CHAPTER 12
October

October is the time to tidy up your space after another successful season, leaving only your autumn and winter vegetables, and perennial herbs. Some herbs need to be moved into a cold frame around now, as well. And there’s still scope for some more urban foraging.

My Balcony at the Start of October

Plants still alive and growing:

Tomatoes, with a final few tomatoes still hanging on to ripen (as the weather was still good, I hadn’t taken them off yet).

Herbs: sage, mint, rosemary, bay, thyme, chives, oregano, basil, parsley, dill, papalo, coriander.

Rocket, mizuna, and bronze arrowhead lettuce still cropping.

Tiny fruit on the pepper plant at last!

Satsuma tree – had to conclude that no crop was happening this year, sadly.

Seeds and cuttings:

Self-seeded basil seedlings (just brought inside).

Self-seeded chive seedlings.

Self-seeded bronze arrowhead lettuce and rocket starting to appear.

Patience finally pays off: a pepper on the chilli pepper plant. It was very tasty; and the plant survived the following winter on the windowsill, too, so hopefully more will appear next year.

Things to Do in October

The End of the Gardening Season
– nearly time for a rest!

In the northern hemisphere, autumn is traditionally the time to tidy up, protect any hardy plants that you may want to keep going through the winter, and put your feet up.

Tidying up isn’t exactly the sexiest part of gardening, but it’s nevertheless worth spending some time on it now. I find that in the spring I start off with good intentions; then before long the pace of events has overtaken me a little, and I’m shoving pots in anywhere they’ll fit. The dog’s intermittent ‘help’ doesn’t improve this situation any, either.

Clearing up now means that when spring comes and you suddenly realise that it’s time to start putting seeds into things, you’re ready to go and don’t have to waste sowing time in clearing up. It also gives you an opportunity to take stock of what’s worked and what hasn’t; what you’ll definitely grown again, what isn’t worth the hassle, and what you might have another go at and do slightly differently next year.

Stacking up your unused pots can also free you up to think again about how you use the space, if you’ve had them in a particular configuration for a while. One of the joys of gardening in containers is that you can easily move them around, but in my experience this is far less likely to happen when they’re full of compost and dead plant roots. Take the opportunity to look at your emptier space, and make some decisions about how to plan it. There’s more on planning in the Introduction.

As you’re clearing out dead plants, collecting any remaining seeds, and even emptying the leftover compost in the pots back into a bag for revitalisation in the spring, now is also a good chance to transfer any finished compost from your compost bin or wormery. It’ll create space for the worms to process the dead material that you’re throwing in there now. Be careful not to add too much woody material.

You can either mix the old and new compost up now, or you can just leave the new compost in a bag in a spare corner. Make sure that the bag is sealed (with a small air hole or two) so that the compost doesn’t dry out over the winter. Old shop-bought potting compost bags are good for this; or you can use a thick black plastic sack.

Tidying out your Seed Collection

Another job for this time of year is looking through any seeds you have left over. Most seeds (with the exception of carrots, which are definitely one season only) will keep for a second season, but after that the germination rate is likely to go down. To make sure that your seeds are still good, you can do a test germination. Take ten seeds and rinse them in clean water, then line them up on a damp paper towel and roll the towel around them. Put the whole lot in a zip-lock plastic bag, and leave them somewhere with suitable germination temperatures. Check daily to see whether any seeds have germinated. The test ends when either all seeds have germinated, or the maximum germination time (check the packet) has passed. If fewer than 60% of seeds germinate, this is probably the last season for that packet (and make a note on the packet to sow them thickly next spring!). Below 40% it’s probably not worth keeping them.

However, if you do have some low-germination-rate seeds, it might be worth conducting some experiments with them before you throw them out. For some plants, it’s just not feasible to get any growth out of them in the winter. (There’s no real point in sowing sweet or chilli peppers, for example, which need high temperatures to germinate.) However, some seeds will do quite well over the winter, especially if your space is sheltered or south-facing. Some plants are good for overwintering anyway; but if you have some spare seeds from other plants, why not try sowing them and see what happens? I have had good luck with autumn-sown broad beans (which will overwinter happily); and my bronze arrowhead lettuce self-seeded in September and October, with perfectly healthy seedlings appearing towards the end of October. You probably won’t get the same yield that you would if sowing them in the ‘proper’ season, but you’ll find out something interesting, and you may get an extra crop to cheer you up as the days draw in.

Succession Sowing through October

Rocket and bronze arrowhead lettuce will grow through October, as will some other greens such as mizuna. If you let existing plants go to seed earlier in the season, they may well have self-seeded already. If you don’t want the seedlings in the places where they’ve sown themselves, you can move them once they’re established (with at least two real leaves). Dig them up carefully, avoiding any disturbance in their roots, and move them elsewhere.

Chives and parsley are particularly good at self-seeding in my experience, but my basil, bronze arrowhead lettuce, and rocket all also regularly self-seed. I often leave them where they sowed themselves, if it’s remotely convenient for me, on the grounds that clearly that space suits the seed or it wouldn’t have germinated there!

Wine box and plank, to be used to create a cold frame.

Wine box with sloping plank upper section

Cold frame with its plastic top on and plants inside.

Getting out the Cold Frame

Now is also a good time to either get out or construct a cold frame. You’ll also need to decide what must go in there to survive, what will produce better in the cold frame, and what can do without it.

Some varieties of lettuce are cold-hardy and will survive outside a cold frame, but they may crop slightly better with the shelter of the cold frame. I’ve found that bronze arrow head lettuce and rocket will both do well both inside and outside a cold frame, but you get slightly more tender leaves with a cold frame. Depending on the structure of the cold frame, however, the plants may also get a little less light and therefore get a bit more ‘leggy’.

In terms of herbs, rosemary, sage, and thyme will all do fine out of a cold frame, but will stop growing until the spring. Oregano will die back if left outside unprotected (but will rejuvenate in the spring). Chives will die back whether or not they’re in a cold frame (then, again, rejuvenate in the spring), so it’s not really worth taking up the space. Basil and other very delicate plants need more warmth than that, so you’ll need to take them inside or resign yourself to replanting in the spring.

It’s also, as ever, worth experimenting. Wherever possible, sow one set of a type of plant outside and one inside the cold frame, and see what happens. The small, tougher leaves that rocket produces when left outside may be more to your taste than the larger, softer, less spicy ones that come out of the cold frame, for example. Or your space may have a warm enough corner that your rosemary will prefer being outside anyway. My rosemary this year was too big to fit in the cold frame. Despite the snow and long cold snap that we had in December in my area, I was able to (gently, and with restraint), crop from it throughout the winter. Rosemary and other Mediterranean plants can be surprisingly hardy; it can get very cold overnight and in the winter in places like Provence where they grow wild.

Useful Weeds

This is also the time of year for harvesting weeds such as chickweed (available throughout the winter) or dandelion. Dandelion leaves are tough and nasty at this time of year, but the roots are at their best, and can be dried and used to make dandelion tea.

You probably won’t have any dandelions in your own patch if you’re above ground level (although you might even in a paved space at ground level – dandelion seeds spread far and wide on the wind), but you can keep an eye out in local parks and on waste ground. Be careful that if a patch of land has been recently used for industrial purposes, eating roots from it may not be safe. Similarly, if picking low level weeds such as chickweed, be aware that inquisitive dogs, foxes, or cats may have been wandering around the area. (This is less of an issue for roots.) You should also avoid roadside areas which will be heavily polluted. Make sure you thoroughly wash anything you gather from public spaces.

When gathering wild plants, never take all the plants you see. It’s important to leave enough there to sustain the population. It’s reasonable to take up to around a third of what you see. Weeds in your own pots, of course, you can make your own decisions about (the likelihood of actually exterminating the lot is always pretty low, in my experience).

Dandelion root

Look for larger plants when digging, and dig carefully to get as much of the root as you can (dandelion roots can be huge).

Dandelion root decoction is supposed to have general tonic effects, and in particular to be good for the liver and kidneys. I have found it useful for perking one up if feeling slightly under the weather the morning after a couple of glasses of wine!

To dry dandelion root, chop the roots off the plants (throw the green leaves in the compost), wash them, and spread them out on a tea towel. Fold the tea towel over, and place them somewhere warm until entirely dried (this may take a few days). The airing cupboard is a good spot. Once dried, keep them in an airtight jar.

As dandelion roots are quite tough, you need to make a decoction rather than an infusion, which means that you simmer the roots on the stove in water for around 15 minutes. The decoction tastes pleasantly earthy, and (contrary to my expectations) not at all bitter. However, a spoonful of honey is a nice addition to it. Other herbal infusions or decoctions can be very nice as well – see the ‘Herb of the Month’ section at the end of each chapter for more on medicinal herbs.