Central Otago Garden Tips For Spring -What not to do in the garden this month.

Central Otago Garden Tips For Spring

With September marking the beginning of spring and with the temperature feeling a bit on the warm side, please don't get all excited and start sowing and planting your summer garden.

If you are like me, I love hanging out at the garden centre, wandering and dreaming of those warm summer days, and you may have noticed what is available in the vegetable section at the moment.

On the shelves, you may find tomatoes, courgettes, chillies, and even eggplant, but please know that these are not going in the garden now or really anytime soon. When these start turning up, they are for people with heated glasshouses, and even then, they are risking losing everything in a late-season frost.

So my Central Otago Garden Tips For Spring - let's get into it!

There are signs of spring in the garden, but that doesn't mean I'm going to go silly and start sowing my tomatoes in September.

But I am trying something new this spring.

We are fortunate to have a glasshouse. We've had it for 5 years, and each year I like to try something new with it. I'm still learning how to make the best use of it, and this season I have sown my chillies, capsicums, and eggplants a month earlier than previous years.

The goal is that by Labour Weekend, the plants will be well established and thriving by then, so they can withstand any cold snaps.

Then I will plant in the glasshouse over Labour Weekend, which is about 3 weeks earlier than I would normally plant out.

I have had great uptake on germination on it all. I used the underfloor heating in our main bathroom, which I found very beneficial to this, I think. And it just showed me that the investment in heating pads could be a good idea for next year.

Things are ticking along nicely in the garden at the moment. The garlic has come up beautifully, the purple sprouting broccoli is finally giving us something, and the leeks are starting to bulk up.

Now, moving ahead, I will continue to feed the garlic, and come October, I will lay peastraw to stop any competing weeds from coming up.

The beds are all finished and ready for seedlings to go in. I've built all the structures for the peas and beans to grow up on.

In the meantime, take a wander around the garden and dream about how in only a few weeks you will be busy sowing those seeds and getting ready to plant those seedlings.