I’m incredibly proud of this image for so many reasons.
I’m grateful for the time that my son Angus and I spent together making the nest box and the skills that I have passed on to him.
I love the care and collaboration that Angus demonstrated when we installed the nest box, high up in a tree adjacent to our dam. He held the ladder and passed me the tools and equipment that I needed.
I feel the connection to country that small projects like this help to foster by increasing the diversity and resilience of our ecosystem.
I’m excited that so quickly a thriving young family has decided to call our nest box home.
I’m surprised it’s Laughing Kookaburras that have taken up residence. We based this nest box on a design in The Nestbox Book, published by the Gould League (it’s out of print but still available as a PDF). The design is intended for ducks, and that’s why I chose it. The Wood Ducks looking for nesting sites on our property find no suitable options (but provide a handy reminder to plant my tomato seeds). I wanted to give them a place to nest. Alas, no Wood Ducks. But the Kookaburras are way more impressive in my opinion. Their choice of home is most surprising because The Nestbox Book states that Kookaburras are very particular when it comes to nest boxes. Based on the specifications, the duck nest box shouldn’t suit them at all. Perhaps someone forgot to tell our Kookaburras this?
Kookaburras have a complex social system, especially when it comes to breeding. They hold strong family ties (just like my own family) and the offspring from previous years usually hang around and assist with sitting on the eggs and feeding their younger siblings when they hatch. If our family had a totem, it would be the Kookaburra.
Our whole family are captivated by this recent discovery of the nesting Kookaburras. We’re really looking forward to watching the family dynamics in action as the young hatch and grow.
For so many reasons, this is a happy memory that I’ll hang on to for a long time.
September and October are peak bird nesting months. Some folks call it “swooping season” because of the sometimes-aggressive nature of Magpies defending their territory. Fortunately, our “Maggies” are a friendly bunch. But there are plenty of other bird antics to keep us entertained. We’ve already had a clutch of White-browed Scrub Wrens hatch and fledge from my partner Caryn’s bike helmet. Now they’re building a second nest in my helmet.
A pair of Spotted Pardalotes are trying to nest in a bag of potting mix on our property. Spotted Pardalotes create nests by excavating tunnels into earth. Dam banks and piles of soil are usually fair game. There’s only about a quarter of the bag of potting mix left. After I last used the bag, I wrapped it up to prevent wind-blown weed seeds from finding their way in, but somehow the Pardalotes have found a way to gain entry and are busy building their nest.
All of this fun makes me so grateful for the garden ecosystem that we cultivate and the opportunities this gives for my children to connect with it.
Read more about some small changes you can make to enhance your garden ecosystem here.
Changing gears in the garden
Every year, the garden ramps up in September. Around the second week of September it induces a psychological shift. I suddenly switch from “under control and raring to go” to “chasing my tail”. Based on my experience over the past five years, I’ll be in tail-chasing mode now until Christmas.
The sudden flip always occurs just before the school holidays, which creates a conundrum: do I spend time with the kids, or do I focus on the garden? Usually, I choose to focus on the kids (already these holidays we’ve been fishing, visited the Central Deborah Gold Mine and spent countless hours kicking the footy). But occasionally the planets align, and I get to hang out with the kids AND do some gardening. Winning!
These school holidays the kids have really enjoyed harvesting asparagus. Which is a good thing because we’re drowning in the stuff. Every second day we head into the garden to pick. They hold the stalks, while I snip them off at the base.
Growing asparagus is almost perverse. You sometimes need to wait years for the crowns to establish and become productive. But once they have established, in spring you can almost see the spears growing. At this point they are great for engaging children with short attention spans.
If you’ve read about my experiments with asparagus in my How to Grow guide for asparagus, you might be interested to know that the spears we’re harvesting from bed one and bed two are distinctly different. Next winter I’ll be digging all the crowns out of bed two and replacing them with crowns that have better genetics.
Out with the old in the vegetable patch
The sudden change of pace in the garden signals a transition from winter to summer vegetable crops. The brassicas, such as broccoli and cauliflower, are coming to an end. Some of the older plants are sending up such tiny little side shoots that it’s not worth harvesting them.
But I need to be careful to not allow the plants to develop seed. If this spills into the garden and allows self-sown plants to form, it can create issues for future crops. Brassica seed often doesn’t come out true to type. Seed-saving from these plants is not advised unless you take specific measures to prevent cross-pollination. I directly sow my brassica crops, so allowing cross-pollinated seed to fall from this year’s crop would contaminate my garden beds and may result in self-sown broccoli or cauliflower that is bitter or has other unwanted attributes next year.
The garlic crop is growing strongly. I expect that later in October I may see some signs of rust on the plants. I had this issue last year and it didn’t affect the yields that much. I planted some of those affected bulbs this year and so far there’s been no sign of the fungal disease.
The pea crops sown in July are taking off. I expect to see some flower initiation in a few weeks and the first snow peas harvested at the end of October. The shelling peas should be ready in mid-November. My carrot crop has germinated with a high success rate.
Tomato time (but not for me)
For warm temperate gardeners, like those in Melbourne, I reckon AFL Grand Final weekend is a great time to plant a few early tomato seedlings into the garden. This gives you the best chance of harvesting a ripe Christmas Tomato.
However, before you race out and get planting, I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket. Planting too early may result in stunted growth and issues with diseases. I believe the best time for planting tomatoes in Melbourne is around mid-October.
Folks in the outer suburbs may need to wait even longer to plant. I’m based in Central Victoria, so at the start of November, I’ll pay close attention to the weather forecast to make the final decision. But it’s likely that I’ll plant in the first or second week of November.
What harm can planting early do? A lot more than you might think. It’s not so much about the risk of frost, it’s more about cool soil temperatures. My Fool’s Garden experiment showed that planting early can set back tomato plants too far. Seedlings planted later, at a more optimal time, soon overtake seedlings planted early and become more productive.
If you’re going to forge ahead and pop a few plants in the ground a bit early anyway, then first have a read of my tomato growing guide.
My tomato seedlings are looking fantastic. In late September they became a bit pot bound and the leaves began turning pale green. Allowing the seedlings to become a little bit stressed like this helps to induce flowering, and therefore early tomatoes. Now that they have been stressed a bit, I’ve potted them up into large pots to grow on to become healthy and productive tomato plants.
My quest to grow a Christmas tomato without using a greenhouse is also on track. The two seedlings I am “nurturing” inside by the fire are thriving despite my forgetfulness when it comes to actually tending them at all. They’re a bit leggy because the light coming through the window is limited, and the leaves are pale. But they are bigger than my main crop in the greenhouse.
Early hurdles cleared in the orchard
Growing apricots in this part of the world can be a bit hit and miss. Last month, I highlighted all the issues that could prevent the incredible blossom event on my apricots from becoming an abundant harvest. Well, the good news is that all my apricot trees have cleared the first few hurdles. They have flowered abundantly and the incredible fruit set shows that pollination has been great. The relatively dry spring, with low humidity, has prevented an outbreak of blossom rot. There are still plenty more hurdles to come (read about them here) but I’m a few steps closer to apricot abundance.
Despite the relatively low humidity, there’s plenty of curly leaf on some of my peach and nectarine trees. I don’t usually do anything about this. However, this time I’ve decided to do something drastic. The O’Henry peach tree is struggling. It seems to be one of the varieties worst affected by leaf curl, so next winter I’m going to remove it completely and replace it with a more resistant variety.
Read more about my approach to peach leaf curl and which varieties seem to be more resistant here.
Subtropical suckers a sign to snip
My grafted passionfruit have struggled with the cold this year.
I planted them last November and they thrived all summer and autumn, then over winter they suffered frost damage to most of the tender young leaves and growing tips. But they’ve survived, which is more than I can say for my previous attempts. The difference has been the timing of planting.
Now I’m noticing a few rootstock suckers emerging.
Normally gardeners wouldn’t be happy to see this occurring and I’ll be keeping on top of the suckers by carefully weeding them out.
But I’m also excited by the suckers. This is because the suckers show that the plants are responding to the warming soil temperatures associated with spring. In this part of the world, most evergreen vines and trees, including passionfruit and citrus, go into a state of cold-induced dormancy in winter. When any tree breaks dormancy, be it deciduous or evergreen, it tends to put energy into root growth for weeks before putting energy into growing new foliage.
To me, these rootstock suckers are a sign that the passionfruit, citrus, avocados and other subtropical plants in my garden are slowly waking up. They have survived another winter. It’s now time for me to get busy with some maintenance activities on these trees:
It’s time for a feed. Citrus, passionfruit and avocado trees are hungry feeders. So I’ve given them all a good dressing of chicken manure to give them energy to put into the new growth.
Snip snip. It’s also haircut time. I don’t need to touch the avocados or passionfruit, they’re still too young. But some of my citrus needed to be reduced in size. I used my hedge trimmers (this is the tool I recommend for pruning citrus) to shape the trees. Pruning citrus now should stimulate a flush of new growth, and by the time the new growth emerges, most of the frost danger will have gone.
Check out the following resources for more information:
Ongoing care and maintenance of citrus (including fertilising)
Growing avocados in a cool temperate climate (yes, it can be done!)
Pest problems springing up out of nowhere
The mild conditions of spring, high humidity and rampant flushes of plant growth create opportunities for pests to thrive. Each year is a little bit different, but in October and early November there’s always a pest species or two that tends to dominate. Sometimes it’s slugs, other years it’s earwigs, aphids or whitefly.
For me, this year it’s the harlequin bugs that are massing. Since I first discovered them in my garden two years ago, I’ve noticed they are very seasonal and they proliferate during dry spells. They must really appreciate the relatively dry and mild spring we are experiencing in 2024. I haven’t resorted to undertaking any form of control strategies for the harlequin bugs, but if you are suffering from “harlequin mania” then my popular blog post gives you some control methods to try.
Regardless of the pest in question, I generally don’t conduct any form of pest control. This post about population dynamics helps to explain why.
Last week, I observed my first White Cabbage Butterfly for the season in my garden. This year they were about a full fortnight later to show up than previous years. But there’s been masses of other insect life about of late, particularly Red Jezebel and Common Brown butterflies and heaps of dragonflies.
Did they even have computers back then?
On October 2, 2014, I sent out my first ever planting guide to just 10 people. I’m pretty sure all those readers lived in Melbourne and most of them were related to me. Ten years later, today’s planting guide and garden update, edition 121, is being sent to over 7300 readers scattered all over the globe.
Each edition takes me two to three days to put together. That’s a total of 240 to 360 days I’ve spent researching, writing and sending out this free guide. Factoring in weekends, annual leave, public holidays and the like, it’s equivalent to working a full-time job for at least a year. Donating a year of my career to inspiring people to put their hands in the soil, put more home-grown food on the table and make stronger connections to nature has been a blast. I’d happily do it all over again, if I had the chance.
The connections I have fostered with my readers have been incredibly rewarding. You are such a great bunch. Thank you for joining me in this wonderful story.
If you would like to know more about my gardening journey, then have a read of one of my most popular posts ever: A reflection and celebration of 10 years of running Leaf, Root & Fruit.
Last month I put out an offer of free Substack upgrades and heavily reduced workshop tickets for those affected by the cost-of-living crisis. I was amazed by the response, not just by the willingness of those asking for access, but also the generosity of my readers in underwriting nearly every single one of those requests. After I sent the post out, my September weeds workshop went from barely worth running to sold out in no time. My list of participants for the November irrigation workshop is also looking much healthier. Thank you for your incredible support during these challenging times for small businesses.
My to-do list this October
In my part of the world, the soil moisture can flip from waterlogged to bone dry in the blink of an eye. Two years ago, this brought me unstuck when a sudden warm and dry period in November caused my summer raspberry canes to abort their developing fruit. Lesson learnt: now, every October, I now check my irrigation is optimised, fix any leaks and flush all the lines, ready for the summer ahead. Come along to my upcoming irrigation workshop on November 9 to learn more.
Sweet corn is a little more tolerant of cool soil than most summer vegetables. I grow several crops of sweet corn in succession to ensure a very long harvest period (read more about succession planting here). My first crop will be sown this week into Hiko pots and placed in the greenhouse. Read my guide to growing sweet corn here.
At the same time, I’ll be sowing some of my early cucurbit crops, such as cucumbers and zucchini, into pots in the greenhouse. I’ll sow super-fast-growing cucurbits such as pumpkins and spaghetti squash directly into the garden, under the protection of my polycarbonate pumpkin tunnels.
There’s plenty of planting to be done over the next 12 weeks. I’ll need to keep the chickens and their mobile tractor rotating through the garden to help with soil preparation. It takes a fair bit of planning to maximise their contribution to clearing beds, working the soil and fertilising.
Weeding, weeding, weeding. October will see the need to weed increase. I’ll switch up my strategies over the coming month to more broad-scale, low-input weed control, including solarising and smothering some weedy areas.
In October, the garlic plants begin sending up their scapes (flower stalks). I love harvesting garlic scapes – they’re delicious. Removing them allows the plant to invest more energy into forming a large bulb.
Watching the strawberry plants. I normally don’t harvest many strawberries until November, but last year we harvested a few handfuls in the last fortnight of October. I’m hoping for the same again this year. Read my guide to growing strawberries here.
What to plant in October
Most summer vegetables are best planted out into the garden in October or November. That means right now you have a wide range of crops to select from for planting. Below you’ll find my guide to some of the things you could consider planting this month. For a more detailed overview of these plants, including my preferred varieties, see my Spring Planting Guide.
The Vegetable Patch from Scratch series is popular with both novice and seasoned gardeners alike. It covers everything you might want to know about growing vegetables. It might save you a bit of time and frustration by steering you away from preventable crop failures.
My planting guide generally refers to vegetables planted in the garden (as opposed to a greenhouse). This planting may consist of seeds directly sown (my usual and preferred method) or plants transplanted as seedlings. Read more about using this guide here.
You can start a herb garden almost any time of the year. Try growing the following and save yourself a heap of money you would otherwise spend on over-packaged bunches of herbs at the supermarket:
Basil
Dill
Thyme
Sage
Parsley
Mint
Rosemary
Chives
Oregano
Spring onions
Most of the leafy greens will thrive in the garden at the moment. Try growing them from seed. Transplanting seedlings such as lettuce during the warmer months can cause them to bolt and go straight to seed. Planting them in shadier, cooler parts of the garden may delay the onset of bolting.
Lettuce
Spinach
Rocket
Endive
Silverbeet
Mustard greens
Celery
Chervil
Kale
The following root vegetables can be planted in October:
Most fruiting plants are grown over the summer and should be started in late October or early to mid-November.
Beans
Pumpkin
Cucumbers
Zucchini
Eggplant
Capsicum
Okra
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Good luck and happy gardening!
Duncan
Are you laughing at me? Ha! Nah! I'm laughing at him.
Lovely to see we also have a scrub wren family doing well. Their nest is in a large pot plant.
Also spotted a spotted pardelote but don’t know where they’ve chosen to nest.
Have way too many blackbirds this year and I think action is needed!