Essential Jobs in the Garden for November

Keep your garden looking its best with our guide to essential jobs that need doing in November.

Kitchen garden

Pot up chives
Chives are a valuable garnish at any time of year for sprucing up a salad, adding flavour to potatoes and colouring winter soups. Lift and divide congested clumps that have lost vigour every few years. Small clumps can also be grown in pots on the windowsill. Keep some chives by the kitchen window for a tasty winter garnish.

Fruit trees
Pick apples as soon as they are ripe, remembering that some varieties can be eaten straight from the tree, while others are best left for a time, stored in a cool place to reach their peak of perfection. Our guide to harvesting apples will give you tips on storage Trap female winter moths as they climb up fruit trees to find a crevice to over-winter in by tightly wrapping grease bands around stems and greasing tree stakes.

Broad beans and peas
Follow our guide to growing broad beans for a tasty spring crop. Sow varieties such as ‘Aquadulce Claudia’ and ‘Reina Blanca’ in early November. For the earliest pea picking in May, sow a row of ‘Feltham First’. Sowing ‘Oregon Sugar Pod’ under cloches this month can also provide a crop of mange-tout from May into June. In colder areas it’s better to wait until spring.

Onions and garlic
Garlic cloves from strains that are selected to suit our climate can be planted outside now. Alternatively, raise them in pots to plant out later. Planting selected onion sets in autumn will give you a crop from late June into early July.

Carrots
Make good use of your cold frames during the winter by sowing a crop of ‘Primo’ carrots.

Blackberries
Prune away canes that have carried fruit this year to soil level and tie new ones into their place. Very long canes can be trained back down towards the soil or wound in circles to ensure the longest length of stem remains. Cane tips can also be buried in the soil to root and form new plants.

Flower garden

Plant spring bulbs
Continue to plant spring-flowering bulbs, making sure you place them at the right depth. If border space isn’t quite prepared, plant them in large pots instead. These bulbs can be planted out to fill gaps later. Follow our step-by-step guide to planting bulbs in order to get the best results.

Tidy borders
Any perennials past their best can be cut right down, clearing away remains and adding them to the compost heap.

Plant new hedges
Container-grown evergreens and conifers planted now will get a really good start in life, so complete new hedging projects as soon as possible.

Divide perennial asters
Perennial asters like Aster x frikartii ‘Monch’ produce striking display of bold daisy flowers from late summer for an attractive autumn show. Lift and divide clumps every second or third year after removing old flowering stems and replant the new sections, watering them in thoroughly.

Wallflowers
Fill gaps in borders with wallflowers for a great blaze of spring colour. Space them so that they will grow into one another and, for extra impact, plant tulips with flowers in a contrasting colour between them.

Greenhouse

Clean greenhouse glass
Every year give the outside of your greenhouse a good wash. General grime and algae accumulates on the glazing, reducing the amount of light getting through to plants inside. Use a hose and a stiff brush, slowly spraying and brushing every glazing panel in turn. Choose a warm day to complete the job.

Insulate your greenhouse
Insulate your greenhouse using bubble polythene. Choose grades made especially for greenhouses, as these contain UV stabilisers which prevent them from breaking down in daylight. Simply pin the polythene to wooden-framed greenhouses. With aluminium models, use special plastic clips that twist into place in the frame. In addition, use sheets of white polystyrene to line the glazing under the staging. This also reflects extra light back into the greenhouse.

Check the health of plants
Check each week that plants being overwintered under glass are healthy and pick off discoloured leaves and dead flowers, which encourage diseases. Make sure plants remain pest free. Water plants more sparingly now conditions are turning cooler and make sure there is good circulation around their foliage, to prevent fungal diseases.

Bulbs in bowls
Finish planting up bowls of spring-flowering bulbs, including crocuses, narcissi, dwarf irises and tulips. Then place them in a cool area to develop, that’s covered for protection from heavy rain.

Lettuces
Plan a continuous supply of crops for harvesting through the autumn months and into winter by planting hardy lettuce varieties such as ‘Winter Density’ in growing bags, pots or border soil.