NEW MOON October 3
Garden
- Loads of pricking out seedlings as needed
- Continually preparing beds as weather and moisture levels allow
- Plant all summer flowers requiring heat for germination i.e. Sunflowers, morning glory, gaillardia,, zinnias, cosmos, marigold, love lies bleeding, tithonia,, and dahlia
- Plant all main crop veges (beans, summer squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers for pickling and eating) into trays and prick out and transplant as ready
- Plant lettuce, tampala, rocket, mibuna, basil, and all other summer greens and veges requiring warmth into trays and prick out and transplant as required
Temperate Forest Garden
- take a break from the forest garden this month, you will need all your energy in the garden!!
FIRST QUARTER October 11th
Garden
- Keep planting salad greens every month
- Not too late to plant all of your Summer crops, except still too early to plant corn and beans.
- Foliar feed before full moon if necessary
- Soil drench with Fish Hydrolysate to feed microbes regularly , weekly or fortnightly
- Major time for bed preparation and taking care of seedlings and newly transplanted seedlings
- Continue transplanting out into beds all your seedlings
- Good time to get your copy of the Koanga Garden Guide which takes you through garden management month by month or the online Kay’s Garden Management Series Workshop
Perennials
- Quite a few of your perennial herbs will be feeling the ground warming and will be sending up their first shoots (e.g. echinacea, stevia, bergamot) and may need checking for slug and snail damage (especially stevia).
- Take care of all the perennial vege you have planted well, mostly about mulching
- Plant Runner bean seed ( perennial beans)
- Continue bed prep for your perennials keeping in mind they will be in these beds a long time so do it well
Temperate Forest Garden
- Watch for water stress and try to avoid it by careful watering, time watering will be time not spent dealing with pests and other associated problems
- Watch for Bronze beetle attack on apples, feijoas, and all trees that are likely to be water stressed. water well if need be.
- Good time to foliar feed for tree health if soil i snot yet good enough to support them
FULL MOON October 18th
Garden
- Good time to foliar feed or spray
- Direct sow carrots and parsnips in warmer areas only
- Plant maincrop potatoes (onto comfrey and or seaweed), carrots, beetroot, jerusalem artichokes, yams all tubers and root crops
- If your water chestnuts have not been planted into a tub or plastic lined growing trough then do it now. They need 20cm of water fed with lime and cow manure.
- Plant kumara when the Pipiwharoroa puts a tail on his call
- Continue bed preparation, loads of work with seedlings , snail patrols
- Keep all planted beds weed free and aerated every week if possible on the waning moon
- If your dahlias over wintered in the ground then now is the time to lift and divide and replant
Temperate Forest Garden
- Good time to foliar feed for health
- Moisture levels critical for shallow roots. If any of your trees are looking unhappy then carefully check their roots: are they too dry, are they repelling the water you’re putting on because they are too dry?
- Time to set possum trap lines outside fruit tree area to catch roving possums before they damage trees or eat fruit
LAST QUARTER October 24th
Garden
- Continue pricking out seedlings and transplanting
- Mound up earlier planting of potatoes, it’s critical that you either mulch or mound up well to obtain heavy crops and avoid potato worms
Temperate Forest Garden
- Don’t stress about long grass, it is best to leave it long now to keep disease out of setting fruit.. we’ll cut it later when the soil fungi need feeding.Dig up comfrey root, cut into 3-5 cm pieces and plant into seedling tray to get roots before transplanting into the orchard. If soil conditions are good you can directly plant the pieces of root straight into the ground now.
- Make sure all the irrigation systems are working well now
- Weed and feed comfrey borders and barriers, pull back kikuyu if this is a kikuyu barrier
- Final chop and drop of support species pruning before Summer when we want shade
- Time to set possum trap lines outside fruit tree area to catch roving possums before they damage trees or eat fruit