October 2025

The change comes suddenly at some point in October. The first few days often feel like summer then bang! it's cold and much darker. Here are my tips to make the most of it.

September gave 86 mm or over 3 inches of welcome rain. The ground is moist, but still with a large moisture deficit. We are still watering salad plants as I write this, 29th September.

Day temperatures are still 18°C, 64°F and new leaves are reasonably thick and strong. Then as light levels drop after 10th October, new growth becomes thinner and weaker. We notice this with lettuce and endive, when picking outer leaves off the same plants: the harvest diminishes every week.

October is a good month to make new no dig beds. My Beginner’s Course is perfect if you are new to this. While the full No Dig course explains much more about this wonderful method.

Garlic and mustard

The principal planting in October is garlic, by separating good size bulbs into cloves. Pop the larger ones into holes not too deep, and eat the small cloves.

Over the years I've noticed that shallow planting works better. One method is to dib a hole no deeper than the length of any cloves, meaning you will see the thin white top when it's in the ground. Then apply the annual dose of 3 cm compost or about 1 inch.

My No Dig and Compost books explain more about this.

Straight after spreading the compost, you can scatter seeds of mustard Sinapis alba, one of the fastest  green manures, see this short video. It will soon reach 40 cm / 1.3 ft high before cold weather arrives. You won't see garlic leaves for quite a while.

Then the first moderate frost of -3 or -4°C / 25°F will kill the mustard, and it becomes a straw mulch of thin stems on the surface. At that point you finally see the garlic leaves.

I find there's no worry about mustard increasing pests or diseases for subsequent brassicas. No dig soil is considerably healthier than any, which has been regularly dog or chilled.

My trial of no rotation demonstrates this with potatoes and lettuce. This was the 11th year of potatoes growing in the same soil, and the 9th year for lettuce in the same soil.

Recent and new plantings

During the last ten days, we have planted many small seedlings outside: spring cabbage, spring onions, turnips and chervil.

Now, there is just garlic to go in next week, and broad beans at month’s end.

The previous planting was courgettes / zucchini, and this bed needed a full watering before planting.

There are no more sowings to make under cover. Seedlings in the photo below are waiting to go in the polytunnels and greenhouse, after tomatoes etc.

Plantings under cover

I find that 10th to 14th October is the best time here, to transplant salad seedlings in polytunnel and greenhouse. They include lettuce, endive, salad rocket, mustards, claytonia and the last spinach. And already we have transplanted kale and chard.

Before planting, I spread no new compost. We apply it once a year and in the polytunnel the most practical time is May, before summer plantings such as tomatoes.

16th September Sakura and Sungold cherry tomatoes, four months on the ground. I use no feed or fertiliser, but scatter a dusting of dried seaweed in July, under the tomato plants.

28th September. Same tomatoes 12 days later, after much picking and no watering.

Tomatoes, aubergines

This year, the tomatoes have been unusually healthy and bountiful, partly a response to plentiful sunshine, partly no dig soil with great compost mulch and a little dried seaweed. Also from the energy work I do, and softening water with a simple magnetic field.

Tomatoes continue for a while, but after the second week of October, they ripen much less on the plants and are not so sweet. You can pick any that are at breaking stage, with a little colour, and ripen them in your house, out of sunlight. Then clear plants and create space for new plantings, as above.

Aubergines below are from my February selection for Premier Seeds Direct.

Trials

Early results from the Three Strip Trial suggest the forked soil of strip 1 has struggled with dry conditions. Forking must break mycelial threads, which then cannot forage so easily for nutrients and moisture.

Harvests to end September:

• Strip 1 118 kg forked
• Strip 2 146 kg no dig, same compost as strip 1
• Strip 3 184 kg no dig, cow or human compost

The 448 kg harvest so far in 2025, is higher than I've ever recorded in a whole year, from this 60 m² space. Sunshine, warmth and watering by hand all help.

First plantings were potatoes, broad beans, turnips, spinach, parsnips (sown last year and harvested this winter), and squash. Everything in the photo below is a second planting after those harvests.

Two bed trial

First plantings made in March 2025 gave 53.1 kg from the dig bed, and 56.3 kg from no dig. Both beds receive the same amount of the same compost..

Second plantings have so far given 22 kg and 28 kg respectively. We notice how plants can look the same, but no dig harvests are often heavier.

An unwanted influence

The photo below shows squash to the right which is not dying back, plus a 2 m high Salvia amistad (friendship sage, top right). They are both rooting into the no dig bed, shown by the much smaller kale, spinach, chicory and leeks on the right hand side..

Harvests, when is it ready?

Marathon F1 plants which are on the left above, beside the far end of the dig bed, are making nice heads of green calabrese. They were transplanted 17th July after celery, with a mesh cover above them for six weeks, to protect from summer insects.

When to harvest is your call, such as how big you want them. See my beetroot video for a humorous take on this.

When broccoli heads have still small buds, as below, the heads will continue swelling to at least double the size during several days ahead. And then, if left longer than that, the buds swell into little yellow flowers.

Storage

Root vegetables and squash can store for a long time, but in different ways.

Carrots, beetroot, celeriac, turnips, and more, need moisture to stay firm. Preferably cool, and it could be even -2°C, 28°F in the store. This video has a fun take on that, filmed in a cold December. 

Potatoes are different and need to be dry in their sacks, and absolutely must not freeze. Towards the end of the year, you can tip out all the potatoes and select smaller ones for planting next spring. Set them to sprout on a windowsill.

It's different again for squash, onions and garlic, which keep the longest in dry air. In your house is a good place. Those together with potatoes are my only stored harvests so far.

Squash are still in the shed because we do not have room in the house at the moment. I want to get them in before the middle of October, but at the moment the shed air is still quite dry and alright for them.

Trip to Ireland 27th September.

My course venue was Johnstown Castle in Wexford, found for me by Mary Reynolds. I stayed in her house the night before and felt privileged to meet such an amazing person.

 It turned out the castle was a wonderful venue for teaching, and I hope to return. My morning talk was in an Elizabethan ballroom, while it was raining. Then we had a lovely garden space and sunshine, for creating new beds and demonstrating no dig methods, see photo below..

This year's events are almost finished, just one in the Black Forest, Germany in November.

 By early December we shall post dates for courses here through 2026.

‍