🍅Tomato
Raise seed indoors in a warm bright spot, then plant seedlings out once frosts are done. Stake on day one and water at the roots, not the leaves.
Varieties for home gardens: Grosse Lisse, Apollo, Tommy Toe, Roma
September 2026 · Temperate climate zone · NSW
What to plant now in Sydney
Sydney is a generous place to grow food: mild winters mean salad greens, brassicas and peas all year, and the long warm season suits tomatoes, beans and cucurbits. The catch is humidity, which turns summer into fungus season, and Queensland fruit fly, which will find any unprotected tomato from spring onward.
Updated 10 September 202640 crops to sow or plant this monthFrosts possible May – September, mainly inland — many coastal gardens see few
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The short answer
In short: this September in Sydney, sow or plant tomato, capsicum, chilli, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, sweet corn, bush beans, climbing beans; herbs: basil, parsley, coriander, mint, rosemary; fruit: passionfruit, lemon, orange, lime.
Hold off on broccoli (from January), garlic (from March), broad beans (from March).
Vegetables to plant in Sydney in September
26 vegetables are in their sowing or planting window for the temperate 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
🥬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
🥬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
Needs heat, room and steady water while fruit swells. Ready when the tendril nearest the fruit browns off and the underside turns from white to buttery yellow.
Varieties for home gardens: Sugar Baby, Candy Red
🍈Rockmelon
A ripe rockmelon tells you — it smells sweet at the stem and slips off with a gentle twist. Ease off the water in the last week for better flavour.
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 Sydney in September
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 Sydney in September
Fruit trees and vines are a once-a-year decision: this is a good month to get them in the ground in your zone.
🌺Passionfruit
A vigorous vine that wants a strong fence, full sun and a generous feed in spring and late summer. Fruit is ripe when it drops — wrinkles mean sweeter, not spoiled.
Varieties for home gardens: Nellie Kelly (grafted), Panama Gold, Panama Red
🍋Lemon
The one tree every Australian backyard earns its keep on. Feed in late winter and late summer, keep the root zone mulched (clear of the trunk), and prune only to shape after harvest.
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 Sydney this month
Worked back from each crop’s sowing window and its usual weeks-to-harvest in the temperate zone. If you got these in on time, start checking them now.
🫘 Broad beansif you planted in April
🫛 Peasif you planted in June
🫛 Snow peasif you planted in July
🥬 Lettuceif you planted in July
🥬 Spinachif you planted in July
🥬 Rocketif you planted in August
🥕 Carrotif you planted in May
Radishif you planted in August
Turnipif you planted in July
🧅 Onionif you planted in March
🧅 Spring onionif you planted in June
Not yet: what to hold off planting in Sydney
Frosts possible May – September, mainly inland — many coastal gardens see few. Coastal and inner Sydney are effectively frost-free; the further west you go the colder the winter nights, and Penrith, Richmond, Camden and the Hawkesbury flats can frost from May to August.
🥦 Broccoliwait until January
🧄 Garlicwait until March
🫘 Broad beanswait until March
🫛 Peaswait until March
🧅 Onionwait until March
🥬 Spinachwait until March
🍓 Strawberrywait until April
This month’s jobs in the Sydney garden
- Spring planting begins in earnest — tomatoes out late in the month in most districts
- Feed everything: compost, pelletised manure, a liquid boost for the greens
- Patrol for snails around seedlings after rain
Frost in Sydney
Coastal and inner Sydney are effectively frost-free; the further west you go the colder the winter nights, and Penrith, Richmond, Camden and the Hawkesbury flats can frost from May to August.
Soil
Eastern suburbs gardens sit on sand that drains in minutes, while the west and north-west are on clay-heavy shale soils that waterlog after storms, so the fix in both cases is the same: compost, and lots of it.
Water
Sydney's rain comes in bursts in summer and autumn with dry spells between; a deep soak twice a week beats a daily sprinkle, and mulch does the rest.
The pest that matters here
Queensland fruit fly is the pest that decides whether you get a tomato crop in Sydney. Bait from September, net or bag fruit as it sets, and pick up every fallen fruit.
Local rule of thumb
Sydney gardeners on the coast plant tomatoes from late August; out west the safer date is the first week of October, once the last cold snap has passed.
Six Sydney tips
- Space cucurbits and tomatoes wider than the packet says: airflow is your best defence against powdery mildew in a humid Sydney summer.
- Water at the roots in the morning, never over the leaves in the evening, and you will halve your fungal problems.
- Sydney's mild winter is the best lettuce season of the year, so keep sowing greens every three weeks from April to September.
- Plant a second crop of beans and cucumbers in late January for an autumn harvest before the nights cool in May.
- Fruit fly exclusion bags on tomatoes and stone fruit are cheap and reusable; put them on the moment fruit is marble-sized.
- The Royal Botanic Garden's community greenhouse and the Randwick Sustainability Hub both run seasonal growing workshops if you want a local expert in the room.
When to plant tomatoes, potatoes, garlic and more in Sydney
Sowing and planting windows for the temperate zone, which covers Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and most of coastal southern Australia. Frost-tender crops go in after your district’s last frost; Sydney gardeners on the coast plant tomatoes from late August; out west the safer date is the first week of October, once the last cold snap has passed.
| Crop | Sow or plant in Sydney |
|---|---|
| 🍅 Tomato | August – December — now |
| 🥔 Potato | February and August – October — now |
| 🧄 Garlic | March – May |
| 🥒 Zucchini | September – January — now |
| 🎃 Pumpkin | September – December — now |
| 🥒 Cucumber | September – January — now |
| 🫛 Bush beans | September – February — now |
| 🫑 Capsicum | August – November — now |
| 🌽 Sweet corn | September – January — now |
| 🫘 Broad beans | March – June |
| 🫛 Peas | March – August |
| 🥕 Carrot | February – May and July – November — now |
| 🧅 Onion | March – July |
| 🍓 Strawberry | April – June |
| 🌿 Basil | September – January — now |
| 🥦 Broccoli | January – April |
Looking ahead: October in Sydney
Opening up next month: sweet potato, okra, snake beans. This page is rebuilt every month from the Garden Planner’s temperate-zone calendar, so bookmark it and come back on the 1st.
Questions Sydney gardeners ask
When should I plant tomatoes in Sydney?
In Sydney’s temperate zone, tomatoes are sown or planted August – December. Sydney gardeners on the coast plant tomatoes from late August; out west the safer date is the first week of October, once the last cold snap has passed.
What can I plant in Sydney right now, in September?
In short: this September in Sydney, sow or plant tomato, capsicum, chilli, eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin, cucumber, sweet corn, bush beans, climbing beans; herbs: basil, parsley, coriander, mint, rosemary; fruit: passionfruit, lemon, orange, lime. Hold off on broccoli (from January), garlic (from March), broad beans (from March).
Is Sydney a cool, temperate or subtropical gardening zone?
Sydney sits in the temperate zone on the standard Australian seed-packet climate map — Mild winters, warm dry summers — two great planting windows a year. Frosts possible May – September, mainly inland — many coastal gardens see few.
What is coming into harvest in Sydney in September?
If you planted on time, broad beans, peas, snow peas, lettuce, spinach, rocket, carrot, radish should be coming into harvest now.
Does Sydney get frost?
Coastal and inner Sydney are effectively frost-free; the further west you go the colder the winter nights, and Penrith, Richmond, Camden and the Hawkesbury flats can frost from May to August. Inner-city and coastal gardeners can plant frost-tender crops a month earlier than the western suburbs.
What to plant now in other cities
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Planting windows are the Garden Planner’s curated temperate-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.