Garden Tasks - October 2021
Planning and Projects
Take inventory — this is where your journal is going to come in clutch. It’s time to look back and make notes about your WINS (what tasted amazing, looked beautiful, and produced a high yield that you definitely want to grow next year), FAILS (was anything not worth the time or space? Like my little red cherry tomatoes that lacked flavor. Why bother when you can grow Sun Gold?), and what you’d like to TRY AGAIN (maybe it would thrive in a different location, or planted at a different time of year?)
If you want to keep growing through fall and winter:
Plan how you will protect your plants from the coldest weather. Perhaps create a low tunnel with metal hoops and frost cloth.
CHECK THE WEATHER EVERY DAY, we’re likely to get our first frost this month, and you’ll want to spring into action to cover plants with frost cloth so that they don’t get damaged.
If you feel done gardening for this year:
Put the garden to bed — clean out any diseased plants and throw the in the trash. Compost plants that died in their natural cycle.
Save seeds.
Plant a cover crop or add a layer of compost to your garden beds.
Clean and store your tools and equipment.
Food
Keep harvesting! I’ve got okra and green beans still producing like crazy.
Dig sweet potatoes when vines have turned brown and shriveled, but before the first frost.
If you are up for using cold protection, plant seedlings of lettuce, kale, and brassicas which can keep growing under cover (albeit slowly) through the Nashville winter.
Plant garlic and onion sets.
If you still have green tomatoes on the vine and frost is in the forecast, make fried green tomatoes.
Flowers
Let a few flowers fully mature so that you can save seeds for next year. Not all varieties of flowers will produce seed that comes back true, but it’s a fun experiment to see what you get.
Plant pansies! Whether in pots or in the ground, their color is such a joy through the winter.
Force amaryllis and paper-white narcissus for indoor winter blooms.
Plant spring flowering bulbs later in the month when it cools down. Write down what you planted and where.
Mulch over cannas, elephant ears, gladiolus, dahlias, and other summer bulbs that are sensitive to freezing temps.
It’s a good time to plant shrubs.
Feelings
The early darkness can be a bummer at this time of year, but the more you garden, the more in tune you get with nature’s cycles and it will start to feel “right” that things are slowing down. When you take inventory at the end of the season, spend some time in gratitude for what your garden produced this year and remind yourself that those bright, lush days will come again before you know it.
