The Vegetable Garden in October

October in the vegetable garden is mostly about harvesting and storing root crops, checking on overwintering vegetables like purple sprouting broccoli or Brussels sprouts and preparing and protecting the soil for the coming season.

It is also the time of year to plant overwintering onions and garlic - and to think about bare root fruit, which can be planted from early November. There is a bit more we can do in the polytunnel, including sowing overwintering salads or annual spinach, but again it is more about harvesting crops rather than growing any new ones. 

My tip for October would be to get as many of your winter jobs done as possible while the weather is still relatively warm and there is still some light in the evenings. Winter jobs might include building new raised beds, building compost bins or generally tidying around the garden, but they are a lot more difficult when you are getting an ear full of sleet. 

Harvesting Maincrop Potatoes

Maincrop potatoes are harvested in October for storage over the winter. Store in boxes of damp sand in a cool place. Alternatively you can let them dry in crates in a cool shed for 10 days or so (cover to keep light out) before storing them in hessian potato sacks raised off the ground on pallets.

Use any damaged potatoes straight away, and only store healthy tubers - as disease can quickly spread and ruin your harvest. Don't wash your potatoes as this will reduce their storage life, just give them a quick rub to remove the majority of the muck. 

I'll always recommend Setanta as it's a delicious potato with good blight resistance, but I was surprised at how good the Sarpo Mira was this year. I always grow Sarpo Mira and find it a brilliant backbone in a bad blight year - but was never too excited about the flavour. This year however they are really good, which I'd put down to the drier weather. I have found the same goes for 'Orla' which can also be disappointing in a wet year.

Harvesting Carrots

Depending on how well-drained your soil is, you can either leave maincrop carrots in the ground over winter or harvest and store them. I usually harvest and store as 'freshly picked' sounds wonderful until it's dark, wet and cold and you have to go outside to dig them up.

I would also make the point that if there is any significant root fly damage, you are better to lift the entire crop and process them - as the roof fly larvae will continue to feed on the carrots in storage. Raw carrots don't freeze well, so make them into something - e.g. a carrot and potato mash - and freeze that. 

Remember that even if carrots have lost their firmness and have begun to shrivel a bit, they are still good to cook, often with a more intense carrot flavour. 

Storing Root Vegetables

If you have carrots, turnips or beet that you'd like to harvest and store, the best way is to use buckets or boxes of moist sand (the reason root vegetables go spongy is because they lose their moisture). Root crops will store well in this way as they are the storehouses of biennial plants, and would naturally stay dormant in the garden over winter. The reason we dig them up is our wet winter conditions can cause them to rot in the ground, so they are better kept in a safer environment.

• Harvest carefully, making sure you avoid damage to the skin.
• Do not wash the vegetables unless grown in very heavy, sticky clay soil - or if disease or pest damage is suspected.
• Remove any leaves by twisting off rather than cutting the foliage, and leave to dry slightly before storing.
• Lay the vegetables in moist sand, leaf mould, sieved soil or sawdust from untreated timber.
• Make sure the vegetables don't touch each other, as this can spread disease later on.

Autumn Soil Amendment

As you may know, my garden is in an area of high rainfall which makes it very important for me to protect my soil and prevent nutrients being washed out.

Feeding Soil in Autumn

I know I've talked about feeding your soil in some detail before, but it really is the best thing you can do for your garden at this time of year. 

Organic matter such as manure, garden compost or seaweed add nutrients to the soil. The reason we add these bulky nutrients at this time of year is that they need to rot down over the winter and early spring.

It is, of course, the living things in the soil (including bacteria, amoeba, centipedes, grubs and earthworms) that process organic matter and turn it into plant food; so when we talk about feeding soil, it is this lot that we are feeding. No pressure, but think of it as having hundreds of millions of tiny pets you need to look after.

You've heard me get excited about 'Envirogrind' before, but we now use it ourselves every year to improve our soil with fantastic results. Spread approx. 1 bucket per square metre for best results. We supply Envirogrind in 850 litre bags (which is the best value in the long term) or in smaller sized 50 litre bags; it can be stored for years and used as a top dressing next year, in case you're worrying that the bulk bag might be too much.

It is best to cover beds with organic matter while there is still a little bit of warmth left in the season so that the earthworms and their friends are still active and able to start breaking it down. In cold weather earthworms burrow deeper into the soil to retain heat, and either hibernate or move very slowly - so little processing work is done over the winter.

I'm spoiled obviously as not only can I easily get my hands on Envirogrind, I also have my friend farmer Clive down the road. Clive is an organic farmer and painter who kindly drops me a large load of very well-composted cow manure every year in return for, um, some seeds and a bit of grass (silage, not the other stuff).

Why Does Garden Soil Need More Protection in the Winter?

Soil needs more protection in the winter because (in most cases) you have harvested your crops so there is no natural cover to protect it. Plants provide shelter with their foliage, but their roots are equally important as they mop up soluble nutrients which are then stored in the plant's tissues. Roots are an integral part of the soil structure and support an even larger ecosystem - in terms of numbers - than the plant above ground.

Many nutrients like nitrogen are soluble and can be washed out of the soil if it's left bare till next spring. We're in October now so it's a bit late to sow the majority of green manures - so you'll need to cover the bare ground with something else.

Mypex and Soil Protection

I also cover my beds in Mypex weed control membrane to help prevent nutrients being washed out by heavy rain, and (or so I believe) to provide some warmth on sunny days to speed up the breakdown of the material underneath.

In the above image you can see my covered beds last winter - showing frost on one side while the other is warmed by the winter sun. When I put my hand under the mypex, the seaweed and manure underneath was warm to the touch while any uncovered soil remained cold.

It is often claimed (by me amongst others) that black plastic sheeting warms the soil in spring prior to sowing and planting, so I was very interested to see the following experiment done by a contributor to the Kitchen Garden magazine online forum (the contributor goes by the name 'plumpudding' for some reason):

The experiment was to measure the average temperature under a range of coverings over a 9 day period of cold winter weather. The conditions experienced over the 9-day test were sunshine, one day of frost and snow, five frosty nights, cool cloudy and rain, very cold winds and intermittent sun and showers.

Surprisingly (to me) the average soil temperature over the nine days tested was as follows:

• Uncovered ground: 9.5˚C
• Black plastic: 9˚C
• Clear plastic: 10.5˚C
• Fleece cloche: 10˚C (Air temperature 10.5˚C)

I definitely wasn't expecting that. I will be taking my own readings over the winter but if 'plumpudding' is correct it would appear that black plastic actually warms slower than uncovered soil. My reasons for using mypex are more for protection rather than heat so it is going on again this winter, but I just thought it was an interesting experiment.

By the way I am often asked if Mypex leaches chemicals into the soil, and while I have never tested a soil sample I can tell you it is UV stabilised (it doesn't break down or degrade in direct sunlight) so I don't think it poses any risk.

I accept that plastic sheeting may not be the most eco-friendly material, but I do re-use the sheets every year; and I feel the benefits of protecting the soil and preventing nutrients being washed out outweighs the downsides of the sheeting over time.

Planting Garlic and Overwintering Onions

October is a great time to plant garlic for harvesting next June/July. 

Garlic needs to be grown in full sun in a fertile, well drained soil. If you have a heavy soil it may be better to wait until the spring, or alternatively build some raised beds and fill with a suitable soil medium. Plant with a spacing of 25 cm between plants and 25 cm between rows. 

We've only just got done talking about Mypex, but you should also know about our 'Gro Grid' mats, which have a very similar soil protective effect but also have pre-punched planting holes designed for similarly spaced crops (variations come in A to D, with D intended for garlic and onions). The mats are designed for weed protection but they also have the advantage of protecting the soil from heavy rain.

Related Article: Planting Garlic in Autumn

When it comes to planting overwintering onions in autumn, Japanese varieties (Radar, Senshyu Yellow) are a good bet and will give you an early crop of onions the following year. We also stock the relatively new hybrid variety 'Troy'.

Aim to get your onion sets planted by the second week in October. Overwintering onions are spaced at 10 cm between plants and 25 cm between rows.

Go here for a more detailed growing onions article with a handy visual guide on choosing onion sets.

Autumn Leaves

Don't forget to collect all those autumn leaves: they'll be very handy for making up the carbon part of your compost heap next year, or you can allow them to break down into leaf mould. It's handy to chop them up in the lawnmower first as you'll fit more in your bag or pile, and they'll break down quicker in the compost.

Leaf mould makes for an excellent protective mulch but it's best used after rotting down for a year or more. To enable this process you can store in piles or in a leaf mould cage made by hammering 4 fence posts into the ground and wrapping with chicken wire.

Tip!: If you want to collect leaves really easily you should try our lightweight, mulitpurpose and super strong 'Golden Gark'.

Poetry is for the birds

I don't remember in what context my father informed me that 'poetry is for the birds'. Given his opinion I can't see why we would have been talking about it in the first place, but for some reason it stuck in my mind.

I won't pretend to know much about the artform either (I only have 5 or 6 poetry books, all of which were either given to me or came into my possession by chance). I expect I miss the intention of the author most of the time, as I am often astounded to learn the 'true meaning' behind poems, novels or films which have gone completely over my head.

What I can appreciate is the rhythm of the work and the obvious skill of choosing and weighing the perfect word before fitting it neatly into its predestined place.

The reason I ended up with 'The River' by Jane Clarke is that my daughter was singing at an event where Jane was reading some of her work. I absolutely loved it and bought the book, which Jane kindly signed while I mumbled some incoherent appreciation.

I had featured one of the poems from 'The River' in the Quickcrop newsletter (with Jane's kind permission) so there had been some contact since. Nonetheless, I was suprised (and delighted) to receive a postcard last week with the following poem on the front and the words 'Hi Andrew, thought you might enjoy this one' written on the back.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity to show off that I fraternise with poets and artistes, I include 'Eggs' below. This new poem was commissioned by Festival in a Van for the Words Move Tour 2021.

Eggs

I'd have followed her anywhere but my grandmother rarely went farther than the yard, tending her hens.

Every morning she poured fresh water and ladled corn into the dented tin dish, adding handfuls of seed and grit.

From a gap in the galvanised roof sun lit up the lines on her face. She let me reach into nest boxes

to grasp warm eggs, then slip them into her cardigan pockets. She chased the cantankerous cockerel away

and warned, Watch out for men who fancy themselves. At the kitchen table we divvied up the eggs, rolled

the surplus in melted lard and salt and stowed them in the scullery, like pullets roosting on a high shelf.

'The River' and 'When the Tree Falls'

If you would like to read more of Jane Clarke's work, she has two published collections 'The River' and 'When the Tree Falls'. I must have bought 'The River' five times now as I keep giving my copy away but have ordered them both just now. I know we are a long way from Christmas but might I suggest one or both as a present for someone special?

Rather than me trying to explain the collections (which I wouldn't understand anyway), you can read more about them and see Jane reading some of her work by visiting her website, Jane Clarke Poetry here.