October is one of the busiest and most exciting times in the vegetable garden on Our 200 Acre Farm. The soil has warmed, frosts are mostly behind us, and the days are getting longer. It’s the perfect window to plant out a wide range of warm-season crops that will keep your family fed and reduce your grocery bills over summer.
We begin by checking soil moisture and temperature before planting. If your soil is still cool or waterlogged, hold off a little longer, but if it’s warm and friable, it’s time to get planting.
What to sow and plant now:
✅ Tomatoes: Plant seedlings in a sunny spot with well-drained soil. We bury the seedlings deep, leaving just the top leaves above ground, to encourage strong root growth.
✅ Capsicum and chillies: These love warmth, so choose a protected spot and consider using cloches if you’re in a frost-prone area.
✅ Zucchini, cucumber, pumpkins: These can be sown directly into prepared beds, but protect young seedlings from slugs and snails with barriers or nighttime checks.
✅ Sweet corn: Sow in blocks rather than rows for good pollination.
✅ Beans: Both climbing and bush beans can be direct sown now that the soil has warmed.
✅ Herbs: Basil, coriander, dill, and chives thrive when planted now.
Before planting, we like to enrich our beds with compost or well-rotted manure, adding a handful of organic fertiliser to each planting hole for heavy feeders like tomatoes and pumpkins. Mulching after planting helps retain moisture and reduces weeds as the weather warms.
Water your newly planted seedlings in well and keep an eye on moisture levels, especially during warm, windy days. We water deeply a couple of times a week rather than shallow, frequent watering, encouraging deeper root systems that can handle hot summer days.
Now is also the time to set up trellises for climbing beans and cucumbers, and stakes for your tomatoes, saving you hassle later when plants grow quickly.
We keep a small garden journal, noting what we planted and when, to track how different varieties perform each season. This helps refine our planting plans year after year and supports your goal of becoming more food-resilient on your patch of land.
Spring planting is not just about food; it’s about the promise of summer meals made with your own produce, reducing your food miles, and enjoying the simple satisfaction of growing your own. So get your hands in the soil, breathe in the scent of spring, and let your veggie garden burst into life.
