Sunrise: 1st October – 7h.33m.
Sunset: 1st October – 19h.19m.
Full moon: 1st / 30th October.
VEGETABLE PLOTS: Prepare and protect seed beds against frost and seed onions and lettuce, take some already harvested large onions and plant them in the seed bed to produce seeds. The best way to make the seed beds for this month and next is with plenty of warm manure from the barn at the bottom and the very fine loose dry manure on the top for the seeds to be planted in.
Plant cabbage (coração de boi, produces big heart shaped heads), broad beans, peas (mange tout), winter lettuce. End of month plant strawberries, garlic and onion sets. Harvest last bush and runner beans, pumpkins.
FIELDS: Dig and organically fertilize holes for tree planting in spring.
VINEYARDS/ TREES/ PRUNING/ GRAFTING: Start olive harvest. Plant fruit trees and prune cold resistant trees. Citrus trees in cold spots or next to streams and rivers should be sprayed with copper sulfate to protect against the leaves freezing. Harvest chestnuts, walnuts and hazel nuts. In dry sheltered areas plant olive trees.
REMARKS: The nets for the olive harvest can be bought at local markets and hardware/agricultural shops. The olives once cleaned of leaves etc should either be sealed in airtight plastic sacks, that can be bought at the same places as above, stored in salt (not recommended, the olives can easily mould), or in regularly changed or fresh running water (in an irrigation tank or barrels), before going to the local press.
Clocks go back 1 hour on 30th October!!
Start picking medronho berries (fruits of the wild strawberry tree) — see 'REMARKS' November.
