Winter preparation planIn the first and second decadesIn October, the harvest of late varieties of apples, as well as rowan and viburnum, ends. It is time to dig up celery, leeks, and root crops remaining in the soil - radishes, daikon, turnips. Cabbage harvesting can be postponed until the third decade, since a light frost is only beneficial for it: if the soil is well moistened, cabbage gains weight even on cold days. It is better not to cut late cabbage, but to pull it out together with the roots and some of the leaves that are not tightly attached to the heads. But there is no need to dig up small carrots. Mulch the beds with failed root crops with a small layer of compost, peat or just earth - and the carrots will be perfectly preserved (better than in the basement, without waste!) until spring.
Planting in the winter
Autumn tree planting takes longer thanspring, but also limited in time, since the roots of the plants must take root and begin to grow before the end of the month. Therefore, try to complete it before the 10th, maximum before October 15. But at the same time, you can start planting dug up trees with an open root system only after their leaves have fallen. The first ten days of October are the time for planting winter garlic and onions. Garlic is planted with cloves, discarding the smallest ones, as well as damaged ones - with cracks, wounds, rot, etc. To increase the viability of the planting material, the cloves are not peeled from the shell, trying to preserve every single integumentary scale. The location of the beds for garlic is changed annually. The best predecessors of this crop are cucumbers and other pumpkins, as well as legumes and cabbage. Garlic cannot be planted after potatoes, onions. Choose a well-lit place, fertilize the soil with wood ash (1 l per sq. m), humus (1-2 buckets per sq. m), or better yet, compost or vermicompost (but not fresh manure). Dig the bed with a pitchfork, carefully selecting the roots of weeds. It is better to make rows-holes not along, but across the bed, with a distance of 25-30 cm between them. Garlic is laid out in rows with an interval of 12-15 cm between large cloves and 8-10-10 between small ones. Planting depth is 3-5 cm, approximately two heights of cloves. After planting, it is advisable to water the beds generously with warm water (20 l per sq. m), and when planting after October 10-15, also mulch with an additional layer (3-5 cm) of compost, moss or fallen leaves. Similar to garlic and at the same time, they are planted before winter. The only difference is that for this, the smallest bulbs (the so-called oats) are selected, with a diameter of less than 1 cm.
Gladioli - in a bag!
In the first ten days of October they will turn brown and witherleaves of gladioli and dahlias. From this point on, you can dig up their bulbs. Use a pitchfork to pry up the gladioli bulbs, removing them along with the soil onto a previously laid out film. Clean them from the soil and cut the stems with leaves with pruning shears 2-3 cm from the bulb. After drying the bulbs in the wind, place them in a box on a layer of paper - loosely so that they do not touch each other. In the first week, gladioli need room temperature - +20-+25°C, for the next two weeks they need to be warmed up at +35°C, and stored until November at +18-+20°C. Then It is better to put the bulbs in paper bags and store them until spring at a temperature no higher than +5°C. To properly dig up dahlias, cut off the thick stems with sharp pruning shears at a height of 15 cm from the ground. Then, at a distance of 20–25 cm from the remaining stumps, dig a deep trench (the depth of a shovel blade) around the entire circumference, push a pitchfork into it and pry up the root tuber from below. Do not pull it out by the remains of the cut stem! Carefully shake off or wash off any stuck soil from the dug up tubers under a strong stream of water, place them in an open box and send them to a well-ventilated basement, where it is humid and the temperature is +10–30;+12°C. With the onset of winter, fill the box with tubers with dry peat, sawdust, sand, sphagnum moss and move it to an even cooler place, where it is not higher than +3-+6°C. In the third ten days of October, cover all heat-loving vines and flower bushes for the winter, especially clematis, hydrangea and rhododendrons. To do this, cut their stems at a height of 15-20 cm from the ground, bend them to the ground and cover with pine branches. Pour a thick layer of leaves on top and cover again with spruce branches.
