10/04/2026
HELLO, OCTOBER. This is the best month to preserve the abundance, mulch to prevent all the heavy work that you'd do in the spring, and plant food as a covercrop.
I don't think of October as the end of gardening season.
What I do now determines what survives winter, what comes roaring back in spring and, increasingly important to me, how much physical work Future Me has to do.
First:
GET YOUR GARLIC IN THE GROUND.
I use Halloween as my deadline around here for a decent harvest next year.
Can you plant later? Yep.
Will you get the best results? Probably not.
Garlic is an allium, along with onions, leeks, shallots and chives. Give it sun, drainage and room. Rotate where you plant alliums when you can.
Many pests dislike alliums, so planting them as sunny borders gives me another layer of pest management I don't have to think about.
I've ignored so many gardening "rules" because nature does too.
Nature laughs when gardeners plan for perfection.
Healthy soil, drainage, airflow and reasonable competition matter a hell of a lot more than any rule.
With a strong El Niño influencing this winter, Western Washington has increased odds of a warmer-than-average season.
That doesn't mean ZERO frost or SURPRISE Arctic blast.
January suddenly becomes gardening weather? Not likely.
Our BIGGEST winter LIMITATION is LIGHT.
Once our days get stupidly short, fall-planted kale and other brassicas, spinach, chard, alliums, roots, greens and perennials aren't necessarily cranking out growth.
They're in holding phase.
Get them established now.
Then mark December 21st on the calendar.
The light starts coming back.
A whole lot is happening where we can't see it.
Which brings me to my other October rule:
I DON'T WANT TO SEE A SPECK OF BARE SOIL.
Normally I'd be hauling mulch.
This year I'm looking at the amount my garden needs, considering my spine and acknowledging that hauling heavy material across thousands of square feet is a stupid way to prove I'm a gardener.
So I'm CHOPPING & DROPPING.
It's exactly what it sounds like.
Healthy plants get cut at the soil line.
Roots stay put to hold soil, decompose and feed what's coming next.
Tops get chopped up and dropped right back over the soil.
Free mulch.
Organic matter stays where it grew.
Worms get dinner.
Native insects get hollow-stemmed winter hotels.
Soil stays covered.
My spine doesn't hate me.
I regret nothing.
That's gardening too — adapting the garden to the body you actually have instead of sacrificing your body to the garden you think you're supposed to have.
And that's part of why I OVERPLANT.
FOOD CAN BE YOUR COVER CROP TOO.
Summer isn't the only season I'm feeding my community — or myself.
Colder months are why:
I freeze berries.
Save tomatoes.
Dry herbs.
Save seeds.
Store squash.
I WILL ALWAYS:
Grow too much.
Give a s**tload away.
Save some summer for later.
Winter is when I need the garden to take care of ME. SAD gets heavy for me. Cold and wet can physically hurt. There's a point every winter when there's just as much darkness ahead as there is behind, and I'm counting the seconds until longer days.
So I sleep more.
I make art for the gardens we'll build.
I try to give myself some patience and grace.
And I do my best not to dread a holiday season that's complicated because some of winter's heaviness is much older than the weather.
But the sun returns.
Sometimes we just need to preserve a little of it until then.
Get some berries out of your freezer this winter.
Make ONE thing that feels like summer.
Warm berries. A cobbler. Jam. Something you grew. Something you froze. Something that tastes like sunshine.
Close your eyes for a minute.
Warm dirt.
Bare feet.
Hummingbirds chirping.
Kitties raiding the catnip.
A cucumber eaten standing in the garden.
9:30 at night and somehow there's still light in the sky.
Food security isn't only having enough calories.
It's opening the freezer and the pantry in January and finding proof that summer existed.
One more October job:
SLUGS.
I'll be using Sluggo while they're active. Reducing the adult population before egg laying means fewer egg clutches in the soil becoming next year's salad-eating as****es.
I'm not trying to sterilize my garden.
I WANT worms, beetles, fungi and decomposers.
I want insects overwintering in hollow stems.
I want birds eating my sunflower heads.
I want leaves decomposing where they fall and roots holding my soil together.
I just don't need 900 slugs holding an o**y.
And while all of that life keeps working outside, I'll change seasons too.
I can't do cold and wet anymore without paying a toll.
I don't do Hallmark Gardening. Nothing needs me badly enough to stand outside pretending 39-degree rain is magical.
WINTER IS FOR:
Teaching.
Site visits.
Visiting classrooms.
Turning lawns into food.
Showing others what to do with their weird side yard.
Making gardens work for the bodies actually using them.
I WANT TO HELP YOU:
Spend close to zero money.
Waste less effort.
Avoid learning everything the hard and expensive way.
If you've got a garden living in your head, I can help make it possible and walk beside you while you make it yours.
October isn't the end.
Plant the garlic.
Cover the soil.
Save the seeds.
Feed the birds.
Interrupt the slug o**y.
Put summer in the freezer.
Protect your body.
Some things are rooting.
Some things are decomposing.
Some things are waiting for light.
And some things are resting because that's what they need to survive.
