NOVEMBER 2022

FIRST QUARTER 1st November

Garden

  • Prick out and transplant seedlings, make sure you have loads of companion flowers going into the vege garden, zinnias, sunflowers, cleome, marigolds, bedding dahlias, cosmos, love lies bleeding, gaillardia
  • Basil, alyssum and classic zinnias are great companions for tomatoes, plant them now
  • Give a regular foliar spray using seaweed, vermiliquid, fish/phyter etc
  • Apply liquid feed such as liquid comfrey, liquid cow manure by watering can to ground under tomatoes, peppers and any other plants needing a boost
  • Harvesting flowers and herbs for drying
  • Decide how you’re going to manage blight in tomatoes and potatoes. Prevention is more effective than any way of sorting the problem once blight is there. Either do weekly fish and phyter or fish and phyter on the soil monthly and a raw milk spray weekly, or Agrisea seaweed spray weekly, or a copper spray with rain guard to make it last longer when needed
  • Feed and water asparagus to keep it producing until xmas

Perennials

  • You’ll be feasting on asparagus, globe artichokes, Welsh bunching onions, Giant Solomon’s Seal possibly seakale and Alpine Strawberries about now.. enjoy
  • Continue bed prep for new perennial beds,
  • Still time to plan a perennial garden and get seeds and begin this season

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Keep up the watering
  • Cut grass,
  • Check for pest problems, and ask what the cause of the problem is so it can be fixed at least for next season..water stress, lack of minerals / imbalance?
  • Watch for breaking branches as early fruit swells, may need to thin fruit or prop up branches especially the Orion peach and Marabella plum
  • Feed citrus to encourage strong healthy growth at this time

Berries

  • Remove any unwanted suckers from berry fruit, being sure to leave strongest 60-10 for next year’s fruit

FULL MOON 9th November

 Garden

  • Foliar feed if necessary all veges with seaweed, fish/phyter, vermiliquid etc
  • Liquid feed ground around any plants that need a boost
  • Plant kumara tupu,
  • Plant main crop potatoes onto trenches of wilted comfrey leaves,
  • More transplanting
  • Mulch any beds that are ready
  • Harvest flowers and herbs and seeds for drying

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Keep watering and watch for pest/disease problems
  • Make sure grass is laid down to feed fungi and root zone
  • spread ramial wood chip
  • Do a Reams soil test so you can see what needs applying to the Forest Garden to ensure next years fruit set is a good one

LAST QUARTER 17th November

 Garden

  • Weed, mulch and water
  • Continue pricking out and transplanting
  • Watch carefully for insects/diseases and learn what they are, how they impact you and what the best ways are to manage them.
  • Continue harvesting flowers and herbs for drying
  • Bird protection over all early Spring and Autumn planted grain beds eg flaxseed, oats, barley, Khorasan wheat

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Continue watering and mulching
  • Observe which trees are happy and which ones are stressed. Why? What can you do about it? What can you learn for the future?
  • Make sure grass is cut to feed fungi and root zone

NEW MOON 24th November

Garden

  • Check for water stress – the less stress, the less pest problems
  • Transplant last of spring plantings – late crop tomatoes, beans and corn, basil, courgettes, cucumbers and leeks
  • Watch for young, black shield bugs – use neem tree oil spray
  • Take care of liquid fertiliser barrels; keep stirred and refilled with comfrey manure seaweed etc. Tomatoes, corn, pumpkins may need a boost now
  • Plant seed into trays for late summer harvesting of dwarf and climbing beans, courgettes, carrots, beetroot, lettuce (tree lettuce will take the heat), basil, tampala, short season corn (if you are in an area with a long summer), celery

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Energy of trees going back up to tips now to create buds for next years fruit
  • Check young trees carefully for moisture stress. Water stress now will mean damage from cicada, shield bugs, pear slug, woolly aphids and die back on young trees.
  • Watch fruit carefully and net trees where you need to. We use 10m squares of knitted bird netting, raised over the trees with a bamboo pole on two corners of the netting and pulled in together underneath.
  • Watch carefully for branches of stone fruit showing signs of silver leaf – often just one limb of a tree will have silver leaves. Now is the time to cut that limb off and burn it and inoculate the tree with Trichopaste and or Tricho dowels. We use Agrimm products available from farmlands for home gardeners.