October has arrived, and with it a new set of outdoor chores. Soon the chill will come and then the snow, so it’s time to prepare your garden and landscaping for the long sleep ahead.

Many folks may have enjoyed their best growing season in years thanks to ample sun and rain in early summer. Among those enjoying a bountiful harvest this year is agroforester Robert Beyfuss.

Vegetable Gardens
A Cornell Cooperative Extension agriculture and natural resources issue leader, Beyfuss offers the following advice for putting your garden to bed. “Generally in the first week of October frost is happening,” says Beyfuss. “We need to be prepared to throw blankets on those tomato plants, beans and basil. Basil is probably the most tender of all the culinary herbs out there. Zucchini are pretty tender, but by this point though people are pretty sick of them.”

What about those green tomatoes, you may ask. Beyfuss offers the following. “Unfortunately, we need a little bit of an Indian Summer,” he says. “Tomatoes ripen best between 70 and 80 degrees. There comes a point where you need to pick those tomatoes and bring them indoors.” Sure, these won’t be the same as vine-ripened, but Beyfuss says if it’s a question between a green tomato he ripens indoors or a a supermarket tomato that’s been ripened with ethylene gas, he’ll choose the countertop approach. He enjoys tomatoes from his garden up until around Christmas. “You usually need to sacrifice a tomato, cut it open. If the gel has become viscous the tomato will ripen. It starts hard,” he says.

Of course you can also fry them, jar them and make green tomato salsa. Cornell Cooperative Extension now recommends use of a pressure canner for most applications, although tomatoes are acidic enough to be safe after preservation by means of a boiling water bath. “Just follow the recipe,” says Beyfuss.

Planting Bulbs and Trees
“The other thing we need to start thinking about in October, is some of the things we grow from bulbs: you want to dig up your gladioli corm; it looks like a bulb, after the gladiolas finish blooming,” says Beyfuss. “If you’ve got any canna, tuberous begonias, dig them up. They flower in cool weather. Dig them out of the ground in October and store in dry peat moss in a bucket or brown paper bag in a cool place.”

October is also a good time to consider planting trees and shrubs, depending on elevation. “In the mountains, you can plant probably right up to October 15: trees, shrubs, flowering bulbs, perennials. We’ve dug up things and planted our spring flowering bulbs.”

Beyfuss says that while the air outside is cooling down, there’s a lag period between the air temperature and the soil temperature, a good three to four weeks. “I’m one of those guys who’s always sticking a soil thermometer into the ground,” he says. “It’s above 50 degrees until about November on the mountaintop. That’s Thanksgiving or later in the valley. Of course we’re going to have way colder temperatures outside before then. 50 degrees is a crucial temperature.”

He says you can plant bulbs as late as December, but they do a lot better if you plant them this month. Beyfuss favors tulips and daffodils, which deer don’t eat. He ranks hosta as his “number one deer candy.”

“Peonies can be dug up and divided in the first week of October. When you divide and plant them, you don’t want to plant too deep,” he says. “You’ll notice a good clump of pink buds … bury them no more than an inch down. Anything that blooms in the spring can be divided in the fall.”

Pruning, Mulching and Saving Seed
“You don’t want to prune your trees. You don’t want to prune your shrubs,” says Beyfuss. “Pruning wounds the plant. Wounding a plant may force it into a growth response.” Trees go through a complicated physiological process to go dormant. This is contrary to the growth response, so the confusion caused by ill-timed pruning can actually kill the plant, he explains.

“To shrink the plant, prune in August. To grow the plant (prune) in March or April,” says Beyfuss. “One of the most common problems this time of year is people pruning because they want to out there.”

The agroforester also advises against being too quick to mulch for the winter with straw, hay or peat moss. Wait until the ground freezes. Wait until around Thanksgiving to cover strawberries and cut back roses, which experience some of their best blooms in October. If you pruned these in early September, that would have stimulated this month’s bloom.

“Nurseries have good sales going on. You can pick up a nice tree and plant it in October, then mulch that a little,” he says.

Some folks also save seeds this year, though Beyfuss says it’s hard to know what they’ll produce. “Most of the plants we grow are hybrids and if you plant the seeds you’ll get flowering plants that aren’t exactly what you planted,” he says. “Very few vegetables are open pollinated. I sometimes plant seeds from hybrid tomatoes and get interesting tomatoes.”

Harvesting Late Season Vegetables
“Winter squash will keep better if you harvest them before they get frosted, even a butternut squash, acorn squash or a pumpkin for that matter,” says Beyfuss, who recommends the thumbnail test to determine whether winter squash is ready to harvest—when you cannot easily puncture the skin with a thumbnail. “Cure them someplace really warm for about two weeks in temperatures in the 70s or 80s—in the attic or atop the fridge. You want to leave a little bit of stem on it, a handle like a jack-o-lantern. A lot of farmers leave them in the field in the sun until they sell them, but if you take them inside in October, and warm them up, those will be around next May.”

He says Brussels sprouts don’t start to taste good until they have frosted, and Beyfuss has picked them as late as January. Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and kale are also rather hearty. “Parsnips aren’t worth eating until they’ve frosted,” he says. “Not too many people eat parsnips, probably because they picked them in June or July when they get big enough. If you wait, parsnips get really sweet. I’ve picked them as late as Thanksgiving. Some people leave them in until the spring. Turnips which have white flesh and rutabaga (similar to turnips, but with with yellow flesh) also get better when they get frosted.”

Other vegetables that benefit from cold temperatures are beets and carrots. They get sweeter as their starch is converted into sugar, according to Beyfuss.

Outside the Garden
Outside the garden, Beyfuss says you can continue fertilizing your lawn through the first week of October if the grass is still actively growing. He says its a good time for weed and grub killer. Keep mowing as long as the grass is more than 3 to 3 1/2 inches, the length you want to leave it for winter.

“It’s time for raking up leaves and starting compost,” he says. “Take all this (debris) in your vegetable garden—clean up dead zucchini plants, dead cucumber vines and mix with leaves coming off the trees.” Once the debris is removed, Beyfuss recommends planting winter rye as a cover crop. It’s a cereal grain crop you can plant until mid October. “By April or May it’s about waist high. Cut it and till it into the soil. This adds a lot of organic material to your garden,” he says. “There’s no better way to add organic matter to your soil than to plant a cover crop.”

Beyfuss says winter rye prevents soil erosion and is an allelopathic plant that secretes a substance that inhibits weed growth. You’ll find it at a good farm store or Agway shop, but be certain not to confuse it with rye grass.

“Get your house plants in by the first week in October,” he says. “When you bring your houseplants in, you may notice they have spider mites or other insects on them. I usually bring them in and out again to spray, then back in.”

Of course October is also a good time to tend to your tools: sharpening shovels and rakes, oiling or painting the handles, anything you can do to save you time come spring. “Get your lawn mower tuned up in the fall,” says Beyfuss. “Everybody and their brother is getting it tuned up in the spring. Sharpen your mower blade at least once a year. You will burn 25 percent less gas with a sharp blade than with a dull one.”

Beyfuss also finds himself cutting and stacking firewood this time of year, though this harvest will not be ready to burn until next winter.

For more information about your garden, visit your local Cornell Cooperative Extension, or visit www.cce.cornell.edu.