The Vegetable Plot - October

Hoeing in the wind

It’s time to complete earthing up celery and leeks and lift main crop potatoes, letting them dry before storing. You can still sow some hardy lettuce in frames for next spring and plant out spring cabbages, grown from seed in August. If you have main crop apples harvest them now. Under glass, plant cauliflowers grown from seed and protect late crops with cloches and fleece.

Thin onion and turnip beds and cut down asparagus foliage. Hoe out weeds in beds and once they are cleared of vegetables turn the soil to leave it exposed to the frosts and you can get a good tilth for next spring. Lift any remaining carrots, beetroot and turnips. Protect soft fruit with a fruit cage.

• Cut back yellow leaves and stems of artichokes
• Protect late crops with cloches and horticultural fleece
• Store turnips in a frost free place
• Prune blackcurrants when the leaves turn colour
• Store vegetables in boxes of compost
• Start garlic cloves in pots under glass