Jobs to do in October

It’s time to clear away crops that have finished and add them to the compost heap. You can protect the soil by mulching with a layer of your own compost, which will also improve the soil ready for next year. 

Sowing and planting

Fruit

• Now is a good time to plant any pot-grown fruit and place orders for bare-root stock to plant in the winter.
• ​Take cuttings of currants and gooseberries and dig up rooted layers of blackberries and hybrid berries such as tayberries.

Vegetables

• In mild areas you can sow overwintering broad beans in situ. Cover broad beans with cloches or re-used old or biodegradable fleece to provide insulation in colder areas, as well as protection from pigeons.
• Sow overwintering varieties of peas such as ‘Douce Provence’ or ‘Meteor’, but only in mild areas.
• Plant out spring cabbages. Remember to net them for protection from pigeons.
• Finish planting autumn onion sets for a crop in early to mid-summer next year.
• Plant garlic cloves.
• ​In the far south of England, Italian rye grass can still be sown as a green manure until the middle of the month.

Pruning and training

Fruit

• Trim over cranberries after you’ve harvested the fruit.

Vegetables

• Cut back the dying tops of Jerusalem artichokes to ground level.
• ​Cut back asparagus foliage. Take care of the spines, and mulch plants afterwards with homemade compost.

Prevention

• Check stored apples regularly and remove rotting fruit.
• Keep an eye on Brussels sprouts, removing yellowing leaves to prevent grey mould.
• Remove all plant debris from the vegetable patch or allotment, to reduce the pests and diseases that overwinter and spread.
• Place humane mouse controls near your stored vegetables.

General care

Fruit

• Move citrus under frost-free glass for winter and reduce watering to keep almost dry.
• ​Order your new raspberries this month, make sure they are certified as virus-free stock.
• Clear the ground ready for new fruit trees, nuts, vines, canes and bushes.
• Autumn is also a good time to mulch under fruit trees and bushes with homemade garden compost or leaf mould.

Vegetables

• Dig up outdoor tomato plants and hang them upside-down in the greenhouse to allow the fruits to ripen. Any that don’t ripen can be used green in chutneys.
• Now is a good time to get ahead and prepare new asparagus beds for planting up in the spring.
• ​When clearing old pea and bean plants, simply cut off the tops for the compost heap, and dig the roots into the soil. They return valuable nitrogen to the earth, acting as a natural fertiliser, particularly if you sow a green manure to capture that nitrogen.