
It’s all go now that the Spring weather has arrived – even with the few colder days and frosty mornings – and while the soil isn’t quite warm enough to plant out the sumemr seedlings, it’s been a great opportunity to raise more seedlings, and move the first round of tomatoes into bigger pots for them to continue growing. I did already plant a few early zucchinis, and depsite losing one to the cold, the other 5 are doing really well.
With the number of fails over the cooler months, I’m hoping I can improve my yield over the warmer months. I have quite a few tomatoes – including a few new ones, Pink Brandywine (A climbing tomato I purchased on eBay) and one called Goldman’s Italian American which I received through the #seeds_are_free_au project. I lost my first lot of 6 as I left them outside on a cold night – I have just planted the remaining 6 seeds and hope that I don’t do the same to these ones.






Plans for October for the 10 in 10 Challenge crops:
Crop | October tasks |
Tomatoes | Move seedlings into larger pots in preparation to plant out in late October/November. |
Basil | Seedlings started, hopefully they will be ready to plant out in November. |
Cucumber | Seedlings have started, lost a few to the cold and earwigs or slug/snail attack while still in their pots. Plant in larger pots ready to plant late October |
Zucchini | Second round of seedlings started, move on to bigger pots, plant out in October/November |
Carrots | Harvest last of the carrots in the beds. Maybe plant more seed direct into garden bed – undecided on whether to grow more |
Lettuce / Salad Greens | lots of self seeded lettuces appearing, save some seed for sharing at the food swap |
Potatoes | growing – no extra care needed |
Peas | Harvest peas over October then cut at ground level and use as mulch (same with the broad beans) |
Cabbage | I have a few seedlings that I have just moved to larger pots, they’re not looking great, but fingers crossed |
Broccoli/ Cauliflower | – |
Other tasks for October
I still have some mulch to add as the new plantings go in along with some extra bags of sheep manure, but most of the garden has been given a sprinkling of black grit, watered, weeded and now we wait.
There are so many flowers coming out – the apple trees are looking lovely, the early apricot is already setting fruit, so is the china flat peach and the almond. There are flower buds on teh raspberries (this year I only cut the obviously dead canes and left the rest – some have sprouted laterals and will fruit on their 2nd year canes so we will get our first harvest in summer and then hopefully an autumn harvest too – can’t wait.
Our rhubarb and asparagus has really taken off – I’ve had to organise contact-free door step swaps as we are still in lock down here in Melbourne and have been unable to run our usual monthly food swap.
I’ll be posting updates on Facebook and Instagram throughout the month, and will have a blog review of the month for you towards the end of October.
Until then – get growing!