Continental Europe · Autumn · 7 October 2026
Gardening in Strasbourg
Winters with real frost, summers warm enough for most crops. The frost dates frame the season: tender crops go out after the last spring frost and come in before the first autumn one. Here the last spring frost comes about Apr 11 and the first autumn frost about Nov 12.
- Cold-winter temperate climate
- 896 mm of rain a year
- The Rhein
- Hardiness zone 8b
Photograph: Ignaz Wiradi · CC BY-SA 3.0
Now
21°C · Overcast
Today
25° / 12°
Soil 6 cm
19°C
First frost
~36 days (Nov 12)
Weather read at 8:01 p.m..
The garden year · Strasbourg
Harvest and preserving
The main crop ripens faster than it can be eaten: canning, freezing and cold storage.
Harvest tender crops before frost · Cure squash, onions, garlic · Can, freeze, dry, ferment · Save seed
JFMAMJJASOND
today❄ last frost❄ first frost
About 36 days until the average first frost. Tender crops should be harvested before then.
First frost about 5 weeks away; after it, about two weeks to lift roots and plant garlic.
Frost forecast · Strasbourg
Frost risk Tue night: down to 2 °C
Forecast lows are measured at head height; at bed level on a still, clear night it is usually one or two degrees colder. The effect of that low on crops in the ground this month:
Harvest before dark
None this month.
Cover overnight
Select a crop for storage and preserving. Cover with fabric sheeting rather than plastic, held off the leaves on stakes; put it on before sunset and remove it in the morning.
Harvest
Crops ready in Strasbourg in October
Tender crops first, which a hard frost will kill, then hardy crops that can stay in the ground and sweeten with cold.
Tender crops: harvest before frost
TenderPeas and beansHarvest Sep–OctDry beans
The crop that stores itself: leave the pods to rattle, shell them on the step, and eat them in February.
Drying · Pressure · FreezingHarvest and storage →
TenderSquash and pumpkinsHarvest Sep–OctPumpkins
One kind is for the porch and one is for the pie — and the seeds from both are for the oven.
Curing · Cold storage · FreezingHarvest and storage →
TenderSquash and pumpkinsHarvest Sep–OctWinter squash
Cured for ten days and kept on a cool shelf, the September harvest feeds you until March.
Curing · Cold storage · FreezingHarvest and storage →
Half-hardyTree fruitHarvest Aug–OctApples
The one harvest that can feed a family until March — if you know which apples keep and which don’t.
Cold storage · Water-bath · FreezingHarvest and storage →
TenderFruiting vegetablesHarvest Aug–OctHot peppers
A handful of plants gives a year of heat — dried on a string, pickled in rings, or fermented into sauce.
Drying · Pickling · FermentingHarvest and storage →
Half-hardyCabbages and kinHarvest Jul–OctCauliflower
The fussiest brassica: tie the leaves over the head, cut it while it is tight, and freeze what you cannot eat.
Freezing · PicklingHarvest and storage →
Hardy crops: improved by light frost
HardyRootsHarvest Sep–NovRutabagas
The winter root of the north — a sack of them in the cold room is December sorted.
Cold storage · FreezingHarvest and storage →
HardyRootsHarvest Jul–OctBeets
Two crops in one bed — the roots for the cold room, the greens for tonight.
Pickling · Pressure · FreezingHarvest and storage →
HardyCabbages and kinHarvest Jul–OctBroccoli
One big head, then weeks of side shoots — if you cut it before the buds turn yellow.
FreezingHarvest and storage →
Very hardyCabbages and kinHarvest Sep–DecBrussels sprouts
Not worth picking until it has frozen a few times — then the sweetest thing left standing in November.
Cold storage · Freezing · PicklingHarvest and storage →
Very hardyRootsHarvest Mar–NovParsnips
The one root that wants a hard frost before it is worth eating — and the last crop you can dig in spring.
Cold storage · FreezingHarvest and storage →
HardyCabbages and kinHarvest Jul–NovCabbage
The head that keeps all winter in a cold room — and turns into sauerkraut when it will not.
Cold storage · Fermenting · FreezingHarvest and storage →
Preserving
Canning, freezing and storage for crops in season
Tested recipes with processing times and the safety limits that apply.
- Water-bath canningtomato
Crushed tomatoes, water-bath canned
The plainest, most useful jar in the pantry: tomatoes and nothing else, ready for any sauce in February.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 10 kg (22 lb) of tomatoes; 6.4 kg (14 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1½ hours active
Recipe → - Picklingbeet
Pickled beets
Sweet-sour beet slices with cinnamon and clove — the pickle that makes a winter plate look like something.
About 8 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
Recipe → - Picklinghot pepper
Home-style pickled jalapeños
Taqueria-style jalapeño strips with carrot and onion in a plain vinegar brine — the tested, lime-free way to put up a hot-pepper glut.
About 6 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1 hour active
Recipe → - Picklingcarrot
Pickled carrots
Sweet-sour carrot coins with mustard and celery seed — a bright lunchbox pickle from the roots that will not all fit in the cold room.
About 4 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 45 minutes active
Recipe → - Water-bath canningapple
Applesauce, water-bath canned
Sound apples — seconds are fine once the bruises are cut away — into the easiest jar of the year; no added acid needed, and sugar optional.
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9.5 kg (21 lb) of apples; 6.1 kg (13½ lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars · 1¼ hours active
Recipe → - Pressure canningpotato
Potatoes, cubed and pressure canned
Hot-packed cubes that go straight from jar to frying pan: the fastest home-fries you will ever make, from the potatoes that would not keep.
About 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars from 6 kg (13 lb) of potatoes, or 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 9 kg (20 lb) · 1¼ hours active
Recipe →
Autumn planting
The last plantings of the year
Garlic
Cloves go in four to six weeks before the ground freezes, pointy end up, 5 cm deep, under a thick mulch of leaves. The one crop planted in autumn for harvest the following summer.
Garlic: planting and storage →Spring bulbs
Tulips, daffodils, alliums and crocus need about six weeks in cool soil before the ground freezes. Plant at three times the bulb's height.
Cover crop
Winter rye or oats on cleared beds hold the soil through the thaw and are dug in as green manure in spring. Oats are killed by winter cold and are easier to manage.
The year in Strasbourg
Cold-winter temperate · Köppen Cfb · rain through the year, 896 mm a year
The sowing calendar for Strasbourg
Worked out from ten years of local temperature and rainfall
| Crop | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cabbagestaple | ||||||||||||
| Tomatoesstaple | ||||||||||||
| Potatoesstaple | ||||||||||||
| Sweet cornstaple | ||||||||||||
| Kale | ||||||||||||
| Beetroot | ||||||||||||
| Carrots | ||||||||||||
| Leeks | ||||||||||||
| Parsley | ||||||||||||
| Swiss chard | ||||||||||||
| Broad beans (fava beans) | ||||||||||||
| Coriander | ||||||||||||
| Florence fennel | ||||||||||||
| Swedes | ||||||||||||
| Dill | ||||||||||||
| Onions | ||||||||||||
| Peas | ||||||||||||
| Turnips |
Sow or plant out Possible with watering — it grows into the dry season Start in trays Harvest
Perennials and fruit that do well here: Pomegranates, Rhubarb, Thyme, oregano, sage and rosemary.
A crop is marked for a month when, sown then, it would spend its growing weeks within its own temperature limits and clear of frost. Microclimates move this by weeks: a sheltered, sunny wall is a month ahead of an open, windy plot.
Loading this week's guide: forecast, moon and local records…
Garden fauna · October
Garden insects and soil life active this month
Pollinators, predators, soil organisms and pests active near Strasbourg, France in October. Most are beneficial; identify the few pests before treating anything.
PollinatorMar–OctHoney bee
Apis mellifera
Golden-brown, banded, furry thorax, and pollen packed onto the hind legs in visible baskets.
Role in the garden →
BeneficialApr–OctLady beetle
Coccinellidae
The adult everyone knows; the larva is the useful one — a spiky, alligator-shaped grey-and-orange creature that looks like a pest.
Role in the garden →
BeneficialApr–OctGround beetle
Carabidae
Shiny black or bronze, fast-running, with grooved wing covers and long legs.
Role in the garden →Photo: Gavin Slater · CC BY 4.0
Soil lifeMar–Jun, Sep–NovEarthworm
Lumbricus terrestris
Familiar; look for the saddle-like clitellum a third of the way down a mature worm.
Role in the garden →Photo: José Garrido · CC BY 4.0
PestApr–Jun, Sep–OctSlugs
Gastropoda
The silvery slime trail and ragged holes in the middle of leaves, not at the edges.
Role in the garden →Photo: Casey H. Richart · CC BY 4.0
Photographs are research-grade observations from iNaturalist, each credited to its photographer. Ranges and timing are typical, not guaranteed — 115 species are covered across North America, Europe and Africa.
Conditions
The day, the ground and the sky over Strasbourg
Expect a wind shift and falling pressure. Stake and tie in plants, and harvest ripe crops before it arrives.
- Ground beetle — Running the soil surface after dark, taking slugs, cutworms and larvae. One of the best predators a garden has.
- Earthworm — At the surface after dark and in wet weather, pulling leaves down into the burrow.
Sky · Strasbourg, France
Sun and moon
Day length and the moon, for Strasbourg.
Sun
11h 19m of daylight
Sunrise
07:37
Solar noon
13:16
Sunset
18:56
A month from now the day will be 1h 40m shorter. Day length is sufficient for steady growth.
Moon
Waning Crescent
9% lit · waning · day 27 of 29.5
- Next full
- Oct 26 · 19d
- Hunter's Moon
- Next new
- Oct 10 · 3d
- No moonlight
Lunar planting (traditional): Last quarter to new: a resting phase — weed, prune, harvest, turn compost and prepare beds.
Solunar rating (traditional): good. The tradition holds that fish feed most in the days around new and full moon, and near moonrise and moonset. The evidence is mixed; light and weather have larger effects.
Next solstice or equinox
Winter solstice
Dec 21 · 75 days away
About 36 days to the average first frost (Nov 12).
Coming phases
- New MoonOct 10
- First QuarterOct 18
- Full Moon · Hunter's MoonOct 26
- Last QuarterNov 1
This week · Strasbourg, France
Seasonal conditions
Each reading is taken from this week's forecast and the local climate record, with what it means for the season.
- Monitor
Frost
36 days
Average first autumn frost is around Nov 12. Crops sown now must mature before then.
Frost sets the limits of the growing season. Ice forming inside leaf tissue ruptures the cells: one night kills a tomato plant and sweetens a parsnip.
- Favourable
Soil temperature
19.3 °C
Warm enough for beans, maize, squash, cucumber and transplanted tomato and pepper. Root growth is rapid at this temperature.
Germination is triggered by soil temperature, not by date. The reading is taken at 6 cm, the depth of most seed.
- Inactive
Day length
11h 19m
Losing about 3 minutes of daylight a day.
Day length is unaffected by weather. Plants respond to photoperiod when they bolt, form bulbs, flower and go dormant.
- Monitor
Heat units
21 GDD / 7 days
Slow accumulation: suits cool-season crops; maize and melons make little progress.
Growing degree days: the running total of warmth above 10 °C. Crop and insect development tracks this total more closely than the date.
- Monitor
Rain
18.1 mm / 7 days
18.1 mm across 2 days, below the 25 mm a week most beds need. Water the crops most sensitive to drought.
Rainfall governs germination, fungal fruiting and slug activity, and sets river levels for the following days.
- Favourable
Pollination
6 of 7 flying days
6 suitable flying days ahead. Open flowers will be visited; provide shallow water and delay any spraying until dusk.
About a third of food crops depend on insect pollination. Bee activity is governed by temperature, wind and rain.
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