While November in the garden may not be as luscious green and humming with life as spring time, there are still so many valuable tasks to be completed to ensure your garden is ready for the upcoming year. Here are the four key areas to work on in the garden this month, bundled up a bit more with fall’s chill settling in.
#1 Harvest Time
The most valuable work to be done is harvesting food from the garden you’ve worked so hard to grow! This year, we’re still harvesting lettuces, kales, radishes, herbs, butternut squash & eggplant (due to warmer start to fall), and beets & turnips! We moved to our new home and small plot of land eight months ago, so while we are thrilled with these goodies from the garden, future November harvests will be much larger!
In our latest video, we share all the future potential plants you can harvest in November! From cool weather crops like the Brassicas (broccoli, kale, rutabaga, kohlrabi, radishes turnips), carrots, leeks, spinaches, lettuces, chard, & beets, to finish warm out the season of warm weather crops (tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, and so much more), November is a key time of transition while celebrating abundance.
#2 Soil Maintenance
I could almost consider this a tie with harvesting, as taking care of your soil is so important future garden success. Here’s a few November tasks in the garden for soil maintenance:
- Cutting back perennial flowers for winter – I tend to let the bees enjoy these until they are dying off and then chop & drop.
- Mulch mulch mulch – I often focus on green mulch in November, meaning I cut back the growth of plants & trees, chop up the leaves, and sprinkle them around the garden beds. Herbs are wonderful for this!
- Wood chips are also a resource you can typically find free in your community to add to your garden in the winter months.
- Make sure to also avoid putting any diseased leaves in your compost or mulch.
- Cover crops – To add nitrogen back to the soil, consider a plant that does this naturally! Winter cover crops help to improve soil fertility, suppress weeds, and prevent soil erosion. Right now, we had fava beans on hand which were planted in early November and will be chopped & dropped before they flower to reap all the benefits of adding nitrogen to our soil.
- Weed work – This is always on-going, but as the winter rains come in our Zone 9b, I tend to keep a closer eye on weeds. As soon as I see a weed starting to pop up, I try to catch them and pull them out to avoid them going to seed.
Did you know?
Elderberry trees/shrubs are one of the quickest growing trees in the world. I call it a BIOMASS beauty – with how fast they grow, you can chop them up and use these leaves around the garden for compost/mulch. Plus, the berries are so high in vitamin C (much higher than oranges!) that you can simply boil them down into a syrup and enjoy immune boosting benefits year-round (note – do not eat the berries raw!).
#3 Sowing Seeds
To learn more about how we successfully sow seeds indoors, check out our latest blog post & youtube video on using soil blocks. As we acclimate to our new land, I am both experimenting and observing all that is possible here.
Annual Seeds
With a warmer fall thus far, and an interesting microclimate (it is typically 10 degrees cooler where our home resides than just a couple blocks down the road!), I am sowing spinach, kale, a variety of lettuces, peas, kohlrabi, broccoli, chives, and chard to see what can thrive through the winter months.
Fruit & Nut Trees
What is even more exciting is finding our fruit and nut trees to plant! We are searching for and hope to plant the following this winter:
- Apple
- Pear
- Peach
- Lime
- Mulberry
- Pistachio (2 trees needed)
- Pomegranate
As of now, we currently have a Lapin cherry, Cara Cara orange, lemon, pineapple guava and two varieties of avocado – the phoenix & reed. The excitement is palpable as we start to search for and order our future trees to join the homestead.
#4 Ordering Seeds
Each month we share with our Smiling Soil permaculture community garden tips, innovations, seed sowing reminders, & favorite seasonal plant-based recipes to enjoy. This month, we will be sharing some of our favorite seed companies that you will soon love as much as us. Join today to be a part of this latest newsletter!
November is such a beautiful time of transition and embracing change – let us know what you are excited about to work on in your garden below.
