October Gardening
It's October, so it's time to close the garden for the season, right? Wrong!
No matter where you live, there's something you can plant this month—I promise. But here's the thing: what you're planting in October where you live may not look like what I'm planting over here in Nashville. Gardening possibilities, as you know, really depend on where you live.
So to help you figure out what to plant in October, I've got some categories for you. The first category is your growing season, which is based on your climate. Let's look at the different growing seasons you might experience in October.
October Growing Seasons
Here's a quick breakdown of the different growing seasons. If you're still not sure about what kind of climate you're growing in, we have a free resource for you. Our Garden Calendar will help you figure out what you can plant when based on your first and last frost dates.
Warm Season
If you live in a warmer climate (somewhere like Texas or Florida), you might be in a warm season for the fall. Even though it's technically fall, your temps are in the 80s some days (a far cry from sweater weather), and your first frost date is still 45 or more days away.
Cool Season
If you live in a milder climate, your first frost of fall might be approaching. You'll be entering your cool season this month, and you should fill your garden with plants that can tolerate some frost.
Cold Season
And if you live in a colder climate, you're definitely going to get some moderate to heavy freezes this month, so you should prepare for your cold season.
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October Vegetables
All right, the next category is type of plants. I like to keep things simple by grouping plants using my Leaves, Roots, and Fruit system. Scroll down to find your growing season and then read up on the different herbs, leafy greens, root crops, and fruiting plants you can grow during this season.
Keep in mind, leaves are the easiest to grow, roots are a bit harder (in the beginning), and fruit is the hardest to grow. You should still grow fruit, but I do like to issue a little grower beware. Fruiting plants take the longest to produce, they need the most sunlight during these shortening autumn days, and they need the most space in your vegetable garden.
Warm Season
The Best Warm Season Leaves to Grow in October
Herbs
If you still have at least 45 days before your first frost of the season, then you've got time to grow basil from seed and take some leaf harvests before frost. Lucky you to be able to extend the taste of summer well into the fall!
You can also plant perennial herbs like rosemary, sage, oregano, lavender, and thyme. Start with plants so that they have enough time to get established in your garden before frost hits. Most of them should make it through winter in your climate.
Leafy Greens
It might still be a little too warm to grow lettuce plants, but you could grow other greens like mizuna, mustard greens, and arugula. These can go in your garden from seed. You could also plant kale and Swiss chard seedlings that you've started indoors or bought from a nursery. These plants will do okay in the warm weather and then really take off once your temps drop.
The Best Warm Season Root Crops to Grow in October
If there's no chance of frost anytime soon where you live, you can actually grow potatoes (technically tubers, not roots, but you get what I mean). It may seem weird to plant potatoes in October, but trust me, it works. The potatoes will grow really well during these nice, warm days. You might need to harvest a bit early, but you'll still end up with "new potatoes" you can enjoy.
So get potatoes in the ground right now, and with luck (and the right conditions), you'll get your harvest by the end of November.
You could also try to grow some radishes, beets, and carrots from seed, even though these roots crops prefer lower temps. Since it's still warm, you'll need to keep them really well watered. Their growth will take off as soon as your nighttime temps cool down a bit.
The Best Warm Season Fruiting Plants to Grow in October
Even though you might be dreaming about chilly fall days, you probably don't have all that much longer in your warm season if you're in the Northern Hemisphere. That means you may not have enough time before your first frost to grow plants like tomatoes and peppers, which need 90 or more days to produce. It's a little too late for those guys.
That being said, you can grow fruiting plants that only need about 50 to 60 days to grow from seed to harvest. These things include bush beans, short season cucumbers, and maybe even squash and zucchini.
Cool Season
The Best Cool Season Leaves to Grow in October
Herbs
It's time to grow cilantro, dill, and parsley. These are my favorite herbs to grow in the garden, and they love it when it's cool outside. They're even frost tolerant. Dill and cilantro grow pretty quick from seed, but you might grab a little parsley plant from your local nursery so you can take harvests sooner.
Leafy Greens
No worries if you're already getting a couple light freezes. This is actually the perfect time to grow lots of leafy greens like spinach, lettuce, arugula, romaine—whatever you want to put in your salad bowl. Lettuce is a bit more tender than the others if you happen to have a hard frost, but none of these plants mind the temps dipping below 30°F.
Kale, cabbage, and Swiss chard also thrive in these cool season temps. Since these larger greens are a bit slower to grow, I recommend grabbing some well-grown plant starts from your local nursery. You'll more than get your money back after just a couple leaf harvests.
The Best Cool Season Root Crops to Grow in October
The cool season has so many options for root crops: radishes, beets, carrots, fennel, turnips, rutabaga. These veggies all love cool weather and grow best when planted by seed directly in the soil.
Right after your first frost is also the ideal time to plant garlic cloves in your beds. Of course, you're not going to harvest any bulbs until May, June, or even July, but you want to plant them this month, before your soil hardens with frost.
The Best Cool Season Fruiting Plants to Grow in October
When you have a chance of frost and your daytime temps are between 40 and 60°F, the best fruiting plants to grow will be snow peas, sugar snap peas, and fava beans. These are best grown from seed right in your garden.
Okay, I know broccoli, cauliflower, and romanesco aren't fruit, but I lump them into this category. Hear me out: they have similar space, time, and nutrition requirements as fruiting plants. They don't have seeds in them (yet), but instead of growing from a flower head, they are flower heads. They just haven't opened yet. These plants are cool-weather plants, so now's the time to transplant seedlings you started indoors or purchased.
Cold Season
The Best Cold Season Leafy Greens to Grow in October
Once your temps regularly start dipping below 32°F every day, you can still grow kale and cabbage. These plants are frost resistant and can push into the colder parts of the year, especially if you're using garden covers. The leaves of these brassicas are bumpy (what we gardeners call savoy), which helps them withstand frost better.
It's best to put these in by plant and grow them inside a cold frame. They won't increase in size much, but they'll survive. You'll be able to take small harvests from them.
You could also sow seeds, but they won't take off until the weather warms back up in the spring.
The Best Cold Season Root Crops to Grow in October
It's not too late to plant garlic in October, even if your temps are already dipping past freezing. You'll just have to set up a cold frame or a little polytunnel to warm your soil up enough for the top couple inches to be workable.
You could also try sowing your radish, beet, and carrot seeds in the garden and then covering the planting area with frost cloth. Those little seeds won't geminate until next spring, so don't expect a winter harvest or anything. But they'll have a little bit of a jumpstart on the next cool season.
Think about the way these seeds work in nature. Carrot plants that are left to go to seed drop their seeds in the soil in fall, and then those seeds sit there all winter before popping up in the spring.
Your neighbors will be so jealous of your root harvest in March or April. You'll have carrots, radishes, and beets, and they'll just have snow!
The Best Cold Season Fruiting Plants to Grow in October
Unfortunately, there's not really a fruiting plant to grow during your cold season. You can, however, treat peas and fava beans like root crops and go ahead and winter sow them. You won't be getting a fall pea harvest, but you can get those pea seeds in the ground so they can settle. Cover them with frost cloth or a cold frame and then—boom! The second your soil starts to warm up in spring, you'll see little pea shoots popping up.
What's really cool is that winter will have watered these seeds for you with the snow melt. Also cool: ending up with peas way before anyone else in your area.
Flowers That Grow in October
If your weather is still warm to cool, you can grow calendula and nasturtiums. Frost-tolerant flowers we can all plant in October include pansies, dianthus, violas, and snapdragons.
You can also go ahead and sow echinacea and brown-eyed Susan seeds, as well as wildflowers from your area. These seeds won't pop up and grow until spring, but they benefit from cold stratification over the coming months.
There's Always Something to Plant in October
See? I told you there's so much to grow this season! I know I'm about to plant tons of spinach so that I can harvest enough to freeze for later. That way, I'll be able to go at least 6 months without having to buy spinach from the grocery store.
Here at Gardenary, we are all about eating from the garden every single day of the year, no matter where you live, and I'd love to teach you exactly how to do that. We have so many resources to get you started right away. Learn more about our Gardenary Planting Method, grab a copy of my book, Kitchen Garden Revival, if you don't already have it, and download your free Garden Calendar.
Now go plant something!
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