The Vegetable Plot -October

The plot thickens

Beans and peas, carrots, turnips, beetroot, they are all there for the picking along with harvesting squash and pumpkins before the frosts. Leave the roots of pea and bean plants in the soil to break down and release nitrogen into the soil.

Time to start garlic cloves from seed bulbs in pots or modules in a cold frame, where you have also planted cauliflower seedlings you have picked off. Keep the frame ventilated.

Plant onion sets for next summer and dig trenches, fill them with manure or kitchen waste ready to plant and grow more beans. Protect soft fruit with a fruit cage and ripen peaches, nectarines and apricots grown under glass using artificial heat.

If you have green tomatoes or peppers you want to ripen, bring them indoors and hang them upside down. Protect cauliflower heads and late crops such as French beans, courgettes and tomatoes from frost using cloches or horticultural fleece.

• Plant spring cabbages from August sowings
• Lift remaining potatoes, dry and store in paper bags or sacks
• Cut back asparagus and the yellow leaves and stems of globe artichokes
• Gather last apples and pears
• Grow mushrooms with a mushroom kit