NovemberCover, plant, tidy away
November is grey, damp and often underrated. Yet it is a useful month: plant bare-root fruit trees, protect what is still standing, and finish covering the soil. Leeks, cabbages, parsnips and lamb’s lettuce keep the harvests going, and the chicory begins to come out of the cellar. Put away stakes and netting, drain the water butt if frost threatens, and take the time to note down, while it is fresh, what the season has taught you.
Tips of the month
- Plant bare-root fruit trees, bushes and raspberry canes.
- Harvest leeks, cabbages, kale, parsnips, celeriac and lamb’s lettuce.
- Pick the first forced chicory and start another batch of roots.
- Cover winter salads with fleece and mulch the parsnips and carrots left in the ground.
- Finish covering every bed: leaves, compost, cardboard.
- Clean and put away stakes, netting, cloches and tools.
- Write down in a notebook what succeeded, what disappointed, and why.
In the vegetable garden and orchard
What to do in november
Sow under cover
Nothing to sow under cover.
Sowing in the ground
Plant
On the plate
Eating in november
November brings back chicory gratin, red cabbage with apples, celeriac soup, kale fried with garlic and stored pears. Squashes already cut into are cooked as a velouté or roasted in the oven with hazelnuts.
Living well
Tidying the vegetable garden before winter is soothing: every tool cleaned, every stake put away closes the season properly. You come back into the warm with the feeling of a job done, and the urge to start again.