What to Plant in October in Seattle (and What's Already Too Late)

The short October planting list for Seattle kitchen gardens, what still has time, and what should wait until spring.

Seed garlic, bought for planting. The label says winter hardy, which is exactly what you want from anything going into a Seattle bed in October.

The garden doesn't stop in October, but the planting window almost does. Whatever goes into the ground this month isn't going to grow much before Thanksgiving. It roots in, sits quietly through our wet winter, and takes off again in February. That is exactly the plan. So when someone asks me what to plant in October in Seattle, my answer is a short list of crops that are happy to wait, and a longer list of crops that already missed their chance this year.

Garlic, finally

In the equinox post I said garlic can wait. Now the wait is over. Mid October to mid November is garlic time here, because our soil has finally cooled down. Garlic planted into cool soil puts its energy into roots instead of leaves, and the roots are what carry it through the winter.

Buy seed garlic from a nursery or a seed company, not from the grocery store. Grocery garlic is often grown in a much warmer climate and is sometimes treated so it won't sprout. Break the heads apart on planting day, save the biggest cloves for planting (big cloves make big heads), and push them in pointy end up, about two inches deep and six inches apart. Cover the bed with a few inches of fallen leaves or straw, and then leave it alone. Honestly, garlic is the easiest crop in my garden. You plant it in October, you mostly forget about it, and you dig it up next summer.

And this is grocery garlic. It goes into dinner, not into the garden.

Fava beans you can eat

If you have an empty bed and you don't feel like sowing a cover crop, sow fava beans for the kitchen instead. They overwinter here without any protection in most years and give you beans in late spring, weeks before anything else in the garden is ready. Sow them about two inches deep and six inches apart, any time in October. It is the same plant I recommended as a cover crop two weeks ago. The only difference is that you let it grow all the way to pods instead of cutting it down in April.

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Winter greens, if you hurry

Spinach, mâche and arugula can still go in from seed, but only in the first week or two of October, and the earlier the better. They will stay small until spring, but they will survive, and in February you'll be picking salad while everyone else is still reading seed catalogs. A row cover or a cold frame makes a big difference, both for the cold and because our heavy rain flattens tiny seedlings. Loose leaf lettuce works too, but only under cover.

I always grow my own seedlings and buy a flat or two from the nursery. This one came home from Swansons last fall, and the purple sprouting broccoli is the one to look for: it sits through winter and gives you shoots in early spring.

The last transplants

Anything started from seed in late summer still has time to go into the beds, as long as it goes in now and not in November. Mine were seeded on August 1 in trays and pots: cabbages, broccoli, kohlrabi, beets, rhubarb chard, leeks and bunching onions. I always do both, my own seedlings and a flat or two from the nursery to fill the gaps. They went into my two big raised beds, East and West, at the end of last week. My original plan was to keep only those two beds going this winter, but I changed my mind, and the smaller beds are now planted with fall and winter brassicas too. And yes, there is kohlrabi again. My Vienna Purple kohlrabi was a total failure, so this year it's Trek, and kohlrabi gets one more chance.

Be realistic about October transplants. They grow very little between now and March. Chard and beets will give you a few leaves this fall and a real harvest in spring, and the cabbages and leeks mostly wait and size up once the days get longer. That is still worth it, because in March those plants are already established while seeds are just waking up. If you're buying transplants from a nursery, buy them this week. Every week you wait, the plants go into winter smaller.

What's already too late

This is the part the national planting lists leave out, because they are written for the whole country. In Seattle, these are done for this year:

• Kale, chard and collards from seed (transplants only now)

• Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower from seed

• Carrots and beets from seed

• Peas for a fall harvest

• Beans, squash, cucumbers and anything else that likes warm weather

• Cover crops after about October 10, which I explained in cover crops in Seattle

I know what too late looks like. My Luca tomatoes were started too late this year and never really got going. You can fix a lot of things in a garden later, but you can't fix timing. If a crop is on this list, write it into your spring plan and let it go for now.

The East bed with its new fall transplants, and the West bed behind it. The tomato in the corner still hasn't noticed that summer is over.

Your October planting list

• Buy seed garlic now and plant it mid October to mid November

• Sow fava beans in any empty bed you want to eat from in late spring

• Sow spinach, mâche and arugula in the first two weeks, under cover

• Transplant brassicas, chard and leeks this week

• Sow a cover crop in every other empty bed before October 10

• Mulch everything else with fallen leaves

If you want a list like this every month, I send one short email with what to plant, feed, protect and harvest in Seattle that month. The October checklist is free.

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And if you'd like to see a fall kitchen garden in person, Walk My Garden With Me is on Saturday, October 17, here in Phinney Ridge. By then the garlic should be in the ground and the fall transplants settled in. Time and signup are on the events page. It is free, small on purpose, and there is no pitch at the end.

Happy fall planting. Let me know if you need help, I'm here for you.

Jackie

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