September in the Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

Septembers plate is refreshingly green: saladings, celery, parsley, leeks, cress, silverbeet, kale, nettle, broccoli shoots for Africa, the last of the cabbage and - joy oh joy the first of the peas and asparagus. There's so much cool stuff to do in the garden right now, so much prettiness, you want to be out there every spare moment!

What to sow + plant in September

Align all your crop choices with their preferred soil warmth - particularly important in spring.

Sow

Direct Sow

• Carrots, parsnip, radish, daikon, mizuna, rocket, dill
• Calendula, cornflower, poppy, nasturtium, borage and sweetpeas

Tray Sow

• Saladings, silverbeet, kale, broccoli, cabbage, peas, parsley, chives, spring onions, red onions, brown onions and shallots
• Set up a heatpad for tomato, chilli, pepper, basil and aubergine, zucchini, cucumber, melon, squash, pumpkin, dwarf beans and climbing beans

Direct or Tray Sow

• Beetroot, spinach, saladings, bok choy, broadbeans, coriander
• Snapdragon, aquilegia, viola, wallflower, larkspur, hollyhock, cleome, marigold, zinnia, alyssum, cosmos

Transplant

• Celery, broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, kale, silverbeet, parsley, saladings, red onions, brown onions, spring onions, potatoes, peas
• Zucchini, cucumber, melon, dwarf beans, climbing beans, soya beans, basil, marigold, tomatoes, chillies, aubergines, basil and peppers in the greenhouse, or outside as soon as the soil hits 20 °C
• Fast growing potatoes like Liseta, Rocket or Swift for the Christmas table. Best present ever! Plant them into buckets, sacks or a pile of organic matter if your soils are still cold and wet.

Prepare the ground

Sort any weedy spots in your garden this month so the ground is ready to plant next month. Do it the easy way and grab a bit of plastic, lay it on top of the weeds and weight it down. Forget about it for a while and when all the weeds have melted into the soil, lift off the plastic, spread some compost and sow or plant.

Regular + Odd jobs

• Be on the look out for slugs and snails. Pop out at night for a slug and snail hunt. Toss any you find into a bucket of salty or limey water. Keep on the job at this time of year, essential to prevent them annihilating your newly planted/ newly germinating seedlings.
• Divide and plant rhubarb, perennial herbs and flowers into any gaps in your perennial borders or beneath or around deciduous fruit trees. Add a few more every spring, and before you know it, your gardens will be jammed packed, no room for weeds and a continual display of flowers for the bees, the beneficials and you.
• Put a concentrated effort into eating overwintering rootcrops still in the ground. As weather warms they'll gear up to seed getting a hard core up the centre, or they'll start to crack and split and grow a seed stalk. Get them up before they go past their best, and along the way, make room for new stuff.
• Make compost.
• Check-in on worm farms. You want them humming!

In the Greenhouse

Begin kumara shoots.

Tie strings to overhead wires, ready for planting tomatoes and cucumbers sometime this month.

Set up frames for climbing beans.

Plant out companion flowers like alyssum, bishops flower, calendula or borage to entice the bees and beneficial insects in. Get some by the entry and then dot them throughout like a trail of crumbs.

Spread a generous layer of compost over beds, sow greencrops in empty spaces, mulch pathways and get excited!