FGG Newsletter October 2025

Food Garden Group newsletter - October 2025

 ☘️ We like to grow what we eat ☘️

                                                                                                                                                                   

In this newsletter - What to do in your food garden in October, this month's Northern and Southern food garden visits, last month's visits in words and pictures, the Botanical Gardens tomato sale, food garden jargon explained, biosecurity message about Potato Mop Top Virus, and more.

This month's Southern food garden visit

On Sunday 12 October at 10:30am you will be very welcome in Aimee and Greg's garden at Sandford.

About their garden Aimee wrote:

Greg and Aimee moved from their suburban block in New Town (and a very full garden) to a small acreage in Sandford two and a half years ago, with the goal of self-sufficiency and saleable surplus. After ten years of running Backyard Bounty, a local veggie box service that bought from Tasmanian growers, Greg was keen to make the switch to growing the food that he loves to cook and having fruit, vegetables and herbs at their fingertips, both fresh and preserved.

With just over an acre for the home paddock (four more for the sheep) the property was a blank slate, having established ornamental trees but no other food production areas. The first year was primarily about finding a path between reshaping the land and reshaping the dream, and the property now provides all vegetable needs, plus some meat (sheep) and eggs. Over 50 fruit trees – a mix of stone-fruit, pomes and citrus – are in the “creeping” phase – and we have fingers crossed for a good year from a wide range of berries. 

Wherever possible, gardens have been built with materials found on the property and plants purchased bare-rooted or grown from seed and cuttings. Last year, a local builder assembled a bespoke glasshouse made with reclaimed materials: the new big project. Aimee has always loved growing flowers, ornamental plants and interesting edibles and now has the space to do this on a larger scale.

Learning to work with the seasons, manage water wisely and building soil health has been a keen focus over the last two years of growing this garden. Planting to lessen the effects of the wind is our next challenge!

Contributions for morning tea and the produce table will be much appreciated!

Discussion topics: climbing set-up for cucurbits, grease trap soaking trench as water source, do you have any good ideas for keeping crows from stealing chook eggs?

This Southern visit will be at Sandford, 10:30am on Sunday 12 October

If you would like to come please RSVP to foodgardengroup@gmail.com

When you RSVP, please clearly mention who you are RSVPing for and provide names, so we can have a name sticker ready for every person.

☘️

This month's Northern food garden visit

On Sunday 19 October at 10:30am you will be very welcome in George and Kathleen's garden at South Launceston.

About their garden Kathleen and George wrote:

We love and have bonded over gardening (when we’re not arguing about it). When we moved in, in 2018 the front yard was tightly cropped lawn. Since then, it has grown potatoes, tomatoes, corn and a luxurious lavender hedge. Currently it is given over to flowers with salvias, roses and cottage colour in summer, although this might all change to see the return of edibles soon. Working here is a delight as we get to chat with our neighbours and passers-by. Kathleen is an avid poultry fancier, so chickens came with us, occupying various locations before moving into a freshly constructed deep litter system which enables easy composting, dry housing, space for sunbathing along with egg and fertilizer production. 

The back yard was all grass, with a challenging steep slope and westerly aspect. It took 2½ hours to mow and lots of sweat, huff and puff! A giant English Oak over-shadows the bottom of the block making productive gardening difficult here, one of our first changes was to remove the back fence and put in two terraces. One accommodated a caravan for unexpected guests and the other was for car parking but now provides winter lodging for George’s seven bee hives. They produce a great local honey harvest in spring before moving to the rain forest in high summer to produce Leatherwood. 

A COVID project was the conversion of the garage into a studio apartment. While we had earth moving equipment onsite Kathleen rapidly laid out vegetable terraces, lawn, and an orchard. The terraces are formed with retaining walls and a range of plantings including fruit trees, natives and Agapanthus (GASP!!). 

Productive plantings abound with over 25 fruit trees, perennials; asparagus, rhubarb and a 20m raspberry fence, plus many beds of annuals to keep us fed. Throughout summer we feast on figs, plums, mulberries, strawberries, apples and apricots. In winter we consume bottled tomatoes, citrus, hazelnuts, potatoes, frozen sweetcorn, pumpkins and all the greens that volunteer including kale, rocket, coriander, spinach, and parsley. 

The orchard is under-planted with strawberries which fruit in proportion to how much they are loved and flowers to bind the slope. 

We’re yet to see the Feijoa fruit due to a lack of water, lost our passion fruit to a heavy frost, and our thornless blackberries are tasteless; but we’ll keep trying! Recently we planted a ‘step-over apple terrace with 6 varieties of apples on super-dwarfing root stocks. 

Where to from here? We’d like a glasshouse!

Contributions for morning tea and the produce table will be much appreciated!

This Northern visit will be at South Launceston, 10:30am on Sunday 19 October

If you would like to come please RSVP to fggnorthtas@gmail.com 

When you RSVP, please clearly mention who you are RSVPing for and provide names, so we can have a name sticker ready for every person.

☘️

Last month's food garden visits

FGG members were excited to get the 2025-26 Southern garden visits underway, with Cliff kindly offering up his garden at Orielton as the season opener. You will find this visit in words and pictures here.

A beautiful spring day set the scene for an enjoyable start to the Northern garden visits for the 25/26 season. Adrienne's garden was full of colour from many flowers, cherry blossom and her own creations from mosaic and glass art work pieces. Find out all about it here.

☘️

Food garden visits planned for coming months

South - Saturday 15 November: Chris's garden at Old Beach

South - Sunday 7 December: Jan's garden at Dynnyrne

South - Sunday 18 January: Kellie and Nick's property at Sandfly

North - Sunday 9 November: Wolfram's garden at Hadspen

North - Sunday 7 December: Harry's garden at Bridgenorth

A big thank you to these FGG members for being happy to host a visit!

Please be aware: dates and gardens may change! Each visit will be advertised in this newsletter at the start of the month the visit is in. At that time you can RSVP, not before. 

There is a maximum number of people that can attend each visit. To avoid disappointment please RSVP early in all cases.

☘️

The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens tomato sale

Every spring the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) in Hobart have a large heirloom tomato seedling sale some time in October. It is the RTBG's major fundraising event for the year. 

This season that sale will be a bit later than usual because there are some delays in getting plants ready for sale. The RTBG tomato sale is now planned for Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November.

This Tasmanian spring is shaping up as the stock-standard cool season that it so often is. Late November or early December may be the perfect time to plant tomato seedlings in gardens, so an RTBG tomato sale a few weeks later than normal, will be no problem.

☘️

A new look for the FGG blogs 

If you thought that things look a bit different on The Food Garden Group Blog, the FGG Extra blog and in our FGG newsletters, you are not hallucinating. 

The look and feel of our blogs are determined by 'templates'. We used the same templates for more than a decade, but times change, sometimes for the better, and Google (the provider of the free-of-charge platform our blogs are on) released new templates that work better, in particular on mobile phones. Time for a change!

On mobile - if you go the the Food Garden Group blog you will now get the picture below on the left:

                           

On your mobile scroll up and down to select one of the blog posts that were added recently OR tap on the black down-arrow just below the Food Garden Group Blog heading, choose a subject area, and access related blog posts easily that way.

The new-look FGG Extra works the same way.

On laptop or desktop - the Food Garden Group Blog home page looks similar but with more photos and the subject categories permanently visible in the right-hand column:

On your laptop or desktop scroll up and down to select one of the blog posts that were added recently (the left-hand column) OR choose a subject area in the right-hand column and access related blog posts easily that way.

Once again, on FGG Extra things work exactly the same. 

All comments welcome (email foodgardengroup@gmail.com). Feedback or suggestions for improvements are always welcome.

☘️

What does this food garden jargon mean?

Once upon a time I began to write down food garden jargon I wasn’t familiar with and what that jargon meant. I recently added some more. Check it out! No one knows everything. How many of these words are you familiar with? Find out here.

☘️

 

A Biosecurity Tasmania message about potatoes

Getting into the veggie patch this weekend? Planning to plant some spuds? You might have heard about Potato Mop Top Virus (PMTV) recently and be feeling a bit unsure about whether it’s okay to buy and plant potatoes. The great news is that it’s still okay to go ahead and get your favourite root veggie into the ground!

Here are some tips and tricks to keep any biosecurity baddies away:

• Only plant certified seed potatoes – you can buy these from a variety of retailers across the state (ask to see the label stating that they’re certified).
• Spuds bought from the supermarket and roadside stalls should not be planted.
• Potato skins and other potato waste can still go into green bins, compost or general waste.
• To maintain good garden hygiene, it’s best not to use potato waste, or compost containing potato waste, on areas that will be used to plant potatoes in future.
• Clean your garden tools and footwear regularly, especially between different areas or crops.

Keep an eye out for anything unusual. If you think you might have spotted PMTV in your potatoes, or some other biosecurity baddie in your garden, grab some photos if you can and make a report to Biosecurity.Tasmania@nre.tas.gov.au or the Exotic Plant Pest Hotline at 1800 084 881.

For more information on PMTV visit our website: www.nre.tas.gov.au/PMTV

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 Food garden activities suggested for October

• Mulch after good rains so soil moisture is retained
• Get your weeds under control before they set seed in December
• Equinoctial winds in Spring can be very damaging to young plants and trees. Consider erecting temporary wind barriers of cloth or sacking material to protect them.
• Watch out for late spring frosts. Cover small precious plants if frost is predicted.

Vegetables

• Sow in pots iceberg-type lettuce, loose-leaf lettuce, brassicas, leek, parsley, spring onions, salad onions, celery, Chinese Cabbage and Asian Greens

• Sow in pots inside tomato, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, corn and celery

• Sow in your garden beans (later this month if milder weather arrives and soils warm up),  broadbeans, peas, spinach, chard, silverbeet, radish, carrot, parsnip, turnip, swede, beetroot

• Plant seedlings of loose-leaf lettuce, iceberg-type lettuce, chard, spinach, silver beet, celery, parsley, potatoes, ocas, leeks and onions (after adding some lime to the soil), brassicas (provide protection against caterpillars)

• If you plant tomatoes outside, protect them and capsicums with sleeves against cold snaps    

• Protect outside tomatoes and capsicums against cold snaps with sleeves.
• Minimise caterpillar damage to brassicas by manual removal, netting or spraying
• Control slugs and snails especially around peas and beans
• Foliar-feed crops once a month with seaweed extract to maximise their health and growth

Fruit trees and berries       (* = don't repeat if already done recently)

• Apply whip and tongue grafts to apple, pear and cherry trees early this month
• Apply top-work grafts to apple, pear, cherry and apricot trees
• Plant a new citrus tree. Now is the best time.
• Protect apple, pear and quince trees against codling moth
• Get rid of pear and cherry slug by covering pear and cherry leaves with ash or lime
• Check peach and nectarine trees for leaf-curl and remove and destroy affected leaves
• Add sulphate of potash to the soil under peach and nectarine trees (*)
• Foliar feed all fruit trees with fish fertiliser and/or seaweed extract

Many of the topics mentioned above are discussed in posts on the Food Garden Group blog.

For a complete list of suggested food garden activities for every month of the year see Food Garden Calendar on the Food Garden Group blog.

☘️

Happy food gardening!

Max Bee
FGG coordinator

 

 

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For past food garden visits, recipes and past newsletters see https://fggextra.blogspot.com/

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The Food Garden Group is affiliated with Sustainable Living Tasmania