In October in the Garden, Joanne Shaw reviews some of the tasks you can do this month but insists it's not as labour-intensive as you may think!

Tasks you can do this month:

Vegetable Gardens

• Clean up and remove the old stems of your tomato or pepper plants that have stopped producing.
• Sow cool weather plants like lettuce and some spinach: they grow better in the shoulder seasons, late spring /early summer or fall.
• Buy plants at a garden centre or start seeds and sow them right into the garden.
• Top up the vegetable garden with some compost or manure to get ahead of next year.
• Take pictures so you know where plants are because next year you may need to put things in different places.
• Plant a cover crop.

Containers

• If you want to take advantage of the nice weather at the beginning of October, take your vegetable out of its container and pop in an aster.

Annuals and Perennials

• Annuals: With no frost anytime soon, annuals are probably still doing okay. They may be a little bit leggy or sad-looking. Perk them up with water and fertilizer.
• Perennials: No need to cut them back. You can do some deadheading if things are really looking brown and not necessarily attractive.

Deciduous Trees and Shrubs

• Trees:
  • It is important to water deciduous trees, especially young ones, certainly ones that you just planted this year.
  • Water them deeply every week.
• Evergreen shrubs:
  • Enjoy the fall colour and shape of your shrubs. Cutting them back now is not necessary.
  • Keep newly planted shrubs well-watered. They need some extra time to get established. Being in a drought situation as they go into dormancy in winter is never a good thing.

Seeds and Bulbs

• It’s a good time to buy and plant your garlic.
• Spring bulbs: find and buy bulbs – just don’t plant them until the end of October, or the beginning of November!
• I recommend not planting tulips but instead looking at the interesting varieties of daffodils or alliums
• Daffodils and alliums are poisonous to squirrels and other rodents, so they will leave them alone.

Lawn Care

• Time to apply fall fertilizer.
• Pay attention to the weeds, especially crabgrass which is prolific this time of year
• Apply corn gluten to act as a preemergent, preventing the weed seeds from germinating. It’s best to apply during spring and fall.

Resources Mentioned in the Show:

Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden

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Down the Garden Path Podcast

On Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designer Joanne Shaw discusses down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes. As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. She does her best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and fellow landscape designer Matthew Dressing distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. Get your copy today on Amazon.

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