What to plant and pick in October: garden calendar

We are fully entering autumn and in the garden the leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard, all kinds of lettuce, endives, cabbage sprouts, Brussels sprouts, kales, lamb’s lettuce, rocket or celery.

It is also the best time for flowering sprouts, such as broccoli, romanesco and cauliflower. We will already be enjoying many of these typically autumnal plants, but let’s not forget to sow and transplant those we consume the most in stages, in order to be able to harvest during the remainder of autumn, in winter and even some until spring.

If we have little space, it is time to go clearing plots, terraces or flowerbeds of the garden in which there were summer crops, to give space to autumn and winter crops.

We can plant different cabbage varieties in consecutive lines, or intersperse them mixed together on a terrace, like a “cruciferous grove”.

The different growth speeds will allow you to harvest regularly after a month and a half after transplanting, either loose leaves or whole cabbage. After two months we will already have some broccoli and later cauliflower or romanesco.

What to sow and plant in October

leeks. If you have a seedling ready for transplanting (from the August seedbed), it is time to bring the clumps (pencil size) to the ground. Winter-spring leeks are now sown in the seedbed.Arugula. Since the amount of arugula that we usually consume is not very abundant, it will suffice to sow or transplant some arugula in some corner of the garden, or between rows of lettuce or cabbage.Broccoli. The seedlings from the seedbed will appreciate being brought to the ground or transplanted into the flowerpot, enriched with a good compost or 1-2 kg of vermicompost per m2. Sow more for the winter.Turnip. Being a large vegetable that grows very quickly (but sporadic in consumption) it can be sown every fortnight (or once a month) in gaps between crops, or in staggered crop lines.

grow your own celery

Witha couple of celery bushes It will be enough for us to be able to harvest the largest leaves (without cutting the entire plant) and use them in stews, to flavor salads or make a couple of purifying broths a week. It requires a nutrient-rich substrate and a compost with slow decomposition humus. It is multi-annual, resists most parasites and we can keep it in the same location two or three years in a row, with regular and abundant watering. It tolerates semi-shade well.

What to harvest in October

Canons. They are planted in a staggered manner, between the rows of lettuce, leeks or cauliflowers, and the entire clumps or only loose leaves – the largest ones – are harvested as they grow.Cabbage. The wide variety of dark-leaved cabbages that can be grown allows for regular harvesting as needed. At this time, once well formed, the buds take time to spike.Red onion. It is sown in summer and is ready to eat as spring onion. Some have already grown to the maximum: they are harvested on a sunny day and left to dry and air to eat these months.Spinach. You can let them reach their full development and harvest the entire bushes or, while they are growing, harvest the good-sized outer leaves and thus lengthen the harvests.

Compost and bottom fertilizer

The intense summer heat and the abundance of summer harvests often deplete the reserves of organic matter and nutrients available in the garden soil. This is the best time to carry out the tasks aimed at replenishing the reserves of organic matter, carbon and fertile humus, to make background fertilizers and even to sow green manures in some of the free plots, facing spring crops.

The fund subscriber will consist of go spreading the mature compost –or manure– on the land of the terraces -or at the foot of the trees-, and covering it with the dry leaves that we collect during the autumn. We will leave it on the ground until we need that space for new crops, incorporating it slightly.

The “green manures” they consist of letting spontaneous grass grow or sowing mixtures of legumes, grasses and crucifers, letting them grow luxuriantly until flowering. Then we crush them and let them decompose on the surface until it is time to cultivate that plot.

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