Carrots, Coriander (handles the cold beautifully – surprisingly!), Lettuce, Leeks, Parsnips, Parsley, Peas, Spring Onion, Pak choi and mustard greens, radishes.
Potatoes can be put in now under a thick layer of mulch. By the time they poke through we should only have a couple of frosts to go and they will kick on even if they get burnt back once or twice. Having said that, if you can then just throw something over the garden bed if a frost is predicted to avoid frost damage. Or you can wait a bit to plant.
Continue to sow now in a polytunnel, greenhouse or indoors to plant out once the danger of frost has passed: Bottom heat will be best for - Capsicum, Chillies, Eggplant, Tomato, Basil, Tomatillos, Climbing Spinach. Pumpkins, zucchinis etc can be sown now to grow on although I tend to wait to sow later as they are so fast growing.
Happy gardening!
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