October Gardening: Mostly Cleaning Things Up

It is October, which means the growing season is coming to an end.

For me, it has been a mostly disappointing year. Many of the plants I normally count on simply did not come to fruition. The squash, eggplant, bell peppers and beans all failed to produce enough to justify the space, water and attention they received.

Gardening is like that. Every spring, I plant things with considerable optimism. By October, some of them have justified that confidence and others have spent the summer demonstrating that they never agreed to participate.

At this point, I have a couple of tomato plants struggling to ripen their last few fruits and two lemon cucumber plants with a few cucumbers remaining. Everything else has been pulled and discarded.

I am now cleaning up and, with somewhat less optimism, preparing for next year.

So, what should we be doing in the garden during October?

Finish the Harvest

The first task is to collect whatever remains useful before cold weather finishes it for us.

Tomatoes do not have to ripen completely on the plant. Mature green tomatoes can be picked before a hard freeze and allowed to ripen indoors. They may not be quite as good as tomatoes ripened in the garden, but they are considerably better than frozen tomatoes discovered the next morning.

The remaining cucumbers, peppers, herbs and other usable produce should also be harvested. Herbs can be dried or frozen, depending on how they will eventually be used.

Plants that have finished producing can be removed. Healthy plant material can be composted if you maintain a compost pile. Diseased plants and anything heavily infested with insects should generally be discarded rather than saved, since the problems may survive and return next year.

I do not have a compost area, so most of my finished plants go into the appropriate waste container. This is not quite as environmentally elegant as producing my own compost, but it does avoid creating another part of the yard that I would eventually have to clean up.

Give the Lawn Some Attention

The lawn still needs care even though its growth is slowing.

Feeding it during the fall can strengthen the roots, help it survive the winter and prepare it for a better start next spring. Use a fertilizer appropriate for your type of grass and follow the application instructions. More fertilizer does not necessarily produce more lawn. Sometimes it produces more problems.

The watering schedule should also be adjusted as the weather changes. We are still having quite a few warm days in Reno, so cutting the water too quickly can place unnecessary stress on the grass. As temperatures decline and we begin receiving some rain, the watering schedule can be reduced.

This is also a reasonable time to repair smaller bare spots with cool-season grass seed while the soil still retains some warmth. The new seed will need consistent moisture while it germinates, so this is not a project to begin and then forget for a week.

Leaves should not be allowed to form a heavy, wet blanket over the lawn. A light layer can sometimes be chopped with a mower and returned to the soil, but thick accumulations can block sunlight and encourage disease.

Stop Next Year’s Weeds Now

October weeds may not look particularly threatening, but they can be preparing a substantial expansion program for next spring.

Pulling or treating them before they flower and distribute seeds can eliminate a surprising amount of future work. One weed ignored now can produce hundreds or thousands of reasons to regret that decision later.

The same applies to weeds hiding in pots, along fences and beneath shrubs. They are especially easy to overlook after most of the gardening enthusiasm has disappeared for the year.

Decide What to Cut—and What to Leave

Deadheading flowers can keep some annuals and perennials looking fresh during the final weeks of the season. It can also encourage a few plants to continue flowering until frost.

Not everything needs to be cut down immediately, however. Some dried flower heads provide seeds for birds, winter shelter for beneficial insects and a little structure in an otherwise empty garden. Healthy stems can also help catch snow and protect the base of a plant.

Plants showing disease should be cleaned up more thoroughly. The objective is to leave useful winter habitat without preserving this year’s plant problems for another appearance.

Roses and many shrubs can usually wait for their major pruning until the appropriate dormant-season period. October cleanup should not become an excuse to attack every plant with pruning shears.

Improve the Planting Beds

After annual plants have been removed, the beds can be prepared for spring.

Compost adds organic material and nutrients that summer growth has removed from the soil. Peat moss can improve moisture retention and soil texture, although it does not contribute much nutrition by itself. Other soil amendments may be appropriate depending on the condition of the bed.

Use a garden fork to work amendments into the upper soil without pulverizing everything. The objective is to improve the soil, not punish it.

A layer of mulch can help moderate soil temperatures, retain moisture and reduce weed growth. Shredded leaves can also serve as useful winter mulch if they are not diseased and are kept from forming a dense mat.

Fall preparation does not eliminate the need to inspect and amend the soil next spring, but it gives organic material several months to begin breaking down.

Divide Perennials and Store Tender Plants

Early fall can be a good time to divide established perennials, provided they have enough time to develop roots before the ground freezes.

Dig up the plant, separate it into healthy portions and replant the divisions in open areas of the garden. This can rejuvenate an overcrowded plant and fill bare spaces without another visit to the garden center.

Some bulbs and tubers do not tolerate our winter cold. Tender plants such as dahlias should generally be lifted after frost has killed the top growth but before the ground freezes. The tubers can be cleaned, allowed to dry and stored in a cool, dark location in vermiculite, peat moss or another suitable material.

I have kept dahlias going for four or five years by digging up the tubers and storing them in vermiculite over winter. This occasionally makes me feel like I know what I am doing.

Deal With the Pots and Their Soil

A large portion of my garden is grown in containers. I have approximately 20 plastic or ceramic pots and another dozen cloth pots used primarily for potatoes.

Every fall, after the containers are emptied, I face the question of what to do with all that potting soil.

Because I do not maintain a compost pile, I store the used soil in recycled garbage cans over the winter. I remove old roots and obvious plant debris, add some fresh organic material and fertilizer, and close the containers until spring.

When it is time to plant again, I combine approximately one-third new potting mix with the saved soil. This refreshes the texture and replaces some of what has been depleted without requiring me to discard and replace every container’s worth of soil.

The system has worked well for more than ten years. It also saves a considerable amount of money. Filling 30 or more containers entirely with new potting soil every spring would require either a larger gardening budget or fewer containers.

Pots should be emptied of standing water before freezing weather. Ceramic containers that absorb moisture can crack when that water freezes, so vulnerable pots may need to be stored in a protected location.

Clean the Tools and Storage Area

October is a good time to inspect and clean garden tools.

Shovels, rakes, hoes, pruning tools and related equipment last longer with a little scrubbing, sharpening and oiling. Soil left on metal surfaces can hold moisture and encourage rust. Pruning blades should be cleaned, particularly if they have been used on diseased plants.

Battery-powered equipment also deserves attention. Clean it, inspect it for damage and follow the manufacturer’s recommendations for battery charging and winter storage.

I do not use gas-powered mowers, blowers or other garden equipment and never have, so I have no personal winter-storage wisdom to offer. Presumably, leaving old gasoline in something for several months is not the recommended approach.

Something frequently overlooked is the garden storage area—which, in my case, consists of two or three shelves in the garage.

This is the time to discard broken containers, unidentified parts and products that have outlived their usefulness. Old garden chemicals should be disposed of responsibly rather than poured onto the ground or placed casually in the trash. Products exposed to years of temperature changes may no longer be effective. Botanical insecticides, beneficial fungi and other biological products can be particularly sensitive to age and improper storage.

It is also worth checking hoses, sprinklers and irrigation equipment. Hoses should be disconnected before freezing weather, and exposed irrigation components may need to be drained or protected. A little attention now is easier than discovering a split fitting when the system is turned on next spring.

The Season for Stopping

October is partly a time to enjoy whatever the garden produced during the year.

There are still things to do, but they should not be overly time-consuming. The major growing effort is finished. The remaining work consists mostly of harvesting, removing, cleaning, protecting and making a few preparations for another attempt next year.

After living in California for many years, where the growing season seems to continue indefinitely, I appreciate living somewhere with four recognizable seasons.

A few months of respite are welcome.

The garden gets to rest.

So do I.