General gardening tasks for October
There are a number of tasks that gardeners could consider doing during October.
Trees, shrubs, roses and fruit bushes can be planted from the middle of the month onwards.
Prepare the ground in advance by digging it over and mixing in lots of compost or well-rotted manure.
Planting
Add some more compost to the planting hole. Plant roses and blackcurrants a few centimetres deeper than they were growing previously to encourage shoots to grow directly from the ground.
Plant all others at the same depth as before. Trees need staking with a stout wooden stake that comes about a third of the way up the stem.
Sowing berries
Berries can be collected from shrubs and trees and sown straight away and the pots stood against the house wall.
Squeeze the seeds out of their surrounding pulp and sow them in a compost of equal parts soil, coarse grit and coir compost.
Fallen leaves
Fallen leaves should be raked up within a few days where they’re covering lawns and plants, or they could yellow and damage foliage.
Leaves can be left to rot down on bare soil. Make leaf mould by storing collected leaves in a wire-netting container, hessian style bags, or in black polythene bags with a few holes pierced in the sides. In a year or so you’ll have a wonderful soil conditioner.