Well, Autumn is here, the nights are starting to become cooler and days shorter As we leave the harsh heat of the summer behind us and it’s time to begin thinking of the cooler months to come, preparing our garden for the chilly nights and winter crops.
- Plant late summer crops – This year I have tried a second crop of zucchini and tomatoes. On summer crops which are still going, monitor them for disease and pests brought on by humid days.
A late season crop of Zucchini 
My late season planting of some yellow cherry tomatoes
- Start planning your garden for winter crops – Draw up a plan for your beds, remembering to try and rotate crops as much as you can. This isn’t always possible in the confines of some smaller backyards.
- Order/buy your seeds – to keep cost down I buy most of my seed online.
- Top up garden beds with compost and organic matter to feed those winter crops.
- Feed all deciduous plants before they go into their winter dormancy. I prefer at this time of year to use a liquid feed as they can take it up pretty quickly.
- Start sowing your winter crop while the soil temperature is still warm. Most seeds like a warm soil temperature to start off. Once sprouted I would highly recommend keeping them in a shade house, or if directly sown, cover them with shade cloth to prevent them from bolting.
- Take semi hardwood cuttings and sow into pots
- Watch the weather – pay attention to overnight temperatures, when you see them drop, it’s time to start planting out your early winter crops. Also pay attention to the weather once these crops have been planted out for hot days as these crops will need protecting. It is not uncommon for us to have the odd day above 35 degree day going all the way into April.
- Prune – Prune back thing like indeterminate tomatoes and prune off dead or diseased growth on plants.
Indeterminate tomato pruned and shooting back ready for an another flush of tomatoes 
Cucumelon, mouse melon growing crazy, watch out for disease like powdery mildew
- Aquaponics – Place orders for rainbow trout. Rainbow trout have comfortable water temperature range between 10 and 24 degrees. Anything above 26 degrees is considered stressful and may kill the fish. These fish are generally purchased as fingerling in April and harvested in September.
- Aquaponics – Also remember for those people running koi and goldfish as the temperature get cooler koi generally will start going off their food. So as the weather cools down, start cutting their food down
- Preserve your excess summer crops – make sauces, pickles, can tomatoes, store pumpkins in a cool, dry place
- Save your seeds – let your last plants go to seed or dry the seeds from tomatoes, pumpkins etc
Lilli Pilli’s ready to be picked and made into a jam 
Rhubarb picked, ready to for some of it be used and the rest preserved
Comment if you have anything else you would normally do in March. Stay tuned until next time.