The November Garden

I know most of the country is experiencing snow and freezing temperatures and we *almost* hit freezing temperatures a few weeks ago. Our November garden is thriving in the cooler weather. We’ve also had a good amount of rain, we’re still 10 inches below normal for the year but we’ve had more rain than we’ve had the last couple of years.

Our lettuce is doing great. I’m anticipating not having to buy lettuce again until late March.

We planted onion seeds again this year. I don’t think I’ll ever purchase onion starts again. I sow the seeds really close together and then when the onions get about 4″ -5″ tall I’ll dig them all up and space the out – like onion starts.

The kale and Swiss chard are growing after almost being demolished by caterpillars in September. We had a little seed sowing mishap -Esther spilled almost an entire bag of beets. We’ll just dig the clump up and separate them ;-).

Our carrots are growing slowly. My germination rate with carrots is never very good, so I’ve re-sown seeds in the gaps. 

This is the cabbage and broccoli bed. I’ve sown more seeds in the middle of the bed to spread harvesting out a little. 

On the other side of the lettuce bed we have some Chinese cabbage. In the middle is some cress which is a salad green (I would have never tried this had I not gotten seeds from the Seeds of the Month Club). To me it’s kind of spicy and adds a little surprise to the salad. It’s already flowering, but we’re still eating it. I planted some cilantro and parsely on the outside of the bed. 

Do you remember our compost pile from a few months ago? It’s really breaking down nicely. 

The CaraCara orange tree has 6 oranges on it. This is the second year it’s produced so it’s still a baby. They’ll be ripe in the next month or so, it’s pretty exciting for us. 

I think this is the last of our basil harvest. When we thougth it was going to freeze we stripped the plants of all their leaves and made more frugal basil pesto. 

I think that’s about it in the garden for November. I’ve really been enjoying the variety of seeds I get each month from Seeds of the Month Club. Each month there are seeds that I always sow and seeds for things I’ve never tried. It has really encouraged me to try new things. 

Don’t forget, you can get a jumpstart on your spring garden with The Gardening Notebook. 

Thanks for sharing with your friends!