October Gardening Tips

Garden Maintenance

• Clean out flower and vegetable gardens to discourage diseases and pests from overwintering in your beds.
• Rake leaves from ditches to make way for the rain that's coming.
• Re-program drip system timers for cooler weather and rain.
• Update your garden journal, noting what worked and what didn't work.  Look around at the fall color you might want to plant for next year
• Mulch or mow leaves on your lawn and add to your compost pile - either an existing one or a new one.
• Apply a thick layer of compost to enrich your soil for spring planting.
• Apply mulch to bulbs and tubers left in the ground.
• Deadhead spent flowers.
• Lift tuberous begonias.
• Lift and divide dahlias, dust with sulfur before storing.
• Divide lilies.
• Cut back and divide spent perennial phlox asters.
• Cover compost bins with plastic tarps once the rains begin.
• Clean out bird houses and bird feeders.
• Cut old berry canes and tie the new canes to support wires. It's easy to identify the old canes now - they're turning brown.
• Finish pruning any fruit trees after the last fruit is removed.

Fertilize

• Established lawns
• Indoor plants
• Persimmons and pomegranates before dormancy
• Chrysanthemums

Spray: Check the California Backyard Orchard website for current information.

• First dormant spray of stone fruits when leaves fall.
• Citrus with copper for brown rot.  Pay special attention to lower branches and ground under tree.
• Cane berries with copper before winter rains.

What to Plant in October

Trees, shrubs, perennials

• October and November are the best months to plant.
• Acorns for new oak trees.  Acorns do best with 30 days cold treatment.
• Install drought tolerant shrubs and perennials such as barberry, ceanothus, dogwood, iris, fremontia, manzanita, Oregon grape, penstemon, redbud, rockrose, smoke tree, toyon.
• Plant spring bulbs! You have about 2 months to get them in the ground.

Flowers

• Direct seed cornflower, nasturtium, nigella, poppy, lupine, columbine, portulaca, sweet pea, garden pea, and stock.
• Above 200': direct seed crocus, daffodil, hyacinth, scilla, tulips
• Continue to set out cool-weather bedding plants such as calendula, pansy, snapdragon, primrose and viola.

Vegtables

• Plant onions, garlic, artichokes and asparagus before frost.
• Direct seed beets, bok choy, spinach, peas, mustard, radishes.
• At warmer elevations, plant potatoes now through March.

Lawns

• This is an ideal time to reseed bare spots.
• Think about reducing the size of, or removing, your lawn to conserve resources.

Cover Crops

• Seed for erosion control on slopes.
• Clover or fava beans to improve soil structure in your vegetable garden.