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Under cover

October can be a month of extremes. It may be wet, cold and windy, or it can still be warm enough to make us think that summer hasn’t really gone. Night time temperatures can dip down to almost freezing, while days can still hit 20C (68F).
Crops grown under cover will be less vulnerable than those grown outdoors, but it is important to adjust ventilation, shading etc to balance out the extremes that this month can produce.

Tomatoes

Plants will be nearing the end of their productive life. Temperature and sunlight will be the main influences on how late in the year tomatoes will ripen. Remove any diseased or discoloured leaves and expose remaining fruit to as much light as possible. In a mild autumn, plants may keep cropping for several weeks.
Water plants very sparingly at this end of the year and only when the surface of the soil has dried out.

Cucumbers

Remove plants this month and burn the stems if possible. This may seem extreme, but it is better to destroy red spider mite and mildew spores rather than allow them to survive the winter.
If you have grown cucumbers in a container which you intend to use again next year, scrub it out well with hot soapy water to which Citrox (or other safe disinfectant) has been added. This will reduce the spread of disease into next year’s crops.

Potatoes

If you planted a few seed potatoes in the summer, these should be growing well and will begin to flower by the end of the month. Leaves should be a healthy green colour with no signs of blight. (If greenhouse tomatoes show signs of this disease then it won’t be long before your Christmas spuds are also affected.) Try covering potato plants with an extra layer of clear polythene. Even though they are already under cover, this will prevent blight spores from landing on the leaves.
Water plants sparingly and try not to splash the foliage.

Peppers

Both sweet and chilli peppers come into their own at this end of the year. Fruit ripens to a lovely deep red and chilli peppers begin to really get hot with any bit of sunshine – remember red chilli peppers are always hotter than the green version. Harvest fruit as it is needed and always before slugs eat holes in the flesh, or rot spreads.
Leaves may begin to fall from the plants. There is little you can do about this and peppers will continue to ripen even though foliage is sparse.
It is best to leave fruit on the plants for as long as possible and harvest as needed. Peppers don’t store for long once picked.

Grapes

Bunches will still ripen if October is warm and sunny, but do harvest before the grapes are allowed to spoil. The greenhouse can begin to smell like a winery if grapes start to split and insects feast on over ripe fruit.
Pick up any fermenting and fallen fruit and bury in the compost heap – it can make both you and your pets ill!

Courgettes

These will be struggling to produce any sort of a crop after months of bumper harvests, but it is still worth waiting for the one or two small courgettes a week, provided you don’t need the space for other crops. The first really cold night will see an end to production, so lift the plants and remind yourself how pleased you will be to see the first new courgettes next May.

For more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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