Garden guide: October - Cool Region

HELLO SPRING

Your Gardening Guide for October

COOL REGION

HELLO SPRING

Your Gardening Guide for October

COOL REGION

Welcome to October!

Spring planting is in full swing in both the flower and vegetable garden this month. It’s another roll-up-the-sleeves month and a beautiful time to be outside.

October Jobs

#1 Prepare soils

Spread compost around plants and dig into vegie beds to prepare for your next crops. Read our article on composting to get you started.

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#2 Patience

Continue growing summer vegies in your hot house, it’s still too early to plant outside yet! Read our article on warm season crops.

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#3 Fertilise

Fertilise citrus, fruit trees and passionfruit vines with an organic fruit & citrus fertiliser. Read our article on how to succeed with citrus.

Read article

#4 Pricking out tomatoes

In preparation for next month, watch this demonstration on the best way to safely transplant your new tomatoes and prepare them for a robust life outside.

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October Essentials

Get some hot tips and tricks for garden success this October, from pricking out, to seed saving rules as well as planting edible tubers.

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Diggers top pest tips

Black spot and aphids

Apply Epsom salts and sulphate of potash, spray with Eco oil (aphids). Keep a close eye out for aphids on all soft, young growth especially on roses, peaches and nectarines.

Citrus gall wasp

Cut out any galls that appear on your citrus (citrus gall wasp) and place yellow sticky traps, remove these in September so as not to mistakenly catch any beneficial insects.

Protect

Collect snails and slugs to reduce the population in the garden and check underneath leaves for caterpillars, aphids and whitefly. Protect seeds with netting to prevent chewing insects and possums feasting on them. Beer traps for snails if getting into strawberries.

Diggers recommends

Diggers top garden ideas

Mulch

Mulch helps reduce weeds as well as keeping valuable water in your soils.

Mulch with pea straw, lucerne or sugar cane mulch. You can add dolomite lime, rock dust and potash if you wish to boost nutrient levels into the soil for vegetable production.

Discover more on mulch

Fertilise

Feed your entire garden with all purpose organic fertiliser. Fertilise citrus and fruit trees and passionfruit vines and organic- Fruit & citrus food.

Learn about fertilisers

Attract beneficial insects

Plant some violas, marigolds, cornflowers and phlox to attract pollinators and beneficial insects.

Learn how to attract beneficial insects

Diggers recommends

Rockdust

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Marigold

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The Bee Friendly Seed Collection

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Plants to plant now

You can prepare to start planting out many summer vegetable crops that require warmth (keep in mind they will need soil temperature around 20°C to take off properly and no chance of frost) so may want to play it safe and leave it to later in the month or early November.