October Gardening Checklist
October marks the last curtain call for tender plants. As more plants die back and more beds empty, a nice moment opens up to think about your garden’s future. This month, give yourself something to look forward to: Shop end-of-season seed sales, plant spring-flowering bulbs, or pamper your soil with a winter-hardy cover crop. October, with its colder, wetter, shorter days, shortens the to-do list and sowing opportunities, but provides a great opportunity to prioritize tasks that will benefit you and your garden into the next growing season.
Plant Garlic & Shallots
For detailed planting instructions on garlic growing, have a look at our Tips for Growing Garlic. One key takeaway: garlic demands soil with high fertility, so add as much compost as you can at planting time. For the biggest bulbs, be prepared to supplement with an additional round of fertilizer in early spring, before you even start preparing the rest of your garden.
Sow Greens
Plant Flower Bulbs
Sow Flower Seeds
Extend Your Season with Row Cover
At this time of year, just like in spring, it can be easy to be tricked by the warm days, but nights can quickly dip into low temperatures and the weather can take an unpredictable turn. To keep tender crops producing for a few extra weeks, season extension tools such as cold frames, row covers, and quick wire hoops are very effective. Look back to our Season Extension post for more on row cover use. Our hoops are simple rounded wire lengths that can be inserted into the ground around plants to keep row covers from direct contact with crops, thus adding better heat retention, airflow, and overall plant health. They can also be used in greenhouses and high tunnels, or under taller low hoops that hold plastic, adding 5 degrees of frost protection to any space.
Nuture Your Soil
As patches of bare soil open up in the garden, take time to make sure your soil is healthy, fed, and ready for next season. Now is the time to add balance and add in nutrients, through amendments and cover crops.
For empty beds that you'll need to use first thing in spring, conisder laying down an inch or two of compost across the soil suface.
For empty beds that you won't need to use first thing in the spring, consider planting cover crops; these will add organic matter, fix nitrogen, draw nutrients from the soil, prevent erosion, and can even break pest and disease cycles. Learn which cover crops you can still plant now (hint: peek at Winter Rye and Austrian Winter Pea) and discover basic info about each one in our Fall Cover Crop Planting Chart.
More Garden Activities for October:
- Add a thick layer of mulch over carrots if you plan on leaving them to harvest beyond the first frost.
- To extend their life, dig up and pot herbs–like rosemary, parsley, or chives–and place them in a sunny window sill.
- Sow a mini meadow of wildflowers. Try Bird Lover's, Bee Friendly, or Shady Meadow Mix for fall sowing.
- Harvest open-pollinated seed from your garden. For more seed-saving advice, read this post.
- Harvest winter squash to cure indoors ahead of frost.
- Read an autumn poem.