November in rearview mirror

november on the allotment

As the gardening season approaches its end and the days get shorter and shorter, we only visit the allotment once a week – on Sundays. There are no urgent jobs waiting anymore and almost the only thing we do is harvest vegetables for the coming week.

After the first frost last week, we put up the lights over the cold frame to protect the salad leaves from the cold.

saald leaves in the cold frame cold frame

This month I have also harvested the last beets and the first leeks.

picking leeks

Every week I also pick a bunch of radishes. I sowed them at the beginning of September, which is a gamble. This year it paid off, thanks to the long and warm autumn.

radishes

The mild weather so far is also the reason the garlic I planted in October is sprouting a little too enthusiastically.

garlic
I kept forgetting my broad beans and only sowed them last week, but in retrospect that was good, because otherwise they might have grown too big before the cold weather set in. The smaller plants can take more cold than larger ones (same goes for salad leaves), which is why it can be better to sow later.

Last Sunday we also dug out the dahlia tubers, which are currently drying (sitting in the way) in our tiny hall. I don’t really know yet where I will store them for the winter. Last year I left them in the ground and they were fine, since we hardly had any winter at all.

dahlia tubers

And these are the vegetables we will be eating this week:

november harvest
Outside of the garden it has been a busy month, with a lot of writing for Dutch gardening magazines. I am writing the monthly vegetable garden feature for one of the magazines, which means that in November I write about the garden in March. A little confusing sometimes and I am glad I have my garden diary to refer to.
I have also taught at the Permaculture Design Course in Deventer, which is always a great experience.

kitchen garden in november

December should be a little less busy, with hopefully enough time for baking Christmas cookies!

p.s. This is what the garden looked like in November 2013

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