Gardening by the Moon in September


FIRST QUARTER
Monday, 5 September 2011
Garden: 
  • Sow any seeds you missed last week and take care of all seedlings
  • Watch for slug and snail damage, may need to do some night patrols
  • Prick out all seedlings as they emerge, as soon as second leaves appear
  • Weekly foliar feed seedlings in green house with fish foliar, growth foliar or compost tea, or vermiliquid to promote strong roots, healthy growth and loads of microbial action. Seedling innoculant can be used now for the roots as you transplant them.
  • Preparation of garden beds very important - apply 2cm of compost to all beds just before planting, forked into top few centimetres, along with a good all purpose organic, highly mineralised and microbially active fertiliser. We reccomend Natures Garden and Active Calcium.
Orchard: 
  • Make sure all citrus trees are well manured and mulched and you have a watering system in place for them.
  • This is the last month to put on a good orchard fertiliser, such as Soil Force, If you have soil issues, lack of available calcium or pest and disease problems.
  • Foliar feed 3 days before full moon using products that will strengthen the health of trees to avoid later problems: Growth foliar, seaweed, fish or vermicast.
FULL MOON
Monday, 12 September 2011
Garden: 
  • Foliar feed seedlings to promote strength
  • Sow carrots, beetroot, parsnip, turnips 3 days after full moon
  • Transplant the last of your onion sets
  • Continue bed preparation and compost heap making
  • General tidy up, weed, mulch
Orchard: 
  • Foliar feed any trees you think might need the extra strengthening.
  • Finish mulching
  • Organise hoses and watering systems this month!
LAST QUARTER
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Garden: 
  • As your garden beds begin to dry enough to work in them, pull out compost crops, make compost heaps, remembering that if you make your heaps with low brix crops ypu will just be recyclingthe deficiencies. You may need to and minerals to your heaps to bring up the quality of the compost   to a level that is able to grow nutrient dense plants. For an easy way to get the right minerals in the right relationship we can offer you a 3kg bag enough for one 1.2 x1.2 home gardeners compost heap
  • Prepare beds by either double digging, U Barring or forking
  • I recommend you use our range of Environmental Fertilisers so that you can be sure of growing nutrient dense food, unless you already have doing it other ways sussed.
  • Build cloches ready for early veggies
  • Take good care of seedlings
  • Get slug and snails under control
  • Harvest and dry nettle
  • Prepare and plant new asparagus beds
  • Prepare kumara beds. They prefer shallow soils with a hard pan 20-30cm under the surface, so do not double dig these beds.
Orchard: 
  • Good time to plant citrus.
  • Mulch all young trees before the grass is competing for moisture and nutrients.
  • Divide and re-sow primroses in the orchard herbal ley (also polyanthus).
NEW MOON
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Garden: 
  •  Loads of pricking out seedlings as needed. Have you seen our new widgers as recommended by the Bio Intensive Intitute especially for pricking out?
  •  Continually preparing beds as weather and moisture levels allow
  •  Plant all summer flowers requiring heat for germination i.e. Sunflowers, morning glory, gaillardia, Princes feather, zinnias, cosmos, marigold, love lies bleeding, tithonia, nasturtium, and dahlia
  •  Plant all main crop veges (beans, summer squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers for pickling and eating) into trays and prick out and transplant as ready
  •  Plant lettuce, tampala, rocket, mibuna, basil, and all other summer greens and veges requiring warmth into trays and prick out and transplant as required
  •  plant your  grain crops into trays but broadcast sow over the entire tray leaving enough room for the seedlings to grow for 3-4 weeks and then transplant directly into the beds at diagonal spacings recommended on the seed packets amaranth, quinoa, millet, sorghum
  •  Grains can be direct sown (scatter sown or even sown in rows) into beds but you will have to cover from the birds and getting the density optimal is quite tricky. The spacings recommended on our packets are many years of experience to obtain maximum yields.
Orchard: 
  • Last chance to sow seeds and ground cover herbs under fruit trees before it dries out. We now stock  excellent orchard herbal ley packs.
Garden: 

Orchard: