October Garden & Yard Chores

In most zones October is the grand finale for the garden. Whether you are seeking to extend the season or accelerate the final days of your garden, there are some important garden chores for early fall that will help ensure a better season next year.

Garden Chores & Harvesting:

Cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and squash are going strong. Continue to harvest.
Watermelon, muskmelons, pumpkins, and winter squash will continue maturing don’t neglect the watering.
Harvests of corn and green beans are coming to a close
Keep harvesting all root crops, broccoli side shoots, and cabbage with cooler evenings these crops sweeten up

Beans grown for dried beans are still maturing
Dig potatoes

When onion tops fall over, harvest the bulb. Let it cure in a dry, warm, well ventilated place in the shade. Under a porch on a table works well
Continue harvesting root crops of beets and carrots
Order garlic bulbs to plant in mid October

Tomatoes are still ripening.
Strawberries and raspberries are still producing until a freeze.

The Year Round Garden:

Prepare low tunnels or cold frames
Plant spinach, kale, and lettuce in the cold frame. I prefer to start lettuce indoors and transplant out side
Put out transplants of broccoli

Clean Up:

After harvesting is complete, clean out bed and spread a layer of compost over the bed or row.
Or plant a cover crop or green manure. A green manure is a crop grown early spring or late summer which is incorporated into the soil to add organic matter and fertility. Good fall cover crops are buckwheat, which matures fast and will winter kill before it goes to seed, or Austrian peas which is a winter legume for warm climates. Both crops would be incorporated into the soil 4 weeks before you plan on planting in early spring.
Clean up all plant debris especially diseased plants
If any areas of your garden or landscape continually struggle and do poorly gather a soil sample and have it tested. Contact the extension office to do this.

Wage War on Weeds!

While your garden beds and flowers may be looking a bit tired, weeds seem to come on strong this time of year. Like flowers, weeds can be annuals, biennials, or perennials. Annual weeds are the easiest to control. They have a one year life cycle. Summer annuals sprout in the spring and go to seed in the fall. Crabgrass, foxtail, pigweed,spurge, and lambsquarter are summer annuals that plague the vegatable gardener the most. Hand pulling weeds in garden beds before they go to seed is extremely important.

“One years seeds equals seven years of weeds”

If you struggle with a specific weed problem here is a link to look up cultural practices that may with help control the weed. Nothing beats hand pulling and hoeing.

Saving Seeds:

Pick the seedpods and heads of any open pollinated flowers
Learn to save tomato seeds
Seeds from lettuce, beans, and peas that are open pollinated can be saved with little cross pollination

In the flower garden:

Set out pansies, mums, and ornamental kale for fall color
Plant spring blooming bulbs in flower beds
Sow seed of next year’s biennial flowers that need a cold winter to break dormancy such as forget-me-nots, sweet William, and foxglove.
You still can plant perennials in early fall.

Fall Orchard Care:

Keep all fallen fruit picked up. Pigs or chickens enjoy this fruit
Maintain spray for codling moth until harvest
Mow
understory
Apply
compost
When
50-60% of leaves have fallen spray with fish with and neem. Target the ground, trunk, and branches. This is important for leaf
decomposition.
Remove
any limb spreaders
Install
tree guards on young trees
White
wash trunk to prevent winter sun scald injury.
Use interior cheap latex paint mixed with water you can add little neem oil.
Paint trunks and bottom of lower scaffold branches.
Pick apples and pears as they are ripe