September is without doubt the busiest time for the veggie patch. Preparing, pondering and planting, there is so much to do in the garden right now. Here are our lists of What to Plant during this month, broken down into our four distinct climatic zones.

We have separated the varieties according to whether they should be planting from seed (s) or seedling (se) directly in the patch, propagated in a seed tray/minigreenhouse to be transplanted into the garden at a later date (p) or grown from a rhizome (r). 

See the climatic zones and find more varieties on our Planting Calendar

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Herbs are hands down the most utilised and important plants of the garden. To leave them out of the patch is like leaving your 8-year-old son, Kevin, home alone while you go on holiday to France. Sure, the consequences are outrageous and hilarious, but who forgets their son and catches a plane to Paris? Probably the same kind of people who don’t plant herbs in the veggie patch.

Nothing breaks our heart more than having to buy herbs from the supermarket. They are easy to grow and most will produce year-round, so if you have the right sort of foresight there should be a little of everything in your patch at all times (the exception being basil). They will also provide a range of scents and colours when in flower to attract beneficial insects into the patch. If you build a mini ecosystem of plants and good insects, the veggie patch will always operate with greater ease and efficiency.

Rather than head to the supermarket with heads bowed – shaming ourselves into buying fresh herbs for the meal that wouldn’t be the same without them – our first course of action is always to scout the neighbourhood. We know there are entire nature strips full of rosemary less than a block away from my house. Parsley protrudes from our next-door neighbour’s fence, as does sage. Of
course you should always ask your neighbour first, but as you do remind them that growth of the plant is stimulated by a small haircut. What you take will quickly regenerate on the plant, so everyone is a winner.

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Root to Bloom 

To think of coriander as a leaf is to think of a pig as bacon; it’s only one of its many parts. This Homer Simpson form of tunnel vision (mmm, bacon) means we miss out on all the other delicious parts of plants that have only recently come to be regarded as waste. We are growing lots of perfectly edible food, then wasting most of it. Most disturbingly, the practice is so ingrained in us, that we are doing it in our gardens too.

Our perspective of what is food and what is waste is perhaps a by-product of a farming industry that for too long has been striving for efficiency in business rather than the efficient use of our resources. Plants that are grown exclusively for their fruit, foliage or seeds typically have many more edible parts. There are some exceptions, such as the nightshade family, which has poisonous flowers and foliage, but most plants, be it coriander, dill, peas or nasturtiums, are full of food, from the root all the way to the bloom.

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During the cooler months of the year it is easy to fall into a pattern of comfort. The body craves hearty meals and such vegetables become more and more readily abundant in the garden and pantry. Brassicas and root vegetables fill the patch, while the larder is stocked with pumpkin and potatoes.

We also find ourselves gravitating towards pasta, rice and bread. Carbo-loading now isn’t something just to get you through three kids birthdays parties in a 24 hour period, it feels like an essential part of human hibernation. But when we begin the feel the slide into a warm food coma, we try to distract ourselves…. with sprouts and micro-greens.

Sprouts and micro greens are two types of produce which can be grown almost exclusively indoors during the cooler times of the year, in fact any time of the year. It’s always a psychological boost to be able to grow something fresh, nutritious and crunchy without having rain funnel down the back of your underpants. What’s more this is the type of gardening that can take place on something as small as a windowsill and a kitchen sink.

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How good is compost? You throw a bunch of organic waste into a pile, it heats up, and these things called microbes come along to transform your rubbish into a precious garden commodity! The earth has been doing this forever, locked in an endless cycle of growth, death, decay, compost and fertilisation. Nutrients are reused again and again. In this way, composting is the ultimate form of recycling, and there is no greater satisfaction than seeing those tangible results in your own garden.

Fully matured compost is pH neutral and can be used to propagate seeds, but when added to your patch holistically it’s like a shot in the vein. It contains a broad spectrum of nutrients and all the essential trace elements so that it not only boosts a plant’s growth, but also the overall activity of life in your soil. Compost is the number one candidate for making soil into something living and correcting any imbalances. It wins Soil Additive of the Year hands down every year.

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