Gardening jobs for October

October usually sees the first frost blackening the foliage of tender plants, such as dahlias. The autumn leaves also begin to colour up and eventually fall. It's time to dismantle the summer displays and prepare the garden for the winter ahead.

Essential garden jobs for October

Clear leaves

It’s fine to leaves fallen leaves on borders as the worms will put them into the soil during the winter. However, on paths and hard surfaces, it’s best to gather them straight away as they can be very slippery, especially when the weather is wet. 

For clearing patios, paths and other surfaces, a leaf blower is a better bet. Either blow the leaves onto the lawn for the mower to pick up or blast them on to a tarpaulin and drag them to the compost heap.

It's also worth clearing leaves off the lawn as they can stop light reaching the turf and cause poor growth and moss. The simplest method of clearing leaves off the lawn is to run over them with a lawn mower. The cutting action of the mower blades will help to shred the leaves and make them quicker to rot down.

Collect leaves this way once a week - any longer and the grass will start to grow long and get harder to cut. 

Discover our best leaf blowers

How do you make leaf mould?

Leaf mould is a rich compost made by rotting down leaves. It's useful for adding to potting mixes and as a mulch to improve the soil.

Which? Gardening has trialled different methods of making leaf mould, and this method came out on top: 

• Shred the leaves by running over them with a lawn mower or by collecting them with a leaf blower vacuum.
• If the leaves aren't moist already, sprinkle them with water.
• Put them in black plastic bags and seal when full.
• Use a garden fork to pierce a few holes in the bags.
• Leave the bags in a quiet corner of the garden.
• Your light, crumbly leaf mould should be ready in 12 months.

Read our reviews of the best garden shredders.

Weeding

Weeds will still be germinating and growing strongly in mild periods of weather, so be vigilant and remove them when you see them. Try to dig them out rather than pulling them up, as you’re more likely to get them out with roots and all that way, which is especially important for perennial weeds, such as dandelions, which will regrow if roots are left behind.

Try one of the best weed suppressing membranes from the Which? Gardening magazine tests

Turn the compost heap

As the garden is tidied in preparation for winter, lots of material is generated for composting. To encourage it to rot down quickly, turn the contents regularly to stir it up and allow in lots of air.

In the colder weather, the rate of decomposition will naturally decrease, but it will soon speed up during warmer spells. Put a cover or lid on the top of the heap to avoid the contents turning soggy in wet weather.

Discover our best compost bins

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Clean greenhouse glass

The dull winter months are coming so to stop your plants growing tall and spindly in their search for light, wipe clean the glass and polythene of any plant-growing structures to increase light reaching plants. It's also worth scraping out any moss that's growing between the panes and giving staging a scrub to kill any overwintering pests. 

Find out how to buy the best greenhouse

Growing your own in October

Weed and mulch

After any last harvests, weed thoroughly and spread a 3-5cm-deep layer of compost, although new beds can have up to 10cm deep. This protects and feeds soil organisms, which keep soil aerated and structured. Homemade compost is best, but you haven’t got enough, buy in green-waste compost, spent mushroom compost or well-rotted manure. These can be ordered online and delivered to your house.

Learn how to make compost

Plant garlic

Break the bulb into  individual cloves and push into the soil– use a trowel to avoid damaging them –so the tip is just covered. Space the cloves 15cm apart in rows 30cm apart, so it will be easy to hoe off weeds. 

If you can, grow garlic indoors in a cold greenhouse or polytunnel as outdoor crops have been suffering from rust in recent years and aren’t growing as big as indoor ones. They should be ready to harvest next June.

Find out how to grow garlic and the best varieties

Sow carrots

Sow carrots by mid-month under a cloche or in a cold greenhouse or polytunnel, to overwinter as seedlings and crop in April.

Try one of the best carrot varieties

Plant spring cabbage

If you sowed spring cabbage four to six weeks ago, or can buy some plants, early October is excellent for planting them out. Make sure you cover them with netting or fine mesh, such as Enviromesh, to protect them against pigeons and rabbits.

Learn how to protect your crops from pigeons

Remove greenhouse crops

Greenhouse crops, such as tomatoes, are past their best by October, so remove the old plants and put them in the compost bin. 

If you have any green tomatoes, a Which? Gardening magazine trial found the best method for ripening them is to put them in a dark place with a gentle, room-temperature level of warmth, such as in a kitchen drawer. You'll often see recommendations for putting a banana with them to encourage ripening, but we found that this caused them to rot so we wouldn't recommend it.

Plant winter salads

Winter salads sown in module trays in September should now be large enough to plant out. It’s best to grow them undercover, whether in a cold greenhouse or outdoors under fleece or insect-proof mesh. First, cover the beds with a 3-5cm deep layer of mulch, then space plants 20cm apart as they’re cropped over a long period, from November to early May.

Find out more about how to grow lettuce and the best varieties

Caring for borders and pots

Plant up spring pots

If you haven't already planted some containers with spring colour, there's still time to plant now using bedding plants such as violas and wallflowers, plus spring-flowering bulbs. 

Keep your pots in a sheltered spot, such as under a porch, to encourage blooms through the winter and to avoid plants rotting off in the winter wet. Cyclamen and ornamental cabbage are particularly vulnerable to rotting in damp conditions.

You won't get masses of blooms during colder weather, but any milder spells should see a good show.

Be sure to use one of the best composts for patio pots

Bring tender plants under protection

If you've got tender plants, such as canna and fuchsias, now's the time to bring them indoors before they get killed by the frost. A sack trolley is a great tool for reducing the effort of moving large pots.

Choose a light, frost-free place such as a greenhouse or coldframe. Then keep them on the dry side during the winter, so they don't put on much growth.

The plants can then be brought back into growth in spring by gradually increasing the amount of water they receive.

Tidy up borders

Perennial stems provide useful habitat and food for wildlife in the garden over winter so don't be a rush to cut them all back. Some collapse earlier than other so cut these back to ground level as they go over. The prunings can be chopped up and added to the compost heap. Chopping them up makes them rot down faster and produces compost with a better texture. Large pieces can create air pockets in the heap which slow down the rotting process.

Summer bedding plants, such as cosmos and zinnias, are past their best by now. It’s time to pull them up and put them on the compost heap. You can then fill the gpas they leave with spring bulbs and bedding, such as wallflowers. Mulch the bare soil with compost for the worms to drag into the soil and improve it over winter. It will then be ready for you to start over in spring.

Get indoor bulbs to flower for Christmas

Plant early varieties of hyacinths by early October. Put them in a cool (10°C), dark place until the shoots are about 5cm, before bringing them into the house.

Plant an early variety of hippeastrum (amarylis) by mid-October. Bigger bulbs produce the best show. Pot them into pots 2-3cm wider than the bulb. Water sparingly until the leaves develop.

Deadhead dahlias

Dahlias will flower until the frosts eventually blacken the foliage so encourage your plants to produce a beautiful display of blooms by removing the old flowers as they fade. To help identify which to cut back, deadheads are pointy and flower buds are round The deadheads can go in the compost bin.

Learn how to grow dahlias