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Let’s Get Gardening in November, Part 1

Courtesy file photo: Front of The Garden Mill.

By Jennifer Fairfield

Have you been able to figure out what kind of winter we are going to have, based on what the weather people are saying?

I have to admit that I am confused. First, they said it was going to be a really cold winter, but not too much snow. Now, they appear to be saying that it will be slightly warmer than average, and we’ll have above-normal precipitation. I wish they’d make up their minds. Though, I’m not sure why I care – it’s not like I can do anything about whatever we get.

Did you get some work done in your yard over the weekend – in between the rain on Saturday and the suddenly blustery chill on Sunday? I did, but of course not enough. Fortunately for me (and maybe you, too?) this weekend looks like it will be a little nicer – chilly, by our standards lately, anyway – but no rain or even snow forecasted so far. That’s a good thing, because there’s always more to do outdoors:

Vegetable Garden:
If you’ve been hanging on in the hope of getting just a little more out of your garden, that’s mostly going to come to an end after the predicted freezing nighttime temperatures this week.

Kale, cabbage, and broccoli may last a little while longer but most everything else isn’t going to make it past about Tuesday. It’s time to pull everything you have left that is tender, and compost those that are disease-free. Toss into the trash any plants that had signs of disease.

Some of the things that you can leave in the garden over the winter, because they are hardier, include root crops such as carrots, radishes, turnips, etc. Those plants will survive in the ground over the winter, as long as you give them a really deep layer of mulch (such as straw or leaves) before the ground freezes. When you’re ready to use them, pull back the mulch and harvest what you need, then cover the rest back up again.

It’s my favorite time of the year now – because it’s not only time to plant garlic for next year, but I’m also still enjoying eating the garlic I harvested this year (and will be well into winter). Varieties that are planted in the fall do best in our region – the overwintering helps them get bigger. When you plant them, be sure to work in some fertilizer that is higher in phosphorous, which helps promote root growth as the bulbs get started putting down roots in the fall.

Cover your planting bed with a light layer of straw mulch to help keep moisture in. Then, once the ground is frozen, pile on a thick layer of straw – 6 to 10 inches is good. This helps keep the soil temperature consistent throughout the winter. If you haven’t gotten your garlic bulbs yet, you don’t want to wait any longer. We have only a very limited number left.

You can also plant peas and spinach at this time, to take advantage of the tendency of both of these to come up early in the spring. Again, mulch them really well once the ground is frozen. I have found that spinach actually does better for me if I plant it now, than it does when I plant it in the spring.

Our springs have been so slow to warm up the last few years and I can’t get into my garden until late April, at best. Then when it does finally warm up, it immediately gets too hot for spinach, and the plants that were just getting going suddenly bolt. Spinach that gets planted now generally can make it through the winter, and comes up earlier in the spring, giving me the chance to harvest it before it gets too hot. I haven’t had the same luck with peas, but I’m going to try again this year, anyway – maybe next year will be the year that my peas are in such abundance I won’t know what to do with them all (kind of like green beans in the summer).

Clean out any weeds that are still hanging on in your garden. Pulling weeds out of the garden now will help cut down on what you have to do in the spring. You can also do a light tilling to expose weed seeds and pest insects – the birds will thank you.

Add compost to the garden to help improve the soil and add nutrients, and consider sowing a cover crop, such as annual rye, to help prevent erosion and to add organic matter and nutrients back into the soil in the spring.

(Publisher’s message: Part two will publish tomorrow.)

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