Vege patch to-do list
This month’s moon calendar, and edible crops to sow and tend now.
NZ Gardener’s guide to planting and sowing in harmony with the lunar cycle.
• Don’t leave soil bare in autumn.
Or winter rains will destroy your soil structure and wash away nutrients. Sow broad beans, Asian greens, peas, coriander and silverbeet all over New Zealand now; beetroot, carrots and radishes in warmer regions as well as swedes (for a spring harvest) and turnips in cooler places. You can also plant seedlings of kale, cabbages, cauliflowers, broccoli, leeks, lettuces, celery, silverbeet and spinach.
• You can sow cover crops now too.
Planting cover crops is a great way to improve soil’s fertility and ability to hold on to moisture. The crops keep weeds from establishing, boost the number of beneficial fungi and bacteria in soil, and stop top soil washing away in winter weather. But ensure you pick a cover crop that’s a different species to the edible crop you have just been growing, in order to break the cycle for pests and diseases. So don’t follow beans with broad beans (both legumes) or cabbages with mustard or radishes (as all are brassicas). Not sure which one to grow? Go for a green manure blend. Sow thickly and before flowering (and definitely before the plants set seed), lop off at ground level, let the plant matter dry out and hoe or dig it into the beds prior to spring planting.
• Get on top of your autumn to-do list.
Gather up any fallen leaves and add that useful carbon to your compost or make leaf mulch, clean up any fallen or mummified fruit from your fruit trees and give the trees and the ground beneath them a copper spray to fight any overwintering fungal spores. You’ll notice slugs and snails reappeared the minute the first autumn rain fell, so go out at night to pick them up and squash them or drop them in a bucket of warm water. They like hiding away in any gaps and crevasses, so remember to look under logs or bricks, inside old pots and buckets, and amongst your wood pile as well as in your vege beds. You want to get on top of the population before they settle into their winter hideaways, as otherwise they will emerge starving in spring and decimate your seedlings!
• Weed too, but don’t be too hasty.
The first autumn rains also mean every weed seed in your garden will suddenly germinate, and it’s tempting to rush out with your Niwashi to pull out any rogue seedlings. But be aware that non-weed seeds will have germinated too; so hold fire in beds where you were growing flowers, herbs or vege crops prone to self-seeding. Wait a few days for the first true leaves to emerge to see if it’s something worth keeping.