5 Ways You Can Improve Your Garden Soil in November

Although plants, animals, and gardeners rest during November, soil doesn’t take a break! Underneath the ground, fungi, archaea, and bacteria survive in the warm cover. They eat large molecules and turn them into smaller ones that plant roots can access. 

Take care of these microbes and the larger organisms that interact with them to foster a diverse habitat that benefits your future plants. Some of these methods involve adding improvements, while others require inaction. Which ones to use depends on the garden and its conditions. Some are fertile already, while others need annual amendments.

No matter the garden’s conditions, we’ll ensure its soil, animals, and plants are healthy and thriving. We’ll use simple methods that involve abundant natural resources like fall leaves and weeds. Without further ado, these are the five ways you can improve garden soil this November.

All-Purpose Vegetable Fertilizer

A versatile mix for backyard gardens & hobby farms, this fertilizer’s broad nutrient profile is ideal for use throughout the growing season. Its non-burning organic ingredients prevent fertilizer burn and provide slow-release nutrition for your garden’s needs.

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Add Amendments

Amendments act as mulch in autumn and winter. They protect the upper layers of dirt from erosion, frost, and sunlight. This keeps the ground moist, warm, and porous. Worms thrive below mulch coverings, and they create pathways for tunneling beetles, larvae, and other soil-dwelling creatures. 

The best soil improvements are organic ones that decompose readily. They’ll inject essential nutrients like carbon and nitrogen near plant roots so they’ll have plenty during the growing season. They also add porosity and absorbency to soils, helping plants and organisms breathe below ground. 

Add any of these five amendments to improve soil in November; they’ll decay throughout the cold months, protect soil critters, and keep frost-tender perennials safe from freezing temperatures. The sole exception is adding mulch on top of snow and ice. If your garden freezes solid by November, it’s best to wait until after the snow melts to add these improvements.

Compost

An ideal amendment, compost is perfect for all gardeners! It’s a nutritious, beneficial, and absorbent material that comes from decay. Microorganisms eat larger molecules, turn them into humus, and leave them for plant roots to absorb. 

Composting is easy with little space. You can turn kitchen scraps, garden clippings, and fall leaves into a free amendment! The key to composting is balance; you’ll want to create piles with one part green waste and two or three parts brown waste. 

Greens are nitrogen-rich materials like fleshy plants, kitchen scraps, and grass clippings. Browns have plenty of carbon and include things like sawdust, fall leaves, and straw. With the perfect balance, they house composting organisms that turn garden refuse into free soil. 

Organic Mulch

If you don’t have access to compost, try an organic mulch instead! Mulches decay like composts, adding beneficial microbes and nutrients. Some garden centers have mulch mixes ready to use out of the bag, while others let you mix different mulches in buckets. 

Most mulches consist of wood, bark, or other wooden products. Wood tends to “lock up” nitrogen as it initially decays. When you add these mulches during November when plants aren’t actively growing you avoid stealing valuable nitrogen from plant roots during the growing season. The mulch will decay further by spring and pull less nutrients from the soil.

If your organic mulch pulls too much nitrogen out of the soil, you may add organic fertilizer in spring to compensate. Apply something like a feather meal rich in nitrogen and low in other nutrients to avoid overflowing the garden with excess. 

Fall Leaves

Nature gives fall leaves freely! They descend from deciduous shrubs and trees in autumn, covering lawns, cars, and garden beds. Although they may seem like a nuisance, fall leaves are crucial for the fitness of your local environment. Adding fall leaves is an excellent decision to bolster your garden’s health.

Let leaves lie where they fall, or process them a bit to help them quickly decay. You can make leaf mold with them or combine them with greens to make a compost pile. If they fall on your lawn, you can rake them to a garden bed where they’ll decay without issues. You may also use a mulch plug on your lawn mower to chop leaves into smaller pieces that fall between grass blades. The possibilities are endless!

Wood

Wood may not be the first improvement you think to add, but it has plenty of benefits for your garden! Large untreated wood chunks bolster fungi that need lots of carbon to survive. The fungal organisms use their root-like mycelia to spread into wood, and they digest it into soft, spongey humus. Their fruiting bodies add more organic material as they decay after dispersing spores for future colonies.

If you have woody trees or shrubs that you prune, consider scattering these wood scraps throughout your yard. Next year, you may find mushrooms sprouting on them in fall or spring during cool, moist weather.

Another wooden amendment that’s superb for garden soils is biochar. It’s a result of wood that burns without becoming ash. It’ll look black, charred, and crumbly. Break it up into pieces and mix it into your garden, or throw chunks of it near woody trees and shrubs. 

Garden Debris

Don’t throw your garden waste away! Any organic material decays after enough time with sufficient moisture. As organic matter decays, it boosts soils’ nutritional contents and overall structure. Branches, clippings, and leaves create air pockets in the soil that hold water or air for plants to readily access.

When you let debris decay, you cultivate a closed-loop garden that requires little outside amendments. You’ll need less fertilizer, mulch, and improvements than gardens without lots of decaying organic matter. Save time, money, and resources by allowing decaying organisms to eat the organic matter in your backyard. 

Amend Poor Soils

November is an excellent month to start improving poor soils. If your garden has too much clay, sand, or silt, add materials that work throughout the cool months. Then, in spring, your garden will be ready for new plant species. 

Clay

Soil that is clay-dominant is hard to work with because it forms large clumps that are difficult to separate. Plant roots struggle to grow into it, despite its rich nutritional content. Tilling or turning it can cause more clumps to form! The best way to fix clay soil is to blend it with organic amendments.

Mix materials like compost, leaf mold, or organic mulch into the top layer, then cover the soil with a thick layer. The organic matter decomposes over time and attracts microbes and worms that help break up the particles. With continuous additions, the clay will eventually grow into a humus-rich dirt ideal for ornamental and edible plants.

Sand

Much like clay, sand grows into the ideal garden soil with continuous organic amendment additions. You’ll want to mix compost or a similar substance into the topsoil, then place a thick layer on the ground. The earth should gain structure and nutrition as the improvements decompose.

Another excellent option is to plant cover crops. Some plants, like fava beans and winter rye, are cold-hardy and frost tolerant. You can grow them in garden beds to hold onto the soil particles and protect them from frequent rains. For sand, it’s best to plant those that build biomass, like spinach, grasses, or beans.

Cover crops like fava beans inject nitrogen into the ground by partnering with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Cut them down before they open their flowers so the nitrogen stays below the ground—if you let them grow, they’ll suck up the nutrient as they form pods and seeds. Whether you use cover crops or mulch, you’ll want to cover sandy soils this month so they’re ready by spring.

Silt

Silt is a soil particle that has a size in between clay and sand. It doesn’t stick together like clay, and it also doesn’t crumble like sand; it shares similar properties of the two but is distinct from them. An ideal garden loam has an equal ratio of clay, sand, and silt. 

Amend silty sites by adding mulch or compost, growing cover crops, and protecting the areas from erosion. Your November soil improvements will decay throughout the cool months, finishing their process as the weather warms and days lengthen in spring. 

Fertilize Early Blooming Species

Tulips, daffodils, and crocuses erupt from bulbs deep belowground before most other plants awaken from winter slumber. Other species, like forsythia and hellebores, bloom much earlier than most other perennials. They’ll start sucking in nutrients long before other plants do. 

If you’re growing these species in nutrient-poor soils or old containers, they may need a fertilizer boost. The extra nutrients will help them produce ample blooms in cold weather. Use an organic fertilizer and follow the package’s instructions to find the correct dosages for your beds and containers.

Some sites may not need fertilizer, especially if you are continuously adding compost in the area. Organic amendments add nutrients as they decompose. Know for sure whether your dirt needs nutrients by taking a soil test. Kits will tell you what nutrients your soil lacks, their pH, and their organic matter content. 

Use Weeds As Cover Crops

You may not think of weeds as beneficial, however they do have their uses in the winter! Cool-weather weeds are often less aggressive than warm-weather ones. Specimens like hairy bittercress, chickweed, and deadnettles sprout during cool, moist conditions. If you pull them now, they’ll expose the area to harsh winter weather.

Let the weeds stay for now. They’ll use their roots to anchor themselves and latch onto soil particles. Rainstorms won’t wash away the dirt while the roots are holding onto it. Because they’re prolific, leaving weeds be is an easy task. They’ll grow whether you want them or not!

If the weedy species start sprouting flowers or seeds, it’s best to pluck them. Leave them be for too long, and they’ll spread dozens, if not, hundreds of new seedlings. Unless they easily re-root, you can leave the pulled weeds on top of the soil as green mulch. They’ll decompose like mulch and contribute to growing successes next season. 

Remove Inorganic Materials

Some materials like landscape fabric and plastic persist in the environment for longer than we live! They struggle to break down, and when they split into thousands of tiny pieces. There are real and useful applications for these substances, although many commonly misuse them.

Landscape plastic products are perfect for solarizing a garden patch full of weeds. The plastic prevents light from reaching the seedlings, and it warms the ground so that new seeds don’t sprout. This process can harm beneficial soil microbes, and so it’s best as a last resort in particularly weedy areas.

Landscape fabric or plastic is especially harmful if you leave it for longer than six months to a year. It inhibits water flow belowground and causes excessive pooling near sensitive plant roots. Over time, trees may puncture the plastic and root through it. 

Remove inorganic materials from your garden for future growing successes. Without the barrier, water will flow freely and below ground organisms will flourish. Old plastics are more prone to breaking than newer ones, so dig carefully to avoid puncturing the sheets.