Your Seattle Garden in November (Free Checklist)

One last word about garlic, then protecting, harvesting and tucking in your beds and containers for the winter rain.

The trees did my mulching this year. The kale doesn't mind, and every leaf I pick is one less trip to the store.

Yes, I know, garlic again. I have talked about garlic for a month now, on the blog, in two reels and in your inbox, and honestly, even my cabbages are tired of hearing about it. So here is the deal for your Seattle garden in November: a few lines of garlic, and then everything else this month needs from you.

Even the garlic has had enough of me this month.

If your cloves are still not in the ground, get them in by about November 10, on a dry day, 2 inches deep, with 3 to 4 inches of leaves or straw on top. That is the whole job.

Hardneck or softneck, how many cloves fit in a bed, and the June mistake that shrinks the bulb are all in when to plant garlic in Seattle. My last 17 Messidor cloves go into my small A2 bed this week, into the space where the watermelon radishes didn't work out.

The squares where the watermelon radishes didn't work out, now planted with 17 Messidor cloves.

After the garlic, November mostly stops asking you to plant. The work shifts to protecting what is still growing, harvesting it slowly, and putting the empty beds and containers to bed before the heavy rain. I put all of it on one page, the free November Garden Checklist. Here is what is on it, and what I am doing in my own garden this month.

The last few things to plant

Fava beans can still go in early in the month. Sow them 4 to 8 inches apart in soil that drains well, and you will pick them in late May and June. Shallots and overwintering onion sets can go in next to your garlic until mid-November, but only in raised beds or well-drained spots. Soggy soil rots them.

Protect and harvest

Our first frost usually arrives in November, and it never sends a warning. Get your row cover or cloches out of the shed now and keep a frost blanket over kale, chard and the other greens. Check it after every windstorm, because November wind has its own ideas about where your row cover belongs.

For harvesting, take what you need and leave the rest standing. Kale, leeks, chard, carrots and parsnips keep best right where they are, with the roots in the ground under a thick mulch. A light frost even makes kale and parsnips sweeter. My West bed is full of kale, chard and leeks right now, so that is where most of my November harvest comes from. In A2, the spinach and the turnips that are finally forming roots get a little more time.

One more job before the first hard freeze, usually late in the month: drain your hoses and drip lines and put them away. Both of my big beds run on drip, so this one is on my list too.

Want the short version every month? I send short emails with what to plant, feed, protect, and harvest in Seattle that month. Nothing else in your inbox.

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Put your beds and containers to bed

Cover every empty bed and container. Bare soil loses its nutrients to the winter rain, and we have a lot of winter rain. In October I wrote that most cover crops need to be sown by about October 10. Cereal rye is the exception and can still go in early in November. After that, use what the trees give you for free: shredded leaves or compost, a few inches thick. I explained how in leaf mulch in Seattle.

Free mulch, delivered by the neighborhood trees every November.

Then clear out anything diseased by mid-November: blighted tomato vines, mildewed squash leaves, and the potatoes you forgot about. Pests and disease overwinter in them. Healthy plant material can stay as mulch, but the sick stuff goes in the yard waste bin, not your own compost pile.

Write down what worked

This takes ten minutes, and it is the most useful thing you do all month. Note your varieties, your yields and your problems while you still remember them, and write down which bed held which crop family. By March, nobody remembers where the cabbages were.

I rotate my beds in the same order every year: leaves, then roots, then legumes or flowers, then fruit like tomatoes and squash, and then back to leaves. Right now my East and West beds are both in a leaf year, and A2 is in its root year. The watermelon radishes came out and garlic is going into their spots, between the spinach and the turnips. When the garlic comes out next summer, A2 gets beans or other legumes. Without the note, I would be guessing.

Ten minutes now saves a lot of guessing in March.

Your Seattle garden in November, on one page

The whole month on one page. Free to download.

Everything above is on the free November Garden Checklist, sorted into what to plant, what to protect and harvest, how to put your beds and containers to bed, and what to note for next year, all with Zone 8b-9a timing. Print it and tape it somewhere you will actually see it.

Get the free November Garden Checklist

Happy November gardening. Let me know if you need help, I'm here for you.

Jackie

P.S. Walk My Garden With Me is this Saturday, November 7. It is free and small on purpose. Save your spot here.