Palatino Garden Adventures

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Palatino Garden Adventures

Passionate Seattle gardener helping locals start kitchen gardens with personalized consulting and coaching for growing fresh food at home.🌱🏡

10/03/2026

Before you pull anything out this month, write down what didn’t work while you still remember it. By March you won’t, and you’ll plant the same mistake again.

Walk your beds with your phone, take one photo per bed, and add one line to each: keep, change, or never again. Here’s part of my list from this year. Tomatillos: they took over my whole greenhouse, so next year they get one pot, maximum. Vienna Purple kohlrabi: a total failure, never again. Marketmore 76 cucumbers in the West bed: keep, one of my top performers all summer.

That list is the most useful page I’ll have when I sit down to plan next season.

If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your own list, send me a message. Happy fall gardening.

09/30/2026

Here are the three hand tools I actually use when I plant out my fall beds. Each one does a different job, so I keep all three next to me while I work. This round it is cabbage transplants going in.

If you only buy one, I would start with the wooden dibber. You poke the hole first and then plant, so every hole comes out the same depth and your rows stay even before a single plant goes in. It also leaves the soil around the hole mostly undisturbed, while a trowel tears up a much wider area. In soft, prepped fall beds it slides right in, and it works for seeds, transplants, and garlic cloves next month.

Cabbage is not the only thing that still goes in the ground this time of year. If you want the full list for October here in Seattle, comment OCTOBER or send me a message and I will send you my free October Planting Checklist. It covers garlic, shallots, fava beans, which greens still make sense, and what to harvest before frost.

Happy fall planting!

09/29/2026

Garlic goes in this month, and it is the easiest crop in my garden. You plant it in October, you mostly forget about it, and you dig it up next summer.

My new blog post is about what to plant in October in Seattle, and honestly, it's a short list. Seed garlic goes in from mid October to mid November, once the soil has cooled. Fava beans can go into any empty bed you want to eat from in late spring. Spinach, mâche and arugula still work from seed, but only in the first two weeks and under a row cover. The last brassica, chard and leek transplants go in this week, not in November.

The longer list is what's already too late. Carrots, beets, broccoli and kale from seed are done for this year here, so they go into the spring plan.

One tip for the garlic: buy seed garlic from a nursery, not from the grocery store. Grocery garlic is often grown somewhere much warmer and is sometimes treated so it won't sprout. It goes into dinner, not into the garden.

Read the full post here: https://www.palatinogardenadventures.com/post/what-to-plant-in-october-seattle?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=october_checklist_2026&utm_content=october_post

Comment OCTOBER and I'll send you my free October Planting Checklist.

Happy fall planting!

09/28/2026

My garden is open again on Saturday, October 17, from 1:00 to 2:30 here in Phinney Ridge. Walk My Garden With Me is free, capped at 12 people, and there is nothing to buy at the end.

October is my favorite month to show the garden, because you see what happens after the summer crops come out. The cover crops will be up, the winter greens will be in, and if the soil has cooled enough, the garlic goes in that week. You will also see the parts that did not work, like the bed I placed too close to the fence and still have to reach across. Honestly, that bed teaches people more than the pretty ones.

Bring your questions, and a photo of your own space if you have one. Comment TOUR and I will send you the signup link.

09/27/2026

If the last tomatoes of the season have black, sunken bottoms, please leave the eggshells in the compost bin.

Blossom end rot isn't a calcium shortage in your soil, it's a watering problem. When watering swings between dry and soaked, the plant can't move calcium into the fruit fast enough, even with plenty in the ground. Crushed eggshells break down over years, not weeks, so sprinkling them around the plant now does nothing for the fruit that's already hanging there. They do their slow work in the compost, so that's where they belong.

After a dry summer like this one, a lot of Seattle gardens are showing it. For this year, pick off the damaged fruit so the plant puts its energy into the rest. For next year, water deeply on a schedule and mulch thickly with compost or straw so the soil stays evenly moist.

If you want to know what your garden actually needs and when, comment FEED and I'll send you the link to my PNW Organic Feeding Calendar.

09/26/2026

The internet is very confident about kitchen scraps. Bury a banana peel under your tomatoes, crush eggshells around your peppers, pour coffee on your blueberries. Some of it works, and some of it mostly makes you feel productive.

Swipe through for what I'd actually use. Compost is still the best thing you can make. Most of the rest does better in the compost bin, where it breaks down properly instead of sitting in your bed for two years.

The Make It section of my PNW Organic Feeding Calendar has 16 homemade fertilizers with full recipes, plus notes on which ones don't live up to the hype.

Comment FEED for the link. It's 25% off with FEED25 until September 30.

09/25/2026

Quick note before the weekend: the 25% off on my PNW Organic Feeding Calendar ends Wednesday, September 30.

This is the month it earns its keep. October is when feeding stops for most crops, slow amendments go down, and next spring's schedule gets decided. The calendar covers 72 Zone 8b to 9a crops month by month. It includes homemade and store bought options, with amounts worked out for your beds.

It's $14.99 with code FEED25, and $19.99 after Wednesday. Comment FEED and I'll send you the link.

Happy fall gardening!

09/24/2026

The March feed doesn't fail. It arrives in June.

Below about 50°F soil, organic fertilizer mostly just sits there. When the soil warms in May, that March feed wakes up at the same time as your May feed. The result is a double dose of nitrogen, and a six foot tomato plant with four tomatoes on it.

The PNW Organic Feeding Calendar has the right month for every crop and every amendment, homemade and store bought. Comment FEED for the link. It's 25% off until September 30.

09/22/2026

The fall equinox is Tuesday at 5:05 p.m., and this is what came in from the garden this week. Tomatillos, the last cucumbers, and one chili just showing off.

Here's the thing. The equinox is not the end of the season, it is the last deadline of it. The kale and leeks you want to eat in January need to be almost full size by the end of October. After that the garden stops growing and only holds what it has.

So this week: pick the basil before the cold nights get to it, save seed from one favorite open pollinated plant, sow spinach and arugula, and put a cover crop on every empty bed. Garlic can wait until mid-October here.

I wrote the whole list down, plus what the equinox actually is and why I celebrate it:
https://www.palatinogardenadventures.com/post/fall-equinox-seattle-garden?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fall_guide_2026&utm_content=equinox_post

Happy fall equinox. Let me know if you need help with your garden.

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