October in the garden
Autumn is officially here, in all its golden glory. Preparation for winter is in full swing – fruit and autumn veg are ready to be brought in and stored, and plants should be cut back, wrapped up or brought inside to help them survive the chilly winter temperatures.
Tidy and Mend
Continue to clear leaves from lawns to avoid brown patches, collecting up the leaves in to leaf mould bags or piling them on to the compost, to create lovely mulch for next year’s borders.
Aerate and then feed lawns to help them recover from heavy summer use, and prepare for the coming cold months.
Continue deadheading.
Grow Your Own
Flowers
Sow half-hardy annuals for next year to store in cold frames eg. cobaea and antirrhinums.
Seeds from summer flowering plants can be collected for planting next year, or with beautiful seed heads such as alliums, cut off from the plant whole and dried ready to be spray painted in silvers or golds and used as glorious Christmas decorations. It’s also a good idea to leave some seeds in situ in the garden for hungry birds.
Plant out the hardy annuals you’ve been bringing on inside and any biennials still not placed.
You can continue to plant spring bulbs in the still-warm ground, to give them the longest possible growing time ahead of next year. Narcissi can be planted in pots (try the wonderfully delicate, primrose-yellow N. ‘Hawera’), in borders underplanting dahlias or similar (N. ‘Silver Chimes’ is particularly good for this) or lawns (N. ‘Avalanche’ is a good choice here – a hugely prolific flowerer, with the first blooms appearing from early March).
Alliums are another plant that are happiest planted while the soil is still a little warm in early-mid Autumn, in contrast to tulips which benefit from going in to the ground when the temperature has dropped, and the diseases and fungus that they are prone to during the warmer months, have died off.
Plant peonies this month as well, and established peony plants should be pruned shortly after the first frost.
Bring tender plants eg. pelargoniums in out of the frost and begin to cut them back.
Remove Dahlia and Gladioli bulbs and tubers from the ground, cutting back their stems to approx 5cm from the roots first. Leave the bulbs somewhere warm and dry for a couple of days, sprinkling with yellow sulphur powder is an idea, particularly on any damaged tubers. Then store in dry compost in a box lined with newspaper, or a pot, somewhere warm and dry, until spring.
Divide and replant overcrowded spring and summer flowering perennials such as geraniums.
Start to reduce watering of plants in the greenhouse, and make sure windows are only opened on warm sunny days and always closed up every night.
Sow your sweet pea seeds now, to ensure larger, more robust and earlier flowering plants next spring.
Grow Your Own
Veg and Salad
Peas and beans that have gone over can be cut down to ground level, and their roots left in the soil to be dug over – they then break down and return vital nitrogen to the earth. You can also sow broad beans this month for good early pickings in May and June next year.
Plant shallots, onion sets and garlic now for the best sized bulbs next year.
Cut back Jerusalem artichokes and asparagus to ground level.
Dig over veg beds as their contents go over – cold weather can often help to break down any large clods of soil in to smaller, more free draining particles, ready for the next sowing.
Cover any productive salad plants with cloches to protect from the frosts.
Herbs
Hardy herbs can be planted out in guttering in a south-facing spot.
Pot up less hardy herbs such as parsley, chives and French tarragon and bring inside into a sunny, frost free spot.
Cut back stems of Oregano and Marjoram that have flowered, to just above ground level.
Fruit
Plant new soft fruit canes.
Harvest apples – windfalls can be collected up and used in cooking. But if you are looking to juice the fruit, try to avoid windfalls and pick the fruit from the tree as it ripens. To see whether the apples are ripe gently twist half a turn, if they are ready they’ll come away with a satisfying snap. If not, leave for a little longer. Ripe fruit is essential for juice (and cider of course!) because the all important sugars are at their best at this point. The process of juicing in a fruit and vegetable press is also a lot easier when the fruit is ripe.
Harvesting Food – What you could be picking and eating this time next year, or – if you’re an old hand – already are
- Brassicas: kale
- Roots: carrots, Maincrop potatoes, stored onions, beetroot and celeriac
- Salad: rocket, salad leaves, chard, spinach last hearting-lettuces and Florence fennel
- Edible Flowers: nasturtiums and runner bean flowers and 1st of violas again
- Legumes: last July-sown French beans
- Squash: all pumpkins and squash
- Fruity veg: aubergines, peppers, last cucumbers and tomatoes
- Herbs: parsley, chervil, coriander, dill, last of the mint, rosemary, sage and thyme
- Fruit: cobnuts and walnuts, apples, quince and pears
Harvesting Flowers – Lovely things to pick and arrange from your garden in August
- Hardy annuals: late-flowering varieties, Euphorbia oblongata, sunflowers andscabious
- Half-hardy annuals: long-flowering varieties eg. Cosmos, cleome, nicotiana, molucella and some from second sowing, amaranthus, antirrhinums, tithonias, zinnias
- Tender perennials: chrysanthemums and dahlias
- Perennials: rudbeckias and nerines
- Shrubs and trees: hydrangeas, spindle (Euonymus alatus) and autumn leaves
