Pick up the black walnuts as soon as you can. Otherwise the squirrels will get them and plant them all over your property!
Frost season means danger. Be alert for poisoning in your flock and herd due to toxic changes in the chemical composition of grasses and alfalfa. On the other hand, it’s brushfire season in the Southwest. Keep your animals out of harm’s way.
Wrap new trees with burlap to help them ward off winter winds.
Complete fall field and garden tillage before the November chill and rains.
Pick the asters to dry for Christmas bouquets.
October offers the most benign weather for end-of-the-year pruning. As you add to the woodpile, plan ahead to cover that fuel when November and December bring precipitation.
Review problems which developed this year with the orchard: drought, rodents, weather-related injuries to branches.
Consider applying nitrogen, phosphate, and potash to the fields after harvest in order to decrease the springtime workload.
The dark of the October moon is a fine time for dividing and transplanting your bleeding hearts, peonies, tulips, lilies, daffodils, scilla, crocus, snowdrops, aconite and other hardy bulbs and plants. Put a little fertilizer and/or compost in with everything, then water generously through the fall.
Test your soil in several places before the autumn rains set in. Then spread manure and compost where needed in the pastures and the garden. Don’t forget the rhubarb, the horseradish, and the herbs, which will winter over. Give your rose bushes a good feeding too, then fill your rose collars with dirt or dense mulch.
Fertilize the lawn. Then feed the trees after all their leaves are down. If you put the leaves in bags and leave them behind the barn, they will turn to compost and be ready for the garden in March of 2007.
Finish the fences and outbuilding repairs before the weather turns mean in November. Remember to eliminate the drafts from the livestock barn but not the ventilation!
Process honey from your hives, leaving plenty for the bees.
Schedule garlic planting for after the full moon. If you’ve never tried self-sufficiency in this herb, try sticking a few cloves in the ground this month, and watch your harvest multiply through the years ahead.
Bring in annuals for color in the house: most impatiens, begonias, petunias and geraniums can last several months--sometimes the whole winter—in a bright window.
Dig and store your caladiums, dahlias, tuberous begonias and gladiolus bulbs before the ground freezes.
Place the cold frame over the greens you wish to use in winter, then mulch the root crops against deep cold. As the moon waxes below the Mason-Dixon line, you can seed chives, lettuce, spinach, alyssum, poppies and cornflowers in the cold frame for early spring transplanting.