Talking Manure with EGOR
Spring has arrived with its usual Melbourne subtlety: one day you are contemplating tomatoes and the next you are wondering whether the seedlings need a cardigan.
This week begins with a particularly useful traditional root-planting window on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 September, before October opens with flower and leaf days. Lunar gardening remains a traditional practice rather than established horticultural science, so EGOR’s first rule remains intact: the Moon may suggest the job; the garden gets the final vote. Lunatempo
29–30 September: get your roots down
These are our principal root days this week. The traditional calendar favours carrots, beetroot, radish, turnips and other crops grown for what happens underground. Multiple lunar calendars identify 29–30 September as root-crop days, matching the planting window we’ve been working from. Moon Phase Calendar
For the home garden, I would make succession sowing the operative phrase. Don’t sow the entire carrot packet because the Moon said Tuesday. Sow enough for a useful crop, mark the row properly, and leave room for another sowing later.
Carrots and radishes are particularly good candidates for direct sowing. Beetroot can join them. Spring onions can continue going in, although we’re growing those partly for their tops rather than purely as a root crop.
And don’t bury the carrot seed halfway to China. Fine seed wants a fine, shallow seedbed and reliable moisture while germinating.
Melbourne weather gets a vote
Monday 28 September should be the quiet preparation day: the Bureau’s Melbourne-area forecast has partly cloudy conditions and little chance of rain.
Then Tuesday changes character. Around inner Melbourne, Tuesday 29 is forecast near 24°C, dry but with northerly winds around 25–35 km/h. Wednesday remains mild, around 23°C, with showers becoming possible later in the day. Thursday 1 October currently carries a very high chance of showers, possible thunderstorms and roughly 3–15 mm of rain in parts of Melbourne, with showers likely to continue into Friday. Bureau of Meteorology
That gives us a rather nice real-world opportunity.
Prepare the root bed Monday. Sow Tuesday or Wednesday where conditions allow, water the seedbed gently yourself, and let the approaching rain help afterwards — provided the forecast doesn’t turn into a deluge.
The catch is Tuesday’s wind. Newly transplanted seedlings lose moisture rapidly in strong northerlies. A 24°C day may look inviting on paper while being thoroughly unpleasant for a tender plant.
EGOR says: if your hat is blowing down the street, don’t expect a ten-centimetre seedling to enjoy itself either.
1–2 October: flower days
The traditional lunar sequence moves into flower days on Thursday 1 and Friday 2 October. Rhythm of Nature
That gives us a useful excuse to think beyond vegetables.
Edible gardens need flowers. Calendula, nasturtium, alyssum, marigolds and flowering herbs can provide colour for us while providing forage and habitat for beneficial insects and pollinators.
But Thursday’s forecast rain and possible thunderstorm means this is a perfect example of not obeying the calendar blindly. If the soil is saturated, leave it alone. Working wet soil can damage its structure, and planting into a bog doesn’t earn bonus lunar points.
Use a wet flower day to pot up under cover, plan pollinator spaces or simply watch where the water actually travels through the garden.
3–4 October: leafy business
Traditional lunar calendars move into leaf days over the weekend, making leafy crops the nominal focus. Lunatempo
Think lettuce, silverbeet, spinach, parsley and other crops where we’re harvesting foliage rather than fruit or roots.
But don’t plant six months’ worth of lettuce.
A few plants now, another few later and another sowing after that will give a far better kitchen supply than twenty lettuces simultaneously announcing that they are ready for dinner.
That is the difference between planting vegetables and running an edible garden.
What I’d hold back
Don’t rush every tomato, capsicum, chilli, cucumber and zucchini seedling into the ground simply because we’ve crossed into October.
Melbourne spring nights can still be cool, exposed gardens remain vulnerable to wind, and individual microclimates matter enormously. Harden tender seedlings gradually and use the warmest, sunniest positions for the heat lovers.
Likewise, don’t plant into soil that has become waterlogged after Thursday’s expected rain. A missed calendar day is considerably cheaper than a dead seedling.
Companion and rotation thought of the week
This week, leave deliberate holes.
A productive garden doesn’t have to look completely full. Empty space is future production.
If every centimetre is occupied now, there is nowhere for the next lettuce succession, another row of radish, later beans or a summer replacement crop.
We’re also beginning to think about legumes as part of the rotation rather than simply another vegetable. Beans and peas associate with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, while hungry summer crops will appreciate fertile soil and good compost management.
The question to ask when something comes out isn’t merely what can I put there?
It is:
What should follow it?
EGOR’s job of the week: check the irrigation before you need it
Before summer arrives, run the entire irrigation system.
Don’t stand at the tap and conclude that because water came out somewhere, everything works.
Walk the beds. Check every dripper and outlet. Look for blocked lines, leaks, dry corners and plants receiving water they don’t need while another plant is thirsty.
Then dig a finger into the soil.
The objective isn’t wet leaves. The objective is moisture where the roots live.
With a potentially warm and dry spring developing under the strengthening 2026 El Niño, getting irrigation right before summer is especially worthwhile. ABC News
From Mick’s garden
I used the recent fruiting period to fill a few gaps with herbs which is cool. Moon planting periods are optimum times to plant or whatever the chore, this doesn’t mean you can’t play in the garden and plant other plants like nasturtiums and herbs. I love the nasturtiums peppery flavour of its young leaves adds to a leaf salad and their edible flowers add colour to your plate. I have planted nasturtium seeds around the front edges of most beds. Wait until you see the result!
My first lettuce harvest! I like to grow leafy lettuce types as they can be harvested over time and grow back well after a plucking.
For the upcoming root vegetable period Tuesday/Wednesday I have prepared some planting strips for carrots and radishes. I have other carrots growing in that area so this seed stock with add progression to the planting
I have filled the raised area beside the lemon tree, Citrus have no real antagonists and love flowering herbs and my coco tomato with also enjoy growing in that space
I have taken the bottom out of a large square pot and will be growing potatoes in this space, when ready to harvest I simply lift the pot away and job’s done!
Talking Manure with EGOR
Practical garden wisdom from the dirt up.
For the latest official Melbourne forecast before planting, check the Bureau of Meteorology Melbourne-area forecast.
