🍅Tomato
Start seed indoors from September; plant out after the last frost.
Varieties for home gardens: Grosse Lisse, Apollo, Tommy Toe, Roma
October 2026 · Cool climate zone · VIC
What to plant now in Melbourne
Melbourne gardens live with four seasons in a day: a cold, wet winter that keeps brassicas and broad beans happy, a spring that can throw a late frost at your tomato seedlings, and summers that swing from mild to 40°C in a week. The reward is that almost everything grows here if you get the timing right, and timing is what this page is for.
Updated 13 October 202644 crops to sow or plant this monthFrosts likely April – October
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The short answer
In short: this October in Melbourne, sow or plant tomato, capsicum, chilli, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, sweet corn, bush beans, climbing beans; herbs: basil, parsley, coriander, mint, rosemary; fruit: strawberry, passionfruit, lemon, orange.
Hold off on broccoli (from December), spinach (from February), garlic (from March).
Vegetables to plant in Melbourne in October
29 vegetables are in their sowing or planting window for the cool zone this month. “Ready in” is time from sowing to first pick.
🫑Capsicum
Loves a long warm season. Pick the first fruit green to keep the plant setting more; later fruit can ripen to red on the bush.
Varieties for home gardens: Californian Wonder, Giant Bell
🌶️Chilli
Treat like capsicum but tougher — chillies shrug off heat. In frost-free spots a plant will crop for several years.
Varieties for home gardens: Cayenne, Jalapeño, Birdseye
🍆Eggplant
Needs real warmth to get going — don't rush it into cold soil. Pick fruit while the skin is glossy; dull skin means seedy and bitter.
Varieties for home gardens: Black Beauty, Lebanese
🥒Zucchini
Two plants feed a street. Pick at 15–20cm every second day — a day late and you've grown a marrow. Water at the base to dodge powdery mildew.
Varieties for home gardens: Blackjack, Golden
🎃Pumpkin
Give it room to ramble or a strong fence to climb. Ready when the stalk is corky and the shell resists a thumbnail — cure in the sun for a week and they'll store for months.
Varieties for home gardens: Kent (Jap), Butternut, Queensland Blue
🥒Cucumber
Climbs happily up a trellis, which keeps fruit straight and clean. Pick young and often; bitter fruit usually means thirsty plants.
Varieties for home gardens: Lebanese, Apple, Burpless
🌽Sweet corn
Plant in blocks, never a single row — corn is wind-pollinated and a block sets full cobs. Ready when the silks are brown and a squeezed kernel runs milky.
Varieties for home gardens: Honeysweet F1, Balinese
🫛Bush beans
Direct-sow into warm soil — beans hate transplanting and cold feet. Pick every couple of days to keep the flowers coming.
Varieties for home gardens: Brown Beauty, Gourmet Delight
🫛Climbing beans
One wigwam of climbers out-crops a whole row of bush beans and keeps going for months. Get the frame in before you sow, not after.
Varieties for home gardens: Blue Lake, Purple King
🫛Peas
Sow from late winter; late frosts burn flowers, so stagger your sowings.
Varieties for home gardens: Greenfeast, Massey Gem
🫛Snow peas
Faster and more forgiving than shelling peas — pick the pods flat and young. The more you pick, the more they set.
Varieties for home gardens: Oregon, Melting Mammoth
🥬Lettuce
Sow a pinch every few weeks rather than a packet at once. In heat, pick loose-leaf types leaf by leaf and give them afternoon shade — bolting is the sun's fault, not yours.
Varieties for home gardens: Cos, Buttercrunch, Green Oak
🥬Silverbeet
The hardest-working plant in the patch — cut the outer leaves and it keeps giving for a year. Twist leaves off at the base rather than cutting the crown.
Varieties for home gardens: Fordhook Giant, Rainbow Chard
🥬Rocket
From seed to salad in a month. It bolts fast in heat — sow small amounts often, and let one plant go to seed to keep the supply coming free.
Varieties for home gardens: Wild rocket, Salad rocket
🥬Kale
Frost makes kale sweeter, not worse. Pick outer leaves and leave the crown; watch for cabbage white butterflies in the warm months — netting beats spraying.
Varieties for home gardens: Tuscan (Cavolo Nero), Curly Green
🥬Cabbage
Sugarloaf types are quick and sweet; savoys stand longer in the cold. Firm heads keep in the fridge for weeks, so don't panic when they all come at once.
Varieties for home gardens: Sugarloaf, Savoy
🥬Pak choy & Asian greens
From seed to stir-fry in six weeks, and happy in every zone. Sow small amounts fortnightly; in heat they bolt, so give summer sowings some shade.
Varieties for home gardens: Pak choy, Bok choy, Tatsoi, Choy sum
🥕Carrot
Always sow direct — transplanted carrots fork. Keep the seed bed damp until they're up (a plank over the row works), and thin without mercy; crowded carrots stay skinny.
Varieties for home gardens: Topweight, All Seasons, Baby
Beetroot
Each wrinkly 'seed' is a cluster, so thin the clumps early — the thinnings are a salad green. Pick at tennis-ball size; giants go woody.
Varieties for home gardens: Derwent Globe, Bull's Blood
Radish
The fastest thing you can grow — great for impatient gardeners and grandchildren. Sow a short row every fortnight and pull them young.
Varieties for home gardens: French Breakfast, Cherry Belle
🥕Parsnip
Buy fresh seed every year — old parsnip seed simply doesn't come up. Slow to germinate and slow to grow, but frost turns the wait into sweetness.
Varieties for home gardens: Hollow Crown
🥔Potato
Plant certified seed potatoes, not supermarket spuds, and hill soil up around the stems as they grow. Ready to bandicoot once the plants flower; for keepers, wait until the tops die down.
Varieties for home gardens: Sebago, Dutch Cream, Kipfler
🧅Spring onion
Sow thickly, harvest by the handful, and re-sow the gap — or just trim them 3cm above the soil and let them regrow. The workhorse of the herb-and-veg border.
Varieties for home gardens: Straightleaf, Red Beard
🧅Leek
Drop pencil-thick seedlings into deep dibber holes, water them in and don't backfill — the hole blanches the stem white as it grows. Stands happily in winter soil until you want it.
Varieties for home gardens: Musselburgh, Welsh Wonder
🥬Celery
The thirstiest thing in the patch — never let it dry out or it turns stringy and bitter. Pick outer stalks as you need them rather than taking the whole plant.
Varieties for home gardens: Stringless, South Australian White
🍉Watermelon
Marginal — choose a quick variety like Sugar Baby and your hottest spot.
Varieties for home gardens: Sugar Baby, Candy Red
🍈Rockmelon
Marginal — needs your hottest, most sheltered corner.
Varieties for home gardens: Hales Best, Planters Jumbo
🌿Globe artichoke
Half vegetable, half silver-leafed ornament — plant it where you can see it. Cut heads while the scales are still tight; once they open into thistle flowers the moment has passed (though the bees approve).
Varieties for home gardens: Green Globe, Purple de Provence
Get this for your own patch, week by week
The Morning Post Garden Planner takes your postcode and frost dates, tells you what to sow, plant and pick this week, prints a 12-month calendar for the shed wall, and keeps a log of what you planted with harvest reminders. It’s one of the members’ tools, included in Morning Post membership: $79 a year for the household.
See the Garden PlannerAlready a member? Open your planner
Herbs to plant in Melbourne in October
Most herbs are happiest in a pot near the kitchen door; plant the perennials once and pick for years.
🌿Basil
Plant when you plant tomatoes — they're companions in the bed and the bowl. Pinch out flower spikes the moment they show and the leaves keep coming.
Varieties for home gardens: Sweet Genovese, Thai, Perennial basil
🌿Parsley
Slow to germinate — soak seed overnight and be patient for three weeks. One good sowing a year keeps a family in parsley; let a plant seed and you'll never sow again.
Varieties for home gardens: Flat-leaf (Italian), Curly
🌿Coriander
Coriander bolts at the first sign of heat or transplanting — sow direct in the cool months and pick fast. When it does bolt, let it: the seed is a spice and it self-sows.
Varieties for home gardens: Slow-bolt strains
🌿Mint
Plant it in a pot, always — in open soil mint annexes the bed within a season. Loves damp shade and hard picking; cut it back to nothing twice a year.
Varieties for home gardens: Common mint, Spearmint, Peppermint
🌿Rosemary
Thrives on neglect, sun and sharp drainage — the classic no-fuss Australian shrub. Prune after flowering to keep it dense; strike cuttings for free plants.
Varieties for home gardens: Tuscan Blue (upright), Prostrate
🌿Thyme
Happiest hot, dry and a little starved — rich wet soil kills it kindly. Grow it at the path edge where you'll brush past and get the scent.
Varieties for home gardens: Common thyme, Lemon thyme
🌿Oregano
Cut it back hard twice a year and dry the trimmings — dried oregano is one of the few herbs better than fresh. Spreads politely as a groundcover.
Varieties for home gardens: Greek oregano, Common marjoram
🌿Chives
Cut with scissors 3cm above the soil and they regrow within weeks. Divide the clumps every few years and give spares away — the pink pompom flowers are edible too.
Varieties for home gardens: Common chives, Garlic chives
🌿Dill
Sow direct — like coriander it bolts if moved or overheated. Feathery leaves for fish and potatoes, seed heads for pickling; let some self-sow.
Varieties for home gardens: Common dill, Fernleaf
🌿Sage
Sun, drainage, and not much else — soggy winters are the only thing that kills it. Pick before flowering for the best leaves; unbeatable with pumpkin and butter.
Varieties for home gardens: Common sage, Purple sage
Fruit to plant in Melbourne in October
Fruit trees and vines are a once-a-year decision: this is a good month to get them in the ground in your zone.
🍓Strawberry
Plant runners with the crown proud of the soil, mulch with straw (the clue's in the name) and net before the birds do their rounds. Runners from your best plants are next year's bed for free.
Varieties for home gardens: Red Gauntlet, Sweetheart, Alinta
🌺Passionfruit
Frost-tender, especially young — give it a warm north-facing wall and cover its first winters.
Varieties for home gardens: Nellie Kelly (grafted), Panama Gold, Panama Red
🍋Lemon
Choose Meyer and protect young trees from frost for their first two winters.
Varieties for home gardens: Eureka, Lisbon, Meyer (hardiest in cold spots)
🍊Orange
Navels for winter eating, Valencias for summer juice — plant one of each and you're covered most of the year. Same care as a lemon: feed twice a year, water deeply in dry spells.
Varieties for home gardens: Washington Navel, Valencia
🍋Lime
The most cold-shy of the common citrus — give it the warmest corner you have. Tahitian for juice, makrut for leaves, and the native finger lime if you like showing off.
Varieties for home gardens: Tahitian, Makrut (kaffir), Australian finger lime
Coming into harvest in Melbourne this month
Worked back from each crop’s sowing window and its usual weeks-to-harvest in the cool zone. If you got these in on time, start checking them now.
🫘 Broad beansif you planted in May
🫛 Snow peasif you planted in August
🥬 Lettuceif you planted in August
🥬 Spinachif you planted in August
🥬 Rocketif you planted in September
Radishif you planted in September
Turnipif you planted in August
🧅 Onionif you planted in April
🧅 Spring onionif you planted in August
🧄 Garlicif you planted in March
Not yet: what to hold off planting in Melbourne
Frosts likely April – October. Frost is a suburb-by-suburb story in Melbourne: the inner north and the bayside suburbs see few, while the outer east (Lilydale, Yarra Glen), the north (Craigieburn, Whittlesea) and the Dandenongs can frost well into October.
🥦 Broccoliwait until December
🥬 Spinachwait until February
🧄 Garlicwait until March
🫘 Broad beanswait until March
🧅 Onionwait until April
This month’s jobs in the Melbourne garden
- Plant tomatoes out after the last frost — stake them on day one
- Mulch beds before the heat arrives, keeping mulch clear of stems
- Sow beans, corn and zucchini straight into the warming soil
Frost in Melbourne
Frost is a suburb-by-suburb story in Melbourne: the inner north and the bayside suburbs see few, while the outer east (Lilydale, Yarra Glen), the north (Craigieburn, Whittlesea) and the Dandenongs can frost well into October.
Soil
Soils run from heavy clay in the east (Doncaster, Ringwood) to sand along the bay and the old basalt plains out west, so dig in compost every season whichever you have.
Water
Melbourne Water's permanent water-saving rules apply year-round: watering systems only between 6pm and 10am, hand-held hoses any time with a trigger nozzle.
The pest that matters here
Snails and slugs after every wet spell, and Queensland fruit fly has crept into Melbourne suburbs in recent years — net tomatoes and stone fruit rather than assume you are safe.
Local rule of thumb
The old Melbourne rule is to plant tomatoes out after Cup Day (the first Tuesday in November). Gardeners on the bayside and inner suburbs often chance it a fortnight earlier; anyone in the Dandenongs or the outer north should wait for the Cup.
Six Melbourne tips
- Cover-and-uncover beats gambling: keep an old sheet or a frost cloth by the back door from August to October for the nights the forecast dips under 3°C.
- Raise tomato, capsicum and chilli seed indoors on a warm windowsill from September so you have strong seedlings the day the frost risk passes.
- Melbourne's summer heat spikes arrive fast: a 30% shade cloth over lettuce and leafy greens in January and February keeps them from bolting.
- Mulch deep before December. A 5–7cm layer of pea straw or sugar-cane mulch is the difference between watering twice a week and every day in a hot spell.
- Garlic goes in around the shortest day and comes out around the longest, and Melbourne's cold winter is exactly what it wants.
- For seedlings and advice, CERES in Brunswick East, the Collingwood Children's Farm and Bulleen Art & Garden all stock varieties chosen for Melbourne conditions.
When to plant tomatoes, potatoes, garlic and more in Melbourne
Sowing and planting windows for the cool zone, which covers Canberra, Melbourne, Bendigo, Tasmania and the tablelands. Frost-tender crops go in after your district’s last frost; The old Melbourne rule is to plant tomatoes out after Cup Day (the first Tuesday in November). Gardeners on the bayside and inner suburbs often chance it a fortnight earlier; anyone in the Dandenongs or the outer north should wait for the Cup.
| Crop | Sow or plant in Melbourne |
|---|---|
| 🍅 Tomato | September – December — now |
| 🥔 Potato | September – November — now |
| 🧄 Garlic | March – June |
| 🥒 Zucchini | October – January — now |
| 🎃 Pumpkin | October – December — now |
| 🥒 Cucumber | October – January — now |
| 🫛 Bush beans | October – January — now |
| 🫑 Capsicum | September – November — now |
| 🌽 Sweet corn | October – December — now |
| 🫘 Broad beans | March – September |
| 🫛 Peas | August – November — now |
| 🥕 Carrot | September – February — now |
| 🧅 Onion | April – August |
| 🍓 Strawberry | April – May and September – October — now |
| 🌿 Basil | October – December — now |
| 🥦 Broccoli | December – March |
Looking ahead: November in Melbourne
Opening up next month: brussels sprouts, swede, sweet potato, okra. This page is rebuilt every month from the Garden Planner’s cool-zone calendar, so bookmark it and come back on the 1st.
Questions Melbourne gardeners ask
When should I plant tomatoes in Melbourne?
In Melbourne’s cool zone, tomatoes are sown or planted September – December. The old Melbourne rule is to plant tomatoes out after Cup Day (the first Tuesday in November). Gardeners on the bayside and inner suburbs often chance it a fortnight earlier; anyone in the Dandenongs or the outer north should wait for the Cup.
What can I plant in Melbourne right now, in October?
In short: this October in Melbourne, sow or plant tomato, capsicum, chilli, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, sweet corn, bush beans, climbing beans; herbs: basil, parsley, coriander, mint, rosemary; fruit: strawberry, passionfruit, lemon, orange. Hold off on broccoli (from December), spinach (from February), garlic (from March).
Is Melbourne a cool, temperate or subtropical gardening zone?
Melbourne sits in the cool zone on the standard Australian seed-packet climate map — Cold frosty winters, short warm summers — timing matters most here. Frosts likely April – October.
What is coming into harvest in Melbourne in October?
If you planted on time, broad beans, snow peas, lettuce, spinach, rocket, radish, turnip, onion should be coming into harvest now.
Which Melbourne suburbs get frost?
Frost is a suburb-by-suburb story in Melbourne: the inner north and the bayside suburbs see few, while the outer east (Lilydale, Yarra Glen), the north (Craigieburn, Whittlesea) and the Dandenongs can frost well into October. If you garden in those areas, treat every clear, still night from April to October as a possible frost.
What to plant now in other cities
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Planting windows are the Garden Planner’s curated cool-zone calendar (the standard five-zone Australian model, each zone anchored to its harshest common member), reviewed against Gardenate, Yates and state agriculture sources in 2026. Your own garden may run a fortnight either way of the zone: a north-facing wall, a frost hollow or a coastal breeze all shift it. Members can set their exact frost dates in the planner.