Market Garden Diaries - October 2025

October in the garden feels like a deep exhale. The rush of summer is behind us, and the pace is slower now, though there’s still plenty to be done before winter truly sets in. The mornings are crisp, the air carries that damp, earthy scent, and the garden seems to wear its autumn colours proudly ... golds, russets, and fading greens.

Harvesting is a little gentler but still rewarding. We’re lifting the last of the potatoes and pulling carrots and beetroot from the soil. Courgettes, cauliflower, peppers, onions, and chillies are still producing, ready to carry us through the colder months, and the spinach is still holding strong too. In the polytunnel, there are still a loads of tomatoes clinging on (note to self: make lots of tomato soup for the freezer).Our squash and pumpkins should be coming in now as well, their cheerful shapes stacked and stored but for the second year in a row they haven't taken - we need to have a think about suitable compost for them next year.

This is also the month of putting things to bed. Beds are being cleared and mulched, compost is spread, and green manures will be settling in to do their quiet work over winter. There’s tidying, of course ... edges to neaten, leaves to sweep, stakes and supports to bring in ... but there’s also a certain acceptance in letting the garden rest, in knowing it doesn’t all have to be neat.

And in the kitchen, October is about comfort ... roasted roots, soups that simmer all afternoon, and the sweet satisfaction of cutting into veg grown just outside the door. With jars of preserves lined up on the shelf and baskets of stored vegetables in the pantry, there’s reassurance in having the season’s work gathered and ready.

October reminds us that the garden, like us, needs its rest but it also gives generously right up until it does.

Until next month

Karen xx

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