- GROW any herbs now except basil (it’s too early) and coriander (it’s too late).
- Grevilleas will be flowering away. Cutting flowers for inside the house will promote new growth and improve plant health.
- Pruning of edible fig trees can be carried out. Be very vigorous – one-third can be cut off. Figs are only produced on the new wood of the new season’s growth. Give them a good feed of general fertiliser.
- It could be a few months before we get good soaking rains and the drying September winds will suck the moisture from bare soil, so mulch your gardens to keep in the available water.
- Dig up and divide canna lilies. Water them in well with a seaweed solution.
- It’s a good month to start the fruit orchard. Plant mango, pawpaw, avocado, custard apple, carambola and sapodilla.
- Spray your flowering mangoes with Mancozeb or a copper-based fungicide to prevent the disease anthracnose.
- Watch out for rampant lawn weeds, especially bindi-eye, clover and flatweed (or cats ear).
- Throw some gypsum over your lawn to open up the soil allowing the grass roots and water to penetrate deeper.
- Repot your indoor plants. Mix in some water saving crystals and slow-release fertiliser into the potting mix.
- Soil temperatures need to be around 20°C to germinate seeds of warm season vegetables. To check, see if pumpkin seeds are germinating by themselves from old compost. If so, then the soil is warm enough. Sow larger seeds such as beans, pumpkins, melons and corn directly in the ground. Remember that corn needs to be grown in a block not a row for pollination to be adequate.
Vegetables
Plant carrot, choko, zucchini, sweet potato, cucumber, eggplant, beans, lettuce, radish, spring onion, squash, tomato, beetroot, capsicum, kohlrabi, okra, pumpkin, rockmelon, rosella, silverbeet, sweet corn and watermelon.
Flowers
Plant alyssum, bedding begonia, cosmos, marigold, boronia, salvia, petunia, aster, amaranths, celosia, phlox, portulaca, sunflower, torenia, zinnia, ageratum, gloxinia, impatiens, calendula, Californian poppy, carnation, chrysanthemum, coleus, dahlia, everlasting daisy, gaillardia, verbena, gazania, gerbera, kangaroo paw, nasturtium, rudbeckia and snapdragon.
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