Start Summer Seeds Indoors
Depending on your climate, it might be time to start thinking about starting your Summer seeds!
Spring Planting Guide: In cool, temperate and mild temperate climates, you can start tomatoes, chillies, capsicum, eggplant (all from the solanum family AKA ‘nightshade’– you’ll notice they all have very similar seeds!), cucumber, pumpkin, squash, zucchini, beans and basil indoors.
Even if it’s still a while until those long, warm sunny days, you can start seeds in flats indoors, preferably on a sunny northern windowsill, just be sure to keep them well hydrated. Once germinated, transplant into larger pots, feed with a 1:100 dilute of Food2Soil, and slowly start to introduce these plants outside before planting when soil temperatures start to reach approx 18-21°C outside.
A note on planting and sowing: Remember to plant according to your climate and be sure to follow local knowledge and bioregional Spring planting guides for best seasonal gardening practices.
Summer seedlings germinating on a windowsill
Feed Your Plants and Soils
As the weather starts to transition to Spring, your plants, seedlings and soils will be ready for a feed of beneficial organisms, trace minerals, and NPK. Feed your plants, trees, lawns, ornamentals and natives with Food2Soil, to support their growth in the next few months ahead. Our biofertiliser is low phosphorus and safe to apply to natives.
Spring Clean Your Garden
September is a great month to get into some garden ‘Spring’ cleaning. Deadhead wintering flowering plants, prune overgrown shrubs and remove dead wood to support new growth. Stay on top of weeds before Spring flowering by scything, mowing or hand pulling away unwanted weeds. Don’t forget to mulch to prevent repeat offenders.
Collect and Store Water
In Australia, adequate water supply in the dry months is always a priority and concern for most gardeners. A great water-saving tip is to place a few 5-10L buckets outside ahead of rainy days to collect water. Try this in the shower or kitchen too, avoiding pouring this water onto veggies. Always use chemical-free shampoos and detergents.
Look after your fruit trees
It’s optimal to spray fruit trees with Food2Soil at ‘bud burst’ stage. This is when your fruit tree buds are looking like they are going to ‘burst’ into bloom and unfold their petals. If you have missed this, it’s not too late! The sooner it’s applied around this time the better effect it will have in controlling pests and diseases.
Weed and mulch under fruit trees to the dripline where possible, with a minimum of 70cm radius around the base. Avoid mulching directly around the bark of the tree, as it increases the likelihood of rot and other fungal problems.
Harvest and Preserve Excess Winter Vege
A great time to reap the benefits of your Autumn planting, enjoy the first or last of those cabbages, cauliflowers, radishes, beets and leeks. If you’ve got excess cabbage, why not try making a delicious ferment of sauerkraut? Sauerkraut acts in human’s guts much like Food2Soil in soils, as it supports our microbiome with a wide range of beneficial organisms, provides nutrition and vitamins/minerals and more. Here’s a great recipe from our friends at Pip Magazine.
Sauerkraut is a healthy and easy-to-make fermented cabbage preserve.
Enjoy, from the Food2Soil team!
