October Garden Chores & Tasks (PNW & Similar Zones)
Your easy checklist for October garden chores, for both fruit and vegetable gardens, flower gardens, plus basic lawn and yard care. Includes a convenient printable checklist to download and customize!
October in our northern yards and gardens is a beautiful month with final harvests, all those lovely fall colors, and the full transition from summer to fall.
Sometimes in western Oregon we get an ‘Indian Summer’ where we’ll have sunshine and temperatures in the 70s to enjoy all those lovely colors (and jump into piles of leaves).
But there’s also cold, rain, and the first frosts for most areas in the north.
This is the month we harvest our squash and pumpkins as well as any remaining summer fruit. Many chores are similar to last month’s chores, but I find it takes me into October for me to get them all done!
Want all my best vegetable gardening tips and techniques to keep it simple and manageable – including fall tasks and gardening? (Yes, it CAN be done!)
October is also a great time to start (or finish if you started in September) prepping the garden beds and lawn for the coming colder weather, though that can happen into next month, too.
Want a year of garden tasks in convenient checklist form?
Grab your free printable of garden tasks for every month by clicking the form below!
Don’t forget to add these pages to your free Gardening Notebook Journal!
Garden Chores for October
Vegetable & Fruit Garden
- Harvest squash & pumpkins (store at 55-60 degrees).
- Harvest & store apples (store at 40 degrees).
- Harvest any remaining tomatoes at green stage (tinged pink) and ripen indoors using this easy method.
- Cover asparagus and rhubarb beds with compost (if rhubarb needs dividing, do it first now).
- Place mulch around berries.
- Plant garlic (if it didn’t get planted last month).
- Continue saving seeds from both vegetables and flowers.
Flower Garden
- Mulch over azaleas, rhododendrons, and other landscape shrubs for winter protection.
- Dig and store dahlias and gladiolas for the winter (if you want them to survive, otherwise, treat them as annuals like I do).
- Plant ground covers, shrubs and evergreens – fall is a good time for this, as it allows the roots to develop and get plenty of water through the winter.
- Prune evergreens, including evergreen herbs. Here’s a pruning guide to help you.
- It’s a good time to divide perennials like day lilies and shasta daisies if they’re not blooming as much to reinvigorate them.
- Plant spring bulbs like crocus, daffodils and tulips now for spring bloom.
Other Tasks
- Clean and oil tools and equipment as you use them for the last time.
- Trap moles and gophers.
- Keep leaves raked from lawn, do a last edging and mow this month.
See all the Month-By-Month Garden Task Lists here.
Need more easy gardening tips?
Good reminder and list! The post growing season is not the most satifying to do but when it is done…I am tired of those dying tomato plants by our gate! Have a good day!
Great Fall Task List. I got a few ideas– things that I tend to forget.
I also treat dahlias and gladiolas like annuals. I used to dig them up but decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
I’m totally with you on the dahlias and glads, Doug! I add them to the list for those who want to try, but I found it wasn’t worth it to me, either – most of the time they’d rot in storage, too!