RADIO TRANSCRIPT
September 22, 2023
Taylor Campbell

This is Taylor Campbell, horticulture extension agent with North Carolina Cooperative Extension Burke Center.

In October, gardeners should focus on several essential tasks to maintain a healthy garden. This month is ideal for planting spring-flowering bulbs like daffodils, tulips, crocuses, and hyacinths. It's also a suitable time to introduce new landscape plants and transplant peonies. For those without fall vegetable gardens, planting cover crops like annual rye, barley, and wheat is recommended. In a cold frame, salad vegetables such as lettuce, green onions, carrots, radishes, and various leafy greens can be cultivated for winter harvest.

Woody weeds like trumpet creeper and blackberry can be controlled with herbicides.

Lawn care involves diligent watering for newly seeded areas and leaf removal from the lawn. Seeding fescue and bluegrass remains possible early in October.

Crowded clumps of spring and summer flowering perennials like daffodils, peonies, and Shasta daisies can be divided and transplanted.

Go ahead and pick up a soil test kit from the Extension office and send in a sample. Summer bulbs like gladioli, dahlias, and caladiums can be dug and stored before frost. Sweet potatoes should be harvested.

This has been Taylor Campbell, horticulture extension agent with North Carolina Cooperative Extension Burke Center. For more information, call us at 764-9480.