Prepare for Frost, but Keep Growing

• Keep some overnight frost protection handy for vegetables, annuals and tropical plants that can’t easily be moved inside. You can use blankets, sheets, towels, or frost fabric to cover these tender plants when nighttime temperatures dip. They’ll be effective until temperatures reach about 28°F or when below-freezing temperatures last longer than 5 hours.
• If moving or covering your plants isn’t feasible, be sure to harvest anything frost-sensitive, such as tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, beans, summer squash, and tender herbs like basil and dill. If you still have a lot of green tomatoes on your vines, you can harvest them and bring them indoors to ripen or try some new recipes to preserve them.
• Dig up tender bulbs such as dahlias, cannas, and caladium. You can store them for next year in a cool, dry place that will not freeze.
• You can keep sowing! Our shorter days and cooler weather are perfect for greens like spinach, tatsoi, bok choy, lettuce, chard, kale, arugula and cilantro. We still have a couple of weeks to direct-sow these tasty leaves, and with some season extenders like row cover or cold frames, you can have fresh greens into November and December. Be sure to check out the selection of seeds at the Orleans Community Seed Share, the seed library based at the Orleans County CCE offices in Albion.
• Garlic and shallots can also go into the ground as late as mid-November for harvest next summer. Choose a well-drained site in your garden, and be sure to amend it with compost to give these heavy feeders a solid start.
• Consider adding a prized spice to your garden with saffron crocus (Crocus sativus). This flower grows from fall-planted corms that will send up leaves in the spring, die back in the summer, and bloom next fall. The tiny, bright red-orange stigmas in these purple flowers are harvested and used in dishes such as paella and risotto. Be careful, though: Do not confuse saffron crocus with the poisonous autumn-blooming crocus (Colchicum autumnale), which also blooms in the fall.
• When it’s too cold to plant outside, try growing microgreens inside. Learn more about these tiny nutritional powerhouses during our Master Your Garden Class on Microgreens on Oct. 4, when local grower Leonard Bower of Bower Farms will share his journey in growing and supplying microgreens across Western New York. The class begins at 10 a.m. in the Education Center at the Orleans County Cornell Cooperative Extension offices, 12690 Route 31, Albion. Suggested donation: $5. To register, call 585-798-4265 or email klo54 [at] cornell.edu (klo54[at]cornell[dot]edu).

Do Some Clean-Up

• Before raking and cutting back perennials, consider creating a space in your yard that can serve as a habitat for beneficial creatures such as moths, butterflies, ground-nesting bees, and spiders. This could mean leaving the leaves under native trees, such as oaks, or creating a brush pile where you can also put fallen branches or other pieces of wood. Here are some tips for leaving the leaves this fall, and learn more about important winter habitat protection.
• However, be sure to remove and destroy any debris damaged by disease or pests to help prevent issues next year. Also, completely remove any remaining cruciferous plants (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) and squash plants to keep pests such as cabbage worms and squash bugs from overwintering in your vegetable garden.
• Winterize your irrigation setup. Drain hoses, hose bibs, and any containers holding water to prevent freezing damage. Bring hoses inside and store them on reels or coiled on a flat surface to prevent kinking.
• Keep weeding! Stay ahead of these pesky plants by pulling as much as you can. And if you can’t get to them all, try to deadhead them and dispose of the seeds to prevent future growth. This handy weed ID tool can help you figure out what you have.
• Clean and sanitize your pots to prevent disease and pests from lingering to affect your spring plantings.
• Give your tools some TLC, too. Clean, disinfect, sharpen, and store them in a dry location, so you’re ready for next year.

Plan Ahead

• To get ready for next year, consider taking a soil sample and sending it in for analysis. Getting your results before winter can help you get a jump on preparing your garden for spring. Learn more about soil samples and testing.
• Divide your perennials. Not only will splitting perennials give you more plants for free, it will also help those plants perform better by giving them more room for their roots to grow. Join us on Oct. 18 for a class on Splitting & Transplanting Perennials. Master the essential skills of dividing and relocating perennial plants to rejuvenate your garden, promote healthy growth, and expand your plant collection. This class will help you confidently expand and revitalize your perennial gardens for free! The class is part of our Seeds to Splendor education series. Stay after to explore the Orleans Community Seed Share, a seed library featuring vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The class begins at 10 a.m. in the Education Center at the Orleans County Cornell Cooperative Extension offices, 12690 Route 31, Albion. Suggested donation: $5. To register, call 585-798-4265 or email klo54 [at] cornell.edu (klo54[at]cornell[dot]edu).
• Survey your garden to determine if there are any areas that may need additional planting. Fall is a fabulous time to plant perennials, as well as deciduous trees and shrubs. Cooler temperatures and more rain (hopefully!) will help perennials and trees get established before winter. Wait to plant evergreens, such as rhododendron and arborvitae, in the spring. Evergreens tend to lose moisture through their leaves during winter and are susceptible to winter injury before their root systems are established.
• Prepare new beds for fall planting. Sheet mulching with cardboard can be an effective strategy for smothering grass to create a new area for plantings.
• Think spring! October is the perfect time to get spring-blooming bulbs like tulips, daffodils and hyacinth in the ground before it freezes. They look most natural when planted in clumps, and with different bloom times, you can plan for a succession of colors from March or April through June. Try some pest-resistant options if deer and rabbits give you trouble.