Garden Detective: October chores

It's October, a month for apples and seed heads and the crunch of leaves under the feet of trick-or-treaters. And while we pull on cozy sweaters and switch from iced tea to hot cider, we watch as the garden goes dormant and plan for the spring resurrection by planting bulbs.

1. Keep watering trees, shrubs and perennials. The lawn, too.

2. After curing potatoes in a humid, 50- to 60-degree spot for two weeks, store in a dry, dark, 40-degree spot for use all winter.

3. Bring in houseplants, but first rinse leaves to avoid bringing insects indoors.

4. Let's talk dirt: Join me at newsday.com/gardendetective for a live chat at noon.

5. Cover ponds with netting to prevent fallen leaves from mucking up the water.

6. Dig up, clean and store canna and begonia tubers. For dahlias, wait until just after frost has killed the foliage.

7. Start planting tulips, daffodils, snowdrops, hyacinths and chionodoxa.

8. For holiday blooms start paperwhites now. Place bulbs, pointy end up, in a shallow container of gravel. Add just enough water to reach bulb bottoms.

9. Protect new evergreens by wrapping with burlap.

10 It's Bloom Day! Take photos of your garden and upload them to my album at newsday.com/bloomday.

11 Separate an organic garlic bulb into cloves, but don't peel. Plant cloves pointy end up in a prepared bed for harvesting next June.

12. Empty, clean and store terra cotta pots. If left outdoors, the pots will be cracked by the freeze-thaw cycles of winter.

13. Plant new trees and shrubs now and keep well watered.

14. Clear beds and pots of impatiens, geraniums and other annuals, and plant pansies in their places.

15. Today is the average first frost date on Long Island. Though it can hit later, play it safe and bring in the last of the tomatoes.

16. Clean out the vegetable bed and compost healthy plant parts. Till in compost, manure and lime, if indicated by your soil pH test.

17. Disinfect tomato cages and plant stakes with a 10 percent bleach solution and store them for the winter.

18. Plant clover in cleared-out vegetable beds and apply fast-release fertilizer. Turn under before it goes to seed in spring - at least 2 weeks before planting new crops - for naturally nitrogen-rich soil.

19. Mulch carrots, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks and parsley after frost hits and leave them in the garden for harvesting well into winter.

20. Don't worry if you notice the inner needles on evergreen branches turning brown; the oldest ones do that before shedding.

21. You can safely move deciduous trees and shrubs once leaves have fallen off.

22. Remove dead or broken tree branches now so they don't create a hazard during winter storms.

23. Cut herbaceous peonies all the way back to the ground and plant new ones.

24. Rake and clean up perennial beds. Place diseased plant parts in the trash.

25. Divide overgrown spring- and summer-blooming perennials.

26. Clean up around roses, but don't fertilize. You can cut back long whips, but save the real pruning for spring.

27. Take advantage of late-season sales and plant perennials.

28. Wait until spring to cut back black-eyed susans and coneflowers; the birds will feast on their seed heads all winter.

29. Harvest chards, greens and kale.

30. Don't apply mulch until the ground freezes.

31. Go on a foliage forage and attach collected leaves to pumpkins with straight pins to create a hairdo for your jack-o-lantern.