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By Kenner P. Love
Extension Agent, ANR
Crop & Soil Sciences
The following are October gardening tips from the Rappahannock Extension Office.
• You can reduce the number of pests on fruit trees next year by picking up and destroying all fallen fruit, branches, and leaves. Worms and other pests feed on this fruit, overwinter in the soil, and emerge in the spring to lay eggs and start the cycle all over again.
• Many of the late maturing apple varieties, such as Winesap, Yellow Newton, Rome Beauty, and Northern Spy, are best for storage. They can be stored outdoors in insulated boxes, straw lined pits, or buried containers. As long as outdoor temperatures are above ten degrees Fahrenheit, they should not freeze. They will, however, last longer and taste better if kept in plastic bags or in plastic-lined, cardboard boxes in a fruit cellar. Cardboard boxes and plastic bags must be perforated to allow for air circulation.
• Clean up home orchard and small fruit plantings. Sanitation is essential for good maintenance. Dried fruits or "mummies" carry disease organisms through the winter to attack next year’s crop.
• A final weeding of your strawberries, blueberries, or raspberries will help keep weed problems down to a minimum. Start collecting fresh pine needles or clean straw to mulch strawberries after the ground has frozen.
• Tomatoes need an average daily temperature of ‘65 degrees F or more for ripening. If daytime temperatures consistently are below this, pick the fruits that have begun to change color and bring them inside to ripen.
If you are rescuing green tomatoes from a frost and plan to allow them' to finish ripening indoors, be sure to select fruits that have changed color from the darker green of immature tomatoes to the lighter color of. the mature green stage. If picked before this color break, the tomato will rot instead of ripen. You will be on the safe side if you wait for a hint of red to appear. Use underripe fruit for pickling.
• Remove any diseased or insect infested plant material from your garden; it may harbor overwintering stages of disease and insect pests. If you leave this plant material in
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