Gardening jobs for October
As we settle into autumn, there is lots to do to ready your garden for winter. From harvesting the last of your crops to preparing your plants for the cold weather to come, here are some jobs for October:
Start tidying your garden for winter
Most greenhouse crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers will be finishing now, so you can clear away old plant material and clean the glass, inside and out, ready for your tender plants or overwintering vegetables to move in! You can also clear vegetable patches and cover them over to prevent soil erosion and weed growth while the space is empty.
Get planting, inside and out!
Now is a good time to sow hardy broad beans and winter peas for early crops next year. Quick-growing microgreens, like the chickpeas we provide in our October Gardening Box, will provide you with nutrient-rich pickings in a matter of weeks!
You can still sow hardy annuals such sweet peas, and plant bulbs such as English bluebells which we supply in our October Craft & Gardening Box, to give your garden some early flowers next year. It’s also the best time to plant amaryllis and hyacinth bulbs indoors, to give you beautiful and fragrant flowers in your home in time for Christmas!
What to harvest this month
If you’ve been growing root vegetables such as carrots or beetroot in open ground, you might want to harvest and store them inside now, as leaving them in very wet ground leaves them susceptible to rot and slug damage. However, if they’re in containers or in free-draining soil, they will happily sit tight over winter until you’re ready to harvest them.
October is a time to harvest pears, chard, onions, squashes, kale and pumpkins, and it’s usually the last month for harvesting apples too! Why not join in with one of the many Apple Day celebrations taking place around the UK on 21 st October?
Welcome wildlife
Did you know that only three native British mammal groups truly hibernate? Bats, hedgehogs and the dormouse start hibernation from October/November and won’t emerge until March the following year! Many other creatures are looking for warm, dry, places to shelter over the winter, so you can help them by making a log or leaf pile in a quiet corner, or a bug hotel with lots of nooks and crannies to hide in. Now is also a good time to clean out bird boxes, feeders and bird baths ready to start providing shelter, food and water to visiting birds. For more wildlife-friendly gardening tips, check out our blog post: Wildlife-friendly gardening tips for autumn.
Author: Alison Kenehan, RHS-qualified gardener and mother
If you’d like to receive regular gardening activities for children alongside nature craft activities, subscribe below to receive a monthly Mud & Bloom box! Each monthly Mud & Bloom box contains two lots of seeds or bulbs to plant and at least two nature craft activities. Or for gardening-only activities have a look at our monthly Gardening Box!
