9 Gardening Tasks to Tackle this November
Although November brings cooler and darker days, it doesn’t mean your work in the garden is over! Properly caring for current plants and adding new ones will help you enjoy a beautiful garden next spring. Join gardener Briana Yablonski to learn nine gardening tasks to tackle this month.
Contents
The cold, dark days of November often cause me to breathe a big sigh of relief. After busy summer days spent irrigating crops, pulling weeds, and harvesting veggies and flowers, I’m ready for fall. But September and October are filled with removing old crops, preparing beds for planting, and transplanting seedlings to overwinter.
When November finally rolls around, things seem to slow down. However, that doesn’t mean I’m done spending time in the garden. This month is spent caring for established plants, planning next year’s garden, and tucking bulbs and seeds in the ground.
Since the climate largely dictates gardening seasons, growers in various hardiness zones have different priorities. However, this list of November garden tasks is a great starting place for most gardeners.
Dig Root Crops
While summer crops like tomatoes and peppers are often gone by the time November rolls around, this month is prime time for harvesting many root crops. Roots like carrots, beets, rutabagas, and turnips become sweeter after temperatures drop, so I recommend waiting until after your first frost to harvest.
Harvesting is as easy as grabbing the tops of the plants and giving them a firm but gentle tug. If you’re worried about the tops breaking off, you can use a digging fork to gently lift the roots out of the ground. This is especially helpful for long roots like carrots, parsnips, and daikon radishes.
If you want to store your harvest for more than a week, remove the tops from the roots. Rather than washing the roots immediately after you harvest, leave a light layer of soil to protect them during storage. You can wash your veggies as needed when it’s time to eat them.
Plant Garlic
While northern growers have missed their garlic planting window, gardeners in warmer growing zones can still tuck garlic cloves into the ground in November. In fact, if you live in zones eight, nine, or ten, this month is the best time to plant garlic.
Planting too early can cause the plants to produce too much green growth before they become dormant. While this growth may seem like a good thing, the tender shoots suck moisture from the clove, causing it to dry out and die. Long shoots are also susceptible to heavy frosts, so they may die over the winter.
Make sure to properly prepare your soil before planting. Garlic likes well-draining soil that’s rich in organic matter, so loosen the soil as necessary and amend it with compost. Tuck each clove about three inches underground with the pointy end facing up. Space the cloves about six inches apart, with 8-12 inches between each row.
Adding organic mulch like straw or leaves will help insulate the cloves against the winter cold. When spring arrives, the shoots will grow up through the mulch, but the organic material will protect the plants from annual weeds.
Plant Spring Flower Bulbs
The best time to plant the bulbs of spring-blooming flowers is after warm weather has passed but before the ground freezes. In most areas, planting a few weeks before or after the first frost is ideal. If you live in zones six, seven, eight, or nine, November is likely a good time to plant.
When it comes time to select bulbs, you have lots of options! Many gardeners are familiar with popular spring bulbs like daffodils and tulips, but you can also plant lesser-known flowers like Siberian squill and snake’s head fritillary.
No matter which types of bulbs you choose, make sure to avoid common planting mistakes. Always start with fresh bulbs and avoid planting any that are squishy, discolored, or rotten. Look up the proper planting depth and spacing for each bulb since this varies between species. And last of all, make sure to plant the bulbs with the pointed side up!
Add Mulch to Your Perennial Beds
Adding organic mulch like straw, woodchips, and leaves to your garden beds provides numerous benefits. It helps limit evaporation, keeps weeds down, and prevents soil from splashing onto your plants and spreading disease. These materials also increase soil organic matter as they decompose over time.
While this breakdown is beneficial for soil health, it means your mulch stops functioning as it should. Since warm temperatures increase decomposition rates, you may find your mulch has disappeared over the summer.
Therefore, November is often the perfect time to add a new layer of mulch around trees, shrubs, and perennials. The weather is cool enough to make the job of spreading mulch bearable but not so cold your plants are already in harm’s way.
A fresh layer of mulch helps protect both the soil and plants over the winter. It limits erosion from heavy rains, protects roots from cold damage, and prevents soil splash. And when spring arrives, you can skip adding mulching to your to-do list.
Collect Seeds
Browsing through seed catalogs is a favorite pastime of just about every gardener. But have you thought about shopping for seeds in your own garden?
In many areas, November is the best month to collect mature seeds from annuals and perennials that bloom in the late summer and fall. By this point in the year, the seeds will be mature yet will still be on the plants, ready for you to collect. Some fall plants to collect seeds from include asters, goldenrods, and echinacea.
I like to collect entire mature flower heads or seed pods rather than individual seeds. Snipping off these larger items with clippers is often easier than trying to handle small seeds that like to scatter in the wind. You can always separate the seeds during the slow, dark days of winter.
When you’re collecting seeds, keep these tips in mind:
- Ensure seeds are fully mature—immature seeds won’t germinate.
- Make sure the seeds are dry before you place them into storage. If you collect damp seeds, lay them out to dry before placing them into a bag or container.
- Label the seeds. Even if you think you’ll remember the plant variety and collection date, you’ll likely forget it in a few months. Your future self will thank you for labeling.
Start Winter Sowing
Whether you’re interested in growing native plants or cut flowers, winter sowing is an easy and reliable way to start seeds. In short, this method involves planting seeds in beds or containers in the late fall and leaving them outdoors during the winter. The cold winter temperatures encourage the seeds to break dormancy, and the seeds germinate the following spring when temperatures are right.
Winter sowing is especially ideal for seeds that require cold stratification before they can germinate. While you can place these seeds in the refrigerator for a few months to help them sprout, working with nature is always easier. Plus, winter sowing gives you something to look forward to in the spring!
Although winter sowing is ideal for seeds that require cold exposure to germinate, it works for a wide range of seeds. Since the seeds can sit outdoors all winter, you don’t have to worry about finding space in your home for seedling trays and grow lights.
One popular winter sowing method involves making mini greenhouses out of milk jugs. After you gather a few milk jugs, follow these steps to create your greenhouses.
- Use a knife to poke a few small holes in the bottom of the jug. This will allow excess water to drain.
- Cut the jug in half using a knife or pair of scissors.
- Fill the bottom half of the jug with a few inches of potting soil.
- Sprinkle the seeds on the soil, cover as necessary, and water well.
- Tape the top of the jug to the bottom. The sides should be sealed, but the top should be open to allow water to enter and heat to escape.
The seeds will remain dormant throughout the winter and possibly into the early spring. But as soon as the right combination of temperature and moisture appears, they’ll sprout.
Collect and Remove Diseased Plant Tissue
In recent years, more and more gardeners are realizing that they can skip many fall cleanup steps they once viewed as essential. And that’s great! Leaving spent perennial seed heads provides food for songbirds, and avoiding raking protects moths and butterflies that overwinter in leaf litter.
However, you shouldn’t skip every fall cleanup step.
Removing dead and diseased plant tissue limits the chances that the disease will continue to spread throughout your garden. If you notice lesion-covered twigs or dark, speckled leaves covering the ground, take time to collect them. Avoid placing these items in your compost pile since many pathogens can survive the composting process. Instead, place them in the trash or carefully burn them.
Protect Crops from Cold
Depending on where you live, November may mean you’re well into cold temperatures or getting ready to experience your first frost. However, gardeners in the majority of the United States are likely to experience at least a few below-freezing nights in November. While many fall crops are hardy enough to tolerate a light freeze, most benefit from protection during extremely cold nights.
Covering your plants with a layer or two of row cover can help insulate them against cold temperatures and drying winds. These covers are made of a special material that lets in light and water. However, I still recommend removing the covers when temperatures rise above freezing to allow for good airflow.
Avoid placing the covers directly on top of your plants since wet covers can freeze to the leaves. Instead, cover your plants with hoops, and then lay the cover over the hoops. Make sure to secure every side of the cover to keep out cold air and prevent the material from blowing away.
While row covers are great options for protecting small vegetables and flowers, they’re not practical for larger plants. If you want to protect tender trees like figs and pomegranates, apply a few inches of mulch near the base of the plant, and then loosely wrap the branches in a few layers of burlap.
Continue to Water Newly Planted Perennials
In many areas, fall is the best time to plant new perennials. Planting about a few weeks before your predicted first frost allows the plants to settle into their homes and put on root growth before the cold arrives. Plus, they don’t have to contend with the heavy weed and pest pressure often present in the spring.
While cool fall temperatures may make it seem like your plants can thrive without much water, this isn’t true! Regularly irrigating your newly planted trees, shrubs, and herbaceous perennials allows them to experience as little stress as possible. Therefore, you should continue to water these plants in November.
Depending on where you live, you may need to stop watering during this month. Once the ground freezes, you can put away the hose until next year.
