LAST QUARTER – September 7th

Garden

  • Prepare seed raising: mix 1/3 sieved compost, 1/3 sieved garden soil, 1/3 sand – possibly 10% vermicast if available.
  • Pot up any cuttings that you took in May, and are now shooting, into the sand box.
  • Weed garden beds, make compost, double-dig or prepare beds for planting as they become dry enough last quarter.

Forest Garden

  • Very last tree planting for deciduous fruit trees.
  • Good time to plant citrus.
  • Very last pruning.
  • Mulch all newly planted trees before the grass begins to take over.
  • Great time to apply foliar sprays to fruit trees to increase tree health and fruit set. Apply Growth Foliar to bark and swelling buds. These sprays will make a big difference to any black spot or pests and diseases in apples pears etc.
  • Remove any mummified fruit.
  • Feed trunk structure.
  • Chip and spread ramial wood chip everywhere.
  • Good time to plant forest garden support trees, especially legumes.

NEW MOON – September 15th

Garden

  • In warmer areas it’s time for early veggies to be planted out under cloches, e.g. courgettes, bush and dwarf tomatoes, early cucumber and beans, beetroot.
  • Do loads of weeding and compost making.
  • Get a copy of the Kōanga Booklet The Art of Composting to ensure your compost is capable of growing soil and nutrient dense food.
  • Feed 3 days before full moon, if necessary.
  • You should be beginning to take out all compost crops and preparing beds for major plantings next month or so.
  • Make sure you have a good plan for how you will nourish your soil and your plants this season to ensure you are regenerating the soil, the plant health and your health. If you aren’t, then you are degenerating all three. Time to make a choice.. maybe time to get your copy of Kōanga Booklet How To Grow Nutrient Dense Food.
  • Check out these amazing Kōanga Heritage Crop Guides for pumpkins, tomatoes, beans and corn to help you select the best cultivars for your garden this spring.
  • Sow seed into trays of early spring flowering plants; nasturtium, sweet pea and calendula. 
  • Plant loads of early Spring vege seeds, into trays ready to prick out when first leaves appear; Lettuce, coriander, parsley, purple leaf mustard, ruruhau, tatsoi, Red Coral Mizuna, corn salad and Miner’s lettuce. 
  • Scatter sow into trays, ready to plant into garden as soon as 5cm high; rocket, peas, broadbeans and onions (onions need to stay in tray until 10 cm high) 
  • Sow eggplants and peppers in an even warmer place. These seeds really need 20 degrees Celsius day and even nights to germinate well. I recommend you build a small plastic cloche, over a seed tray with these seeds in it, inside the green house or wrap your seed tray in bubble wrap plastic.

Temperate Forest Garden 

  • Best time to establish orchard herbal ley from scratch or to renovate existing ley.
  • Slug and snail control essential around newly grafted trees.
  • Good time to chop and drop tagasaste and tree lupins in warmer areas, as they finish flowering. 

FIRST QUARTER – September 23rd

Garden

  • Sow any seeds you missed last week and take good care of all seedlings.
  • Watch for slug and snail damage, may need to do some night patrols.
  • Prick out all seedlings as they emerge; as soon as second leaves appear.
  • Feed seedlings weekly in greenhouse to promote strong roots, healthy growth, and loads of microbial action, if they look as though they need it. They will not if planted into amazing alive seed raising mix. Commercial mixes, even organic ones, don’t do it. Maybe add your own vermicast and Seedling Inoculant to them.
  • Preparation of garden beds very important – apply 2cm of compost to all beds just before planting, forked into top few centimetres, along with a good all-purpose organic, highly mineralised and microbially active fertiliser.

Perennials 

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Make sure all citrus trees are well manured and mulched and you have a watering system in place for them.
  • Foliar feed 3 days before full moon. 
  • Buds will break this month, the energy of the trees is coming up into the tops.
  • Good time to chop and drop tagasaste and tree lupins, as they finish flowering. 
  • Finish chipping all prunings and spread ramial wood chip around to feed fungi.

FULL MOON – September 29th

Garden

  • Foliar feed seedlings to promote strength.
  • Sow carrots beetroot, parsnip, turnips 3 days after full moon.
  • Transplant the last of your onion sets.
  • Continue bed preparation and compost heap making.
  • General tidy up, weed and mulch.

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Foliar feed any trees you think might need the extra strengthening, or health promotant.
  • Finish mulching.
  • Organize hoses and watering systems this month!
  • Finish chopping and dropping, or making ramial wood chip with prunings to return to forest floor.