Pumpkins, squashes and gourds can be harvested when ripe and stored somewhere cool and dry. Apples and pears can also be picked and stored placing them on trays or in boxes so they are not touching.

Remove diseased foliage from roses and rake up and destroy any leaves that have fallen to the ground. Roses in windy or exposed positions will benefit from a light prune to protect them from being damaged by high winds during the Winter.

Keep deadheading dahlias so they will continue to flower until the first frosts. To tell the difference between a spent flower head and a bud, the spent heads are pointed whereas the buds are round.

October is the month that the changing leaf colour starts to become noticeable. The leaves on trees start changing to vibrant shades of red, gold, yellow, orange and brown, particularly if the days are warm and sunny and the nights cool but not freezing.

This month there is usually a great variety of fungi to be found. As the leaves fall and moisture builds up in the soil the fungi begin to send up their fruiting bodies.

During October,berries, fruits and nuts will be ripening. Examples include elderberries and rosehips, sloes on blackthorn and red haws on hawthorn. Chestnuts can be found on Sweet chestnut trees, conkers on the Horse chestnut tree and apples on the wild Crab apple that is the only indigenous wild apple species in the UK, although it is threatened by hybridisation with domestic apples and many of those seen in the countryside are not true crab apple trees.