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Jobs for October

Greenhouse

October is the time to get the greenhouse ready for winter! Firstly take out your tomato plants. Wait until a dry day take out any other plants you have growing in the greenhouse and place them somewhere protected. Thoroughly clean the greenhouse throughout. and then use an insecticide candle to kills any residual pests (otherwise they’d over-winter in the greenhouse!). You should then insulate the greenhouse with bubble-foam and put back the plants you put to one side earlier.

General Gardening

• As the colder (and wet?) weather approaches it is worthwhile bringing some of the more tender plants – Geraniums/ bedding Fuchsias – under cover before they are damaged by the weather. in the meantime keep and eye for any cold nights forecast and cover them with fleece!

• On dry days it is still worth keeping on top of the weeding in the borders by hand weeding and watching for pest damage and disease.

• Climbing roses – the side shoots on non-flowering shoots can be cut back to two shoots. Leave any with still bearing flowers until later.

• It’s now too wet to scarify and top dress your lawns but you can still feed the grass by using autumn lawn feed.

• Hedges can be trimmed before the cold weather arrives but check for any nesting birds – it is illegal to disturb nesting birds.

• Look out for and buy bulbs for the garden. If you can’t plant them soon place them somewhere cool and out of direct sunlight.

• Over winter cuttings of tender plants e.g. Geraniums, Salvias, Osteospermums.

• Think about planting bulbs (*) in any areas of ground used for growing summer bedding. If you can, add garden compost to enrich the soil before planting.

• As the days get colder empty pots of summer bedding and add the plants to the compost heap. Replace with winter bedding – Autumn Pansies/ Violas and Bulbs (). If you can mix multi-purpose compost and John Innes compost and add slow release fertilisers. () Tulips shouldn’t be planted before November as they are vulnerable to Tulip blight

Vegetable / Fruit growing

• Continue to harvest crops and store apples, potatoes, carrots etc

• If your runner beans have stopped cropping remove the stems and put them in the compost bin. Leave the roots as they will provide food for next years’ plants. Save any beans that have gone brown for next years’ seeds (store them somewhere dry).

• Sow green matures onto any spare ground. These will grow over winter and can then be dug into the ground next spring. These stops nutrients being washed away in winter

Do you have a question? Send us an email: info@mersthamhorti.org.uk.

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