What to do in the Garden in November

Maintenance and Clean Up

·  Save your leaves – they can decompose in place if they aren’t where they will cause dead spots in your lawn.  You can rake them up and use them as mulch or make a pile and allow them to become leaf mold (compost) which makes a lovely dark mulch in the spring.

·  This is a great time of year to add mulch or compost to your flower beds, vegetable garden, or shrub borders.

·  Winter vegetables can be protected with garden fleece or cold frames. 

·  Cover favorite tender plants to protect from frosts with bags, overturned pots, or thick mulch. 

·  Don’t apply chemical fertilizers as they will be  leached away by rain and can pollute downstream areas.

Planting and Propagation

·  Great time to plant trees and shrubs! Consider ones that supply food and shelter for birds and other native wildlife. cascara, elderberry, red flowering currant, aronia, service berry, Oregon grape, vine maple

Blue Elderberry, Sambucus caerulea

·  Plant spring-flowering bulbs.

·  Plant garlic.

Fava beans planted as a nitrogen fixing cover crop.  They are just broadcast over the soil and kept damp until their roots get well into the soil.  Usually our fall rain is sufficient for this.

Last chance to plant cover crops for soil building. You can also use a 3 inch or thicker layer of leaves, spread over the garden plot, to eliminate winter weeds, suppress early spring weeds and prevent soil compaction by rain.

Take hardwood cuttings from shrubs.

Propagate begonias from leaf cuttings.

2 small pots with the cut edge of Rex Begonia leaves buried slightly in regular potting mix and kept damp will likely sprout new roots in a couple of months.