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Learning Hub

Grow guides, short lessons and honest answers for Australian gardens, from the people who grow and pack the seed.

Where do you garden?
Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong NSW; Melbourne, Geelong VIC

What to sow now

See all for October

40 vegetables, 52 herbs, 50 flowers and 12 fruit, tuber and cane crops can be sown in October in the Temperate zone.

Vegetables

See all 40 vegetables

Herbs

See all 52 herbs

Flowers

See all 50 flowers

Fruit, tubers and canes

See all 12 fruit, tubers and canes
226guidesGrow guidesOne crop, one page: when, how deep, how far apart, what goes wrong. 45problems, 8 symptomsFix a problemStart from what you can see and work back to the cause. 10lessonsLessonsTen minute reads that each fix one small thing.

Grow guides

All guides A to Z
Vegetables
50 guides
Herbs
58 guides
Flowers
54 guides
Edible produce
12 guides
Sprouts
14 guides
Fruit
2 guides
Bulbs and tubers
31 guides
Cover crops
5 guides

Fix a problem

All symptoms

Choose what you can see. Each symptom leads to its likely causes and the lesson or guide that deals with it.

Lessons

All ten lessons
Small changes, better growing
Ten short lessons for a better spring garden. Each fixes one small thing that trips up almost every gardener and names the seeds that go with it.
Sow to the Seed, Not to the spade: How Deep Seeds Really Want To Go
Lesson1
Seed depth

Stop burying your seeds.

Most seeds that never come up were sown too deep. The twice-the-width rule, and which seeds want light.

Why Coriander Bolts, And How to Keep Picking it Into Summer
Lesson2
Bolting

Stop blaming yourself for bolting coriander.

Warmth, long days and dry soil send coriander and lettuce to flower. How to keep picking for weeks.

Zucchini Flowers But No Fruit: The Male Flower Problem, Solved in a Morning
Lesson3
Zucchini flowers

Your zucchini is not broken.

Its first flowers are male and fall without fruit. Tell the two apart, and hand pollinate in one sunny morning.

The Kitchen Thermometer Test: When Your Soil is Actually Ready For Tomatoes, Beans and Corn
Lesson4
Soil, not calendar

Stop planting by the calendar. Start planting by the soil.

Tomatoes go out when the soil holds about 16°C, whatever the date says. The kitchen thermometer test.

Five things you will not often find on a supermarket shelf, and can grow from a packet each spring
Lesson5
Grow the unusual

Grow what the supermarket does not sell.

A watermelon the size of a grape, purple carrots, a currant tomato and purple basil. All from a packet.

Growing skills

22 guides

Practical guides for the jobs between sowing and harvest: spacing, mulch, supports, seed saving, and what to do when a crop will not form.

When a crop will not form

Cabbages that will not heart, onions that will not bulb, forked carrots, tiny cauliflowers and damaged tomatoes.

Plan the patch

Spacing, the common mistakes, lettuce in every season, crops that store for months and the hygiene habits that stop problems carrying over.

Beds, mulch and water

Build a bed without digging, choose a mulch, water from below and get crops through a heatwave.

Train, prune and overwinter

Supports for climbing crops, pruning vine tomatoes and keeping chillies alive through winter.

Seeds and saving

What the words on a packet mean, how hybrids work, saving your own seed and microgreens on the bench.

Latest articles

All articles
Hail and Storm Damage in the Vegie Patch: What to Do the Morning After
Article

Hail and Storm Damage in the Vegie Patch: What to Do the Morning After

Hail and wind look worst on the first morning. Here is how to stay safe, work out what will regrow, keep disease out of the wounds and resow...

Summer Vegetables in Arid and Semi-Arid Australia: Two Plantings and Less Water
Article

Summer Vegetables in Arid and Semi-Arid Australia: Two Plantings and Less Water

Inland gardens get two summer plantings, one in spring and one in January. Here is what to sow in October, and how shade, mulch and deep watering carry...

Summer Crops in a Short, Cool Season: Tasmania, Canberra and the Tablelands
Article

Summer Crops in a Short, Cool Season: Tasmania, Canberra and the Tablelands

Late spring frost and an early autumn leave cool and alpine gardens a short summer. Here is how to count your frost-free weeks, choose quick crops and get...

Side Dressing: How to Feed Vegetables Once They Are Growing
Article

Side Dressing: How to Feed Vegetables Once They Are Growing

Your vegetables are in and growing. Here is when and how to give hungry crops a mid-season top-up feed, where to put it, and how to avoid overfeeding...

The Build-Up: Looking After a Top End Garden from October to December
Article

The Build-Up: Looking After a Top End Garden from October to December

The dry-season garden is finishing and the humidity is climbing. Here is how to use the Top End build-up to clear beds, sow what suits the heat and...

Flowers to Sow in October: Warm-Soil Seeds for Summer Vases and Bees
Article

Flowers to Sow in October: Warm-Soil Seeds for Summer Vases and Bees

Warm soil is the signal for zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers. Here is the October flower list for all six Australian climate zones, with picks for bees, the vase...

Stuck on something?

The people who pack the seed answer questions at support@happyvalleyseeds.com.au on weekdays, 9am to 5pm AEST.