Gardening jobs for October – your five things to do!
It’s well and truly autumn now. It’s turning chillier, the trees are changing colour and out in the garden it’s all about tidying up and preparing for the colder months ahead.
Here are your five gardening jobs to keep you busy in October.
1. Protect plants from frost.
Bring tender plants like Begonias and Pelagoniums inside or protect them with a fleece. A greenhouse or conservatory is an ideal place to put pot plants that need some extra protection from the cold. You can take this opportunity to repot them and refresh the compost if they need it.
2. Sweep up any fallen leaves.
Raking or sweeping the never-ending leaves that fall at this time of the year might feel like a pointless task, but there’s method in the madness! Fallen leaves on your grass, borders and drive harbour fungal spores and provide ideal hiding places for slugs and snails.
Plus if you pack them into bin liners you can use them to make leaf mould – a fantastic mulch and potting compost.
3. Go on a snail hunt.
Speaking of those pesky snails, you can fight the onslaught, and the damage they do to your plants, by going on regular snail hunts – especially on damp evenings. They mostly feed at night so arm yourself with a torch and collect them by hand in a bucket. Younger members of the family might enjoy helping with this task!
You can rehome them on a patch of waste ground, or drop them in a bucket of hot salty water – yuck!
Alternatively, set traps of saucers of beer or milk in your borders and surround plants with copper tape, crushed stone or egg shells.
4. Feed and fix your lawn.
Your lawn will be thanking you for the raking and aerating you did last month. Giving it a feed now will help revive it even further after the wear and tear of summer. After a rainy spell sprinkle feed all over. While you’re at it re-seed any bare patches – just use a form to loosen up the soil first.
5. Sow hardy broad beans or peas.
Home grown Broad Beans and Peas are delicious, easy to grow and fun to pick. You can get a head start on an early crop by planting hardy varieties out now. They germinate within two to three weeks, lie dormant over winter, then grow quickly once spring arrives.
For an early display of pretty flowers you could also sow Sweetpeas in deep pots and keep them sheltered in the greenhouse.
That’s it until next month. Let me know how you get on, and if you have any questions email me renee@thegirlwhogardens.co.uk.
Or book a Garden Hoedown for an hour of one to one garden therapy and you’ll come away with a personalised action plan to get the most out of your garden!