October gardening guide | Feeding, sowing & planting in your mid-spring garden

October tasks: Mid-spring gardening

October is the busiest month for the garden and the gardener. Growth is so rapid it almost seems to happen before our very eyes. 

Here is a quick overview of some of the key October tasks to tackle over the coming weeks:

Liquid feed

Give your gardens a boost with liquid feed. You can easily make your own fermented fertiliser teas to regularly feed your vegetables, fruit trees, annuals and perennials through spring.

— Feed citrus

Feeding helps to encourage fruiting and flowering. Sprinkle blood & bone around the outer edge of branches, and mulch the base of trees – helping shallow roots get nutrients and stay protected.

Mulch fruit trees

Mulch the bases of your fruit trees. This will help with spring weed control, boosting nutrients, moisture retention and keep the soil temperature cool enough when the summer months approach. Use: leaves, wood/bark chips, pea straw.

Prep the garden for summer veggies

Clear the garden as things begin to go to seed, add compost and erect climbing structures required for summer vegetables.

Plan your veggie rotation

With all the seedlings getting ready to be planted out, now’s a good time to design the bigger picture for your veggie garden with a spring planting plan and annual rotation plan. 

You can generally follow the principle that a. “givers” (e.g. legumes) are followed by b. “high feeders” (e.g. solanaceae, cucurbits, brassicas) followed by c. “low feeders” (e.g. roots and alliums).

But the soil is very forgiving. The aim is to avoid planting the same in each space year after year, so any crop movement between seasons is good.

Sow edibles

Because of the warmer weather in mid spring, many seeds can go straight into the ground over the next few weeks. It’s a good idea to stagger the planting of your seeds so you get a longer and staggered harvest. 

Below are some of the things you can sow right now:

Indoor

Beans, capsicum, chilli, cucumber, eggplant, melons, pumpkin, sweetcorn, tomato, zucchini.

Outside

Beans (warmer areas), beetroot, cauliflower, carrots, celeriac, lettuce/salad greens, onions, parsnip, peas, radish, rocket, silverbeet, spinach, spring onions, herbs (basil, coriander, dill, parsley).

— Watch out for late frosts – wait a few more weeks to sow direct in cooler areas

Sow flowers

In trays (indoors)

Zinnia, rudbeckia, sunflowers 

Direct sow

Cornflower, dara, agrostemma, calendula, orach, mignonette

Pot on seedlings

With the first of the sown seeds big enough (having two true leaves) to prick out and pot on, it’s key to ensure your green babes have good even light in order to grow straight and stout.

Insufficient light will result in leggy seedlings which can fail to thrive and are simply less rewarding to work with. 

In lieu of a glasshouse, a large clear lidded under-bed type storage box is perfectly sufficient (ie. Sistema). Placed outside during the day, the lid can be propped open atop the handles to ensure seedlings don’t cook or drown in spring’s changeable weather. Bring inside in the evening to protect from plummeting nighttime temperatures.

Herbs herbs herbs

Plant basil, coriander, chives and chervil in warm, frost-free areas. 

Cut back sage, thyme and mint to encourage fresh new growth for the summer harvest.

Always plant coriander and parsley (and lettuces) in part shade to protect them from the afternoon sun – this will help slow down their chances of bolting.

Sow green manures

With winter’s veggies coming out, and garden beds waiting for spring sown transplants to size up, take the opportunity to fill any gaps of bare soil with green manures which can be chopped and dropped back on the soil at any stage of growth. 

A bulk bag of buckwheat means a good scattering of seeds is always at hand, and once you come to value the life in your soil, a lush green swathe looks and feels much more satisfactory than soil left exposed to the elements.