This month is the best time of year to plant garlic, simply break up the cloves and plant at a depth of 4-5cm with the pointy tip facing up of course.  Also plant shallots with the top half exposed in compost and again make sure the pointy tip faces upwards.  It pays to clean the brown skins off the shallots before you plant them because birds like to grab them and take off with them. Last year I had a lot of success with French Red Shallots.

• Sow seeds of spinach, silverbeet, peas, onions and lettuce.
• Plant seedlings of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, winter lettuce, spinach and silverbeet.
• Feed cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli with Phostrogen or Nitrosol.  
• Protect winter vegetables with Champ to prevent fungal disease.
• Protect seedlings from slugs and snails with Blitzem.  
• Plant early potatoes.  
• Plant garlic and shallots.
• Plant strawberry plants.
• Plant new fruit trees; citrus, apples, pears, plums, peaches and nectarines.
• Sow seeds of lobelia, calendula, sweet william, dianthus, alyssum and sweet peas.
• Sow delphinium, larkspur, stock, nemesia, carnation, canterbury bells, gypsophila and wallflower.
• Plant seedlings of alyssum, forget me not, pansies, viola, polyanthus, primula, poppy, sweet pea, cyclamen, hollyhock, honesty, lobelia, sweet william, anemone, candytuft and bellis daisy.
• Protect seedlings from slugs and snails with Blitzem.
• Cut back, lift and divide perennials such as asters, achillea, dahlias and phlox.
• Still time to plant lilies.
• Prune Hydrangeas. Apply Garden Lime to improve pink colours and Aluminium Sulphate for blue.
• A good time to shift poorly sited trees, shrubs, perennials and roses.
• Ensure young trees and fragile plants are firmly staked and tied.
• Mulch all plants with Compost.

Rosemary
Take cuttings from your Rosemary plants now and put them into a jar or bottle of water, on the window sill.  They will sprout roots quickly and then plant in a small pot to later transplant into the garden.  This is one of my rosemary bushes planted from last years cuttings.  Give your rosemary cuttings something to grow over like this lovely trellis.  In winter try my Foccocia Bread recipe with fresh Rosemary.  I find the upright rosemary plants produce more successful cuttings than cascading rosemary.  I did not have much luck with cuttings from my Rosemary Azure Cascade

If you've been chitting your potatoes now is the time to plant them and also plant
a good crop of onions, I had a lot of success with Pukekohe long keeper onions.
Potatoes, onions, shallots and garlic are all produce we use regularly, so I
encourage you to have a go at planting these crops for your pantries.

If you have strawberries still in the garden, make sure you cut off the runners now
to ensure a good crop next summer.  If you don't have strawberries July is the
month to plant them.  July last year I planted 36 Strawberry Sundae and
Strawberry Camarosa seedlings in my strawberry patch and I'm hoping next
summer we'll see another good crop, a girl friend of mine "Jack Arse" told me
a very useful tip; remove the first flowers as soon as they appear to encourage
more fruit...

If you want to transplant your ferns this is the best time of year to do that.

If you have rhubarb you might like to lift the bulbs and remove the dead roots
and replant them in good compost for better production in spring.  If you don't
have rhubarb I encourage you to go and buy a bulb now and plant it for summer.

There's an amazing amount of gorgeous foliage, flowers and berries in the garden at the moment, so get outside and start picking and make a large winter arrangement to cheer up any room, also grab some oranges, lemons or citrus of some form there's plenty around at the moment, and poke cloves into the skin to add a lovely aroma as part of your arrangement.

I have two types of lilies in my pond they are "Gonnere" and "Superba", last summer was there second season, I remember the first June I panicked as they appeared to be dying.  This is apparently normal they do die back in winter and will reappear again in spring.  Here are shots of Superba in my pond last summer.