FGG Newsletter October 2026

 Food Garden Group newsletter - October 2026

 🌱 We like to grow what we eat 🌱

                                                                                                                                                                   

In this newsletter - What to do in your food garden in October, this month's Southern food garden visit, last month's visits in words and pictures, useful Food Garden Group blog posts for October, the Botanical Gardens tomato sale and more.

This month's Southern food garden visit

On Sunday 18 October at 10.30am you will be very welcome at Bruce and Karen's property at Oyster Cove.

About their property Bruce and Karen wrote

We moved back to Tasmania in 2021 after an exhaustive search of nearly 2 years. The property ('Sunny Banks') had a long list of issues but ticked our "must haves".

Some history: in the early 1900s Sunny Banks was a largish grazing property but over the years it was progressively subdivided and un-farmed. By the time we arrived, the land had been completely abandoned, complete with masses of rubbish, fallen fences, blackberry thickets and a who’s who of weeds of SE Tas. It was home to many wallabies, rabbits and rats. Numerous “mystery piles” adorned the paddocks. There was hardly a blade of grass on the place.

Karen as architect and I as land manager have combined our talents with the intention of leaving the property in better condition than when we found it. We are now mostly on top of the bigger projects and are now enjoying smaller, more creative projects and refining our practices and systems.

Sunny Banks is a multi-species property that we steward holistically and regeneratively. We have fruit and nut orchards, herb and vegetable gardens, chooks and sheep. The sheep are Karen's much-loved critters, but are also integral to the regeneration of the land, helping us transform what was weeds, moss and bracken into diverse pasture.

We try and recycle any waste back into the property. For instance, all vegetation that is cut or falls is either fire-wooded, bio-charred, chipped, used as mulch or is composted.

The primary food garden is the most at risk due to the season and our available time – it tends to be full and flourishing one year and carry just a few primary crops the next. No matter what, we will always make the effort to have tomatoes for passata!

We spend our time here learning, having fun, trying things, developing community. The shed is full of toys from our past which we don't seem to have time for any more.

We look forward to showing the group around Sunny Banks and would welcome any feedback and ideas especially in regard to greenhouse and poly-tunnel management, our most recent and still in progress projects.

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

Topics on the agenda for this visit: permaculture, poly-tunnels, biochar, composting

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

When you RSVP please clearly state who you are RSVPing for and provide names if you want to bring others, so we can have a name sticker ready for every person.

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Last month's food garden visit

FGG members were excited to get the 2026-27 Southern food garden visit season underway, with Ngaire and Larry kindly offering their garden at Mount Nelson as the season opener. You will find this visit in words and pictures here.

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Food garden visits planned for this season

Per today the following food garden visits have been confirmed for the 2026-2027 season:

Sunday 22 November 2026:                   Karen's garden at New Town
Sunday 13 December 2026:                   Arnold and Susan's garden at Granton
Sunday 17 January 2027:                       Debbie and Rick's garden at Austins Ferry
Sunday 14 February 2027:                     Springhaven garden at Lindisfarne
Sunday 13 or 21 March 2027:                Shelley and Cam's garden at Bellerive
April 2027:                                                Available !!

A big thank you to these people for being happy to host an FGG visit!

Please be aware: dates and gardens could change as the season progresses! 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. 

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Look back to how your food garden once was

If you hosted a visit of our group to your garden at some point in the past, the FGG Extra blog offers a great opportunity to look back and see what your garden looked like at that point in time. 

The FGG Exta blog has a Food Garden Visits index where all the past food garden write-ups are listed sorted by suburb/town. Click on a link for the visit to your garden, and you will see how your garden once was!

The list shows that some long-time members have hosted FGG visits two, sometimes even three times. Thank you, thank you! Enjoy looking back to how your food garden once was.

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Botanical Gardens Tomato Sale

This year the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (RTBG) will be selling 60 tomato varieties and 10 cool-climate chilli varieties at its major Tomato Plant Sale. 

It will be held on Saturday 31 October and Sunday 1 November from 10am to 2pm. This is the RTBG’s major fundraising event for the year. Entry is free. 

For more details see the RTBG web site here.

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The long-range weather forecast

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology indicates (update 27 September 2026) that Australia is bracing for a hotter-than-average and volatile summer, driven by a strong El Niño pattern and warm global sea surface temperatures

The long-range forecast for October to December shows:
Rainfall is likely to be below average in the south-east of Australia.
Daytime temperatures are likely to be above average for most of Australia.
Overnight temperatures are likely to be above average across Australia.

For more information see https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/outlooks/

Our food garden is in Hobart on the Eastern Shore and I am already irrigating! Make sure you irrigate and mulch where needed. On the plus-side, this summer might be a good tomato season!

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New to food gardening or new to Tasmania?

Veggie Patch Basics is the name of a series of Food Garden Group Blog posts that take you through the first twelve months of having a food garden in Tasmania's unique climate conditions. It discusses how to set up your food garden and make it a success right from the word 'go'. The series starts here.

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At this time of year you may want to know ...

• Why mulching is a good thing, how to mulch and how not to, ten types of mulches and their pros and cons - see Mulching - Why and How.
• What deep hay mulching is and how to go about it. See What is Deep Hay Mulching?
• How to maximise your chances of having a good tomato crop this season. See Try These Tomato Tricks.
• Why it might be a good idea to grow small pumpkins this season instead of large varieties. See Small but Tasty Pumpkin Trial.
• How to not have codling moths in your apples this season. See Outsmarting the Codling Moth
• How to add grafts to your apple, pear and cherry trees. See A Look at Grafting.

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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 - 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.

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Happy food gardening,

Max Bee

FGG coordinator

Handy Links

 

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Lots of food gardening info can be found at https://foodgardengroup.blogspot.com/

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