Early November Garden To-Do List
We never know what November will throw at us in Middle Tennessee. This fall has been weirdly, classically autumnal with chilly rains, and glorious yellow, orange, and red leaves fluttering to the ground and crunching underfoot. It looks as if we’ll be getting our first frost right around the average expected time, too.
Oh, and the time change. The dreaded time change. Gone are the days of getting home from work or activities and heading straight to the garden to do a few chores. Welcome to “Harvesting by Headlamp Season.” Luckily, the few chores that are left can be squeezed into an hour or two on the weekends.
Harvest: If you’ve been hanging on to tomatoes and peppers like me, it’s REALLY time to say goodbye. With frost coming this weekend, they will all die and turn to mush, so harvest now if you want any more yield from the summer plants. Remember: blushing tomatoes will continue to ripen at room temperature and any pepper can be enjoyed green (even if they were labeled “red snack peppers”). One you’ve harvested all you can, go ahead and cut the entire plants out at soil level and compost them now — before they get gross next week.
And the fall-planted veggies are really coming on now. I’ve seen gorgeous arugula, kale, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, collards, and radishes ready to eat in gardens all over Middle Tennessee.
Dill, parsley, fennel, chives, oregano, and rosemary are looking great, too.
Mint is making a glorious comeback in lots of gardens. Harvest and dry some for winter teas.
Winding down: Read through the end of season checklist and see if you can get started on any of these chores yet. If you have a fall garden growing strong, you may space out these tasks over a few weeks.
Planting: Focus on bulbs: garlic, onions, shallots in the veggie garden. And tulips, daffodils, alliums, and snowdrops in the flower beds.
Thinning: Thin root veggies to final spacing. Typical spacing is 1-2 inches for radishes and carrots and 3-4 inches for beets. Simply snip the unwanted seedlings at soil level with a pair of scissors. These make great microgreens to toss into salads!
We often recommend harvesting just the outer leaves of each lettuce plant, but if they are planted close together and getting fairly large, you can snip out some entire plants at soil level to give the remaining plants more room to bulk up. Same with kale or spinach of you planted them in bunches. More details on thinning.
Frost protection: The warm weather has been pretty great over the past few weeks, but we know it won’t last forever. Be prepared with hoops and frost cloth if you want to keep your garden going all winter long. Even among frost-tolerant plants, there are different degrees of “tolerance.” Lettuce is one of the most sensitive of our fall/winter crops, especially if the temperature drops suddenly. For the best chance of keeping your lettuce happy, cover your garden if the temperature is forecasted to drop below 28 degrees.
Pests: As long as it’s warm, we still have pests. Check the undersides of leaves for aphids and remove the leaf entirely or spray the bugs off with water. You can hand-pick caterpillars, but spritzing your brassicas every 10 days with BT will make sure you don’t miss the tiny, and very hungry, versions. If squirrels or chipmunks are disturbing your tiny seedlings, use a cloche to protect the plants.
Feed & Mulch: You can let the leaves that fall into your garden stay there, or even proactively add a layer of chopped leaves to your beds to serve as insulation and slowly break down and feed the soil over winter. Keep them away from tiny seedlings though, so sunlight can reach the new babies. Leaves provide good mulch for your berries, too.
Journal: What can you do on those dark evenings when you can’t be out in your garden? Write down reflections of the season, dreams for next year, and lists of veggies and herbs you’d like to grow. A flip through your camera role might jog your memory.
