What to sow & do in the November kitchen garden
There’s a small list of important jobs to do in your November kitchen garden or allotment before it goes to sleep for the Winter. This month is mostly geared towards getting everything ready for next year and generally tidying up.
There are also a few seeds that you can sow this month, although almost all of them will need to be protected with cloches or grown in a greenhouse. If you start them off now you’ll have greens and salad by March next year, all going well.
Seeds to sow in November
The sowing list this month is really quite small, because it’s hard to get many plants to sprout during this months’s colder, darker weather. It’s a good idea to look for hardy varieties if you’re going to try.
Some of my favourite places to get seeds and small plants include:
- Dobies – great seed catalogue from long-established company
- Marshalls Garden – good variety of seedlings and plants
- RHS – good for ‘Garden Merit’ tried and tested varieties
- Suttons – lots of 99p seeds and handy advice for beginners
- Thompson & Morgan – all kinds of seeds, strawberry plants, fruit bushes etc
- Wilko – the bargain seeds are back, plus lots of multi-buy offers
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The short and sweet sowing list for November is as follows:
- Broad beans (winter-hardy Aquadulce types)
- Chard (under cover)
- Garlic (plant cloves rather than seeds)
- Herbs (parsley and coriander, under cover)
- Leaf beet (under cover)
- Lettuce (winter types or baby leaf, under cover)
- Oriental greens like pak choi (under cover)
- Peas (winter-hardy round-seeded types)
- Rhubarb crowns
- Rocket (under cover)
- Spinach (short day types, under cover)
You should be able to sow most soft herbs and baby leaf lettuce on a windowsill indoors too, as long as it’s a relatively bright and moderately cool windowsill.
Alternatively, you can hold back completely this month and get started early next year instead. Waiting for a few more weeks tends to give you a better germination rate with most seeds.
Garden jobs to do in November
Here’s a quick reminder of the most important garden jobs to do this November:
1. Planting out in November
- Clumps of biennial herbs
- Fruit trees, bushes and canes
- Japanese onions (protect from frost)
- Rhubarb crowns
2. November vegetable care
- Cut and store autumn cabbages
- Lift and store root vegetables (shed or sand clamp)
- Mulch around parsnips & swede if you aren’t digging them up soon
3. Care of fruit in November
- Pick and store any remaining apples and pears
- Protect fruit buds on apple, pear & plum trees from birds
- Prune vines and fruit bushes after fruiting ends
4. General garden jobs this month
- General tidying up and composting
- Collect fallen leaves to make leaf mould
- Move remaining tender plants to under cover
- Move other pots to sheltered areas, protect from frost
- Dispose of plants with late blight or clubroot
- Dig in some manure or add compost
Depending on the size of your garden, you may also need to look out for hibernating hedgehogs and other animals too.
My November kitchen garden diary
I freely admit to being a total fair weather gardener, and as such I’ve been slacking off with the gardening in the last couple of weeks. There have been a few more spent plants pulled up and composted, along with some fallen leaves, but that’s about it so far.
It’s also time to properly protect some seedlings I already have growing for next year, including hardy spring onions, winter salad leaves, and a few herbs. These are mostly moving into the mini greenhouse but I’ll add a cloche to one or two more outdoor plants to protect them soon.
Enjoying this post? You may also like:
- Garden jobs to do in October
- British seasonal food in November – what to pick now
Will you be doing some grow-your-own gardening this November?
