November 2024 Planting Guide and Garden Update
Ready, set, GO!
I’m very excited.
The Milkmaids and Golden Moths Orchids are flowering. I watch every step to avoid stepping on snakes. The White Cabbage Butterflies are up and about. I’ve even noticed a few Blue Banded bees flitting from purple flower to purple flower.
But what does all of this have to do with growing food?
Perhaps these events don’t mean much to you. But to me, they are hugely significant. They are my phenological indicators that peak planting time is here.
Many plant and animal species avoid the winter months by going into a state of dormancy. And every year, once we pass the winter equinox, the whole ecosystem begins to wake up again. First, it’s the plants that start to stir and flower. This in turn provides food for insect species in the form of nectar, pollen and then lush new foliage. The expanding insect populations create food for other animals such as birds and microbats. And so on. As the temperature slowly increases, so does the activity in the ecosystem. Every year, I watch with fascination as each ecosystem pillar breaks dormancy like clockwork. It’s all connected.
My garden and the fruits and vegetables that grow in it are critical components of my local ecosystem. They too are connected to the procession of seasonal awakening. This correlation enables me to use events such as the flowering of Golden Moths Orchids and observations of insects such as Blue Banded Bees to understand more about my garden and to optimise my planting strategies. It’s called phenology.
Golden Moths Orchids flowering and broad beans setting pods = time to plant potatoes
Active snakes, White Cabbage Butterflies and Cape Weed flowering = warm enough to plant sweet corn
Busy Blue Banded Bees and flowering Chocolate Lillies and Callistemon = time to plant beans and zucchini
All these signs scream “Ready, set, GO”!
Read more about phenology here.
An early spring trend?
In September I posted some data showing the flowering dates of a selection of my stone fruit trees. The data showed that overall, stone fruit trees blossomed a bit on the early side, but not by much. The data set generated plenty of interest and I promised to share more data as the season progressed. Peak apple blossom has now been and gone in my garden and there are only a few apple trees with blossom left on them. Here are the numbers from a subset of the best apple blossom data, with a few pears thrown in for good measure. I’ve excluded trees with missing data points, trees planted in recent years, and trees with other issues with their data.
Flowering dates of Leaf, Root & Fruit apples and pears
Looking at this data, two things become apparent:
Using an individual tree or event to indicate seasonal timing can provide misleading results. For example, if we took the data for tree #10 or #11 in isolation, then some years we would have a wildly different view of the timing of spring than if we looked at the data for the other trees. Averaging larger data sets provides a clearer picture of what’s going on.
When we do look at a larger data set, we can see that overall, there’s not a lot of fluctuation from year to year but there is some difference (of up to 18 days) between an early and a late spring. This difference could be due to seasonal variation and climate, but also all sorts of other factors, such as me not paying close enough attention to flowering dates or natural causes beyond climate.
My pome fruit data correlates well with my stone fruit data to show that, yes, spring is slightly earlier this year than previous years. Most of my other observation records for insects, reptiles, and indigenous flowering plants are showing the same thing.
Then there’s the weather. Lately, I’ve been obsessed with learning about the weather. I’m reading books about the weather, I’m hoovering up blogs, watching videos and digesting any weather-related resources that I can. I’m also cloud watching more than ever and making daily reviews of the latest synoptic charts.
I’m now getting a much better handle on what causes our weather, at both a global and a local scale. I’m crunching lots of data about my local weather patterns to better understand my local seasons. This in turn will improve my gardening success and foster a deeper connection to my country.
I’m keen to write more about my own journey of understanding, but also about how you can explore the patterns in your own local climate. I’m just not sure whether you would find it interesting. Do you want to hear more about the weather and seasonality? Do the patterns of nature float your boat? Would you like to foster a greater connection to your local ecosystem? Let me know, and if this idea proves popular, I’ll start working out how best to make it work.
Giddy up, it’s the Melbourne Cup
There’s so much different advice about when is the best time to plant tomatoes. Some folks say AFL Grand Final weekend is a fantastic early start (the last weekend of September) and I agree that for Melbourne it’s an okay time to plant. Others advocate for patience and waiting another month or so for the soil to warm up (my Fool’s Garden Experiment is a great example of why patience is a good strategy). Regardless, in southern Australia, the first week of November is usually a good time to get planting. Coincidently, many of us Victorians have a public holiday on the first Tuesday in November for the running of the Melbourne Cup, or as I like to think of it, a day off work to do some gardening.
In my part of the world, the risk of a late frost is always lingering, but I can’t sit around waiting for the perfect conditions to arrive. My growing season is very short and it’s time to get cracking or I’ll miss the boat.
Later today, I’ll be getting my salad tomatoes planted. I’ll be planting them deep, although I’m still not convinced that it make much of a difference (more on deep-planting here). My tomato seedlings are looking lush and healthy, far better than last year’s plants at the same time. That’s because I’ve been paying closer attention to them this year and making sure that they were potted up in time. All the seedlings are flowering, and many have fruit set on them. I’m not sure that I’ll beat last year’s very early first tomato harvest (November 25) but I’m definitely on track to harvest a few Christmas tomatoes.
Over the weekend I recieved several questions from readers wanting to know about hardening off tomatoes and other sensitive seedlings before transplanting. You can read more about this in Vegetable Patch from Scratch Part 25: Transplanting Vegetable Seedlings.
After the tomatoes, the zucchini and cucumber seedlings will be next in line for transplanting. I’ve already directly sown my pumpkins in the orchard. They are protected by polycarbonate tunnels and the first seedlings are already emerging. Once they establish, the pumpkin vines will ramble under the fruit trees to create a living ground cover (more on orchard ground cover options here).
I’ll be planting five successive crops of sweet corn this summer to ensure a huge and continuous glut of sweet corn in autumn. Sweet corn crop number one was sown in the greenhouse at the end of September. The seedlings have since been successfully transplanted and are well on their way. I sowed crop number two directly into the soil and it has just germinated. I will plant crop three later on this week.
Beans, potatoes, basil and all sorts of other summer vegetables are raring to go. It’s time to get planting. There’s a quick planting guide at the end of this email to help you work out what to plant in your vegetable patch, or you can read a more detailed spring planting guide here.
Humidity down but fungal diseases on the rise. Why?
It’s not all great news from my patch. The good times come at a cost, and I’m not just talking about the work involved in getting my crops planted. It’s been a very mild winter and spring. Temperatures have been warmer than in previous years, and I have observed very few frosts compared to previous winters.
Rainfall has also been below average. Fungal diseases are normally rampant in wet years, when humidity is high. Diseases are typically less prevalent in drier periods. Which is why I’m confused about all the fungal diseases that are taking hold in my garden.
Despite the dry spring, there’s curly leaf on the peaches and nectarines. The snow peas are suffering from mildew already. And the garlic, my gosh, the garlic has been utterly overwhelmed by rust in just a fortnight.
I’m guessing that the unusually mild and warm temperatures are the cause, because it’s certainly not the rainfall. The soil is drying out very quickly in my garden.
Garlic rust brought a premature end to my garlic crop last year, but I still managed a good harvest. The timing of the outbreak this year is the same as last year, so I’m guessing it’s a seasonal thing rather than the fact that I replanted bulbs from the affected crop. The plants have been strong and healthy until now.
Read more about fungal diseases in the vegetable patch here.
I grow hard-necked garlic, and my diseased plants are producing scapes (flower buds). These are best removed to allow the plant to direct more energy into developing a large bulb. Garlic scapes are one of my favourite parts of growing garlic.
More dry times ahead?
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has been predicting an average to slightly wetter than average spring, but we certainly haven’t seen it here in Central Victoria. I’ve already activated irrigation on the plants that are sensitive to dry soil, such as the berries.
At this time of year, it is a good idea to keep an eye on your soil moisture levels to prevent issues with your fruit trees, vegetables and other parts of the garden. Using your finger is the best way to monitor this (more on the soil finger test and irrigating your vegetable patch here).
I have a few spots left in my upcoming workshop on irrigation and capturing rainwater. Come along on Saturday 9 November to learn how you can save yourself time, money and water while setting your garden up to thrive.
Irrigation Workshop: Saturday 9 November
Closing the loop
It’s a busy time in the garden. Stand still and the rampant Cleaver and Fumitory weeds will quickly overwhelm you. I finish mowing the grass and turn around to find that the area I’ve just mown needs mowing all over again. In the process of all this work, I’m generating a lot of garden “waste”.
The native soil on my property is granitic sand and has very low nutrient levels. So I use a lot of compost to improve the soil. Spring is a great opportunity for me to gather lots of material to build hot compost. I include all the weeds, usually after I’ve left them for a few days in the chicken run so the girls can have their pick and add a bit of nitrogen to the mix. Soft and lush spring grass is mown and raked. Wool bale after wool bale of grass clippings is heaped up onto the pile. The last of the fallen leaves add some carbon to the mix. All this goodness, combined with lots of water, makes for a steaming hot compost. The pile quickly warms to a toasty 70 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit) and hovers there for a month or so. The heat kills weed seeds and accelerates decomposition, and all that “waste” is transformed into a wonderful pile of gardening gold.
By using all the materials on site, I can close the loop and avoid the need to import many materials, such as compost and soil, onto the property.
Read more about creating hot compost here.
The last straw?
I was recently reminded of the reason why I try to close the loop and avoid purchasing materials such as compost and soil for my garden.
Participants at my August composting workshop helped to assemble a hot compost pile. It was a fun day and feedback from participants highlighted how useful the practical component of assembling the hot compost was.
I run this workshop annually and usually I purchase pea straw, lucerne or vetch hay to bulk up the compost because grass clippings aren’t plentiful in August. I use these leguminous products because they are sensitive to and therefore a lower risk for herbicide contamination. A farmer is unlikely to spray a crop with a herbicide that it is sensitive to.
While collecting the vetch hay for this year’s workshop, I was offered some spoiled barley straw for free. I’m always up for a freebie, so I threw these bales onto the trailer as well. The bales enabled me to experiment with creating the walls of the hot compost pile from straw. This adds a lot of insulation and should speed up decomposition and improve the consistency of the final product.
During the compost workshop we also set up a bioassay on the purchased materials: the vetch and the freebie straw. This simple DIY test can be conducted at home to check for herbicide contamination and is a very useful skill to learn. The bioassay we set up is now reaching maturity and shows that the free barley straw is heavily contaminated with herbicide.
I’m so glad that we used the straw only to make the walls of the compost and not as mulch on the garden, or in the compost itself. That would have been a disaster.
The group of herbicides that are likely to be present are highly water soluble, but the lack of rain will have limited how much has leached into the compost and surrounding soil. I don’t think it’s going to have a significant impact on my garden. However, it does mean that I won’t be using the straw to mulch my garden this summer (more on mulch options here). It also means I’ll have to find some way to get rid of the contaminated straw.
It's not just contaminated straw that can introduce broad leaf herbicide to your garden. Animals can eat contaminated straw, hay or grass and their manure becomes contaminated. Composts and soils containing materials that have been treated with weed-and-feed products (such as lawn clippings or turf removed from sports ovals) can also be a source. The more I test for them, the more I’m finding these chemicals in garden soils, mulches, potting mixes and composts.
Check out this post to learn more about herbicide contamination and how you can conduct your own bioassays to keep your garden safe.
Beginnings of a berry bonanza
My strawberry harvest kicked off 10 days ago, with four little fruit. Since then, they’ve been growing bigger and ripening in increasing numbers. Even though I’ve picked handfuls of strawberries, not a single fruit has made it inside. But that’s okay. Last summer, I picked over 26 kg of strawberries. This was down slightly from the previous summer with 30 kg.
Some folks advocate for replacing their strawberry plants every second year. The assumption is that yields decline with time.
I’m not convinced.
Yes, the yield dropped last summer. But only slightly, and this could have been because of the wet summer we had. All that rain made conditions perfect for slugs. Slug-damaged fruit is launched straight over the fence where the chickens devour it. It isn’t weighed and doesn’t count towards my tally.
I’m really interested to see if this year the downward trend continues, or if my 54 plants produce around 30 kg again. Perhaps they’ll produce even more?
I planted my strawberry runners in spring 2021. Since then, they’ve been watered well, but that’s it. I haven’t fertilised them at all. I would, if I could, but my planting method using weed mat doesn’t allow access to do this. The plants are thriving on water alone. What’s your take on growing strawberries? Do you replace the plants every few years? Or just let them do their thing?
Each ripening strawberry fruit is covered in Harlequin Bugs, which are reaching some of the highest population densities I’ve ever seen in my garden. There are also masses of Slaters getting about this spring. So far, damage has been minimal to strawberries and young vegetable seedlings alike, and other than monitoring the situation, I don’t think I’ll be doing anything about either pest (more on why here).
The blueberries are covered in an incredible amount of blossom and developing fruit. They’re certainly appreciating the dose of chicken manure I gave them earlier in spring and the follow-up watering regime. The raspberry canes are heaving with blossom and the sound of the visiting bees is incredible. Everything is looking fantastic in the berry patch this year.
See my How to Grow guides for more on growing each of these berries.
Critical time for fruit trees
November is a critical time for deciduous fruit trees such as apples, pears and stone fruit. Did you know that the trees are currently determining the outcomes of buds for next year? Right now, the amount of water you give to a tree, and its state of health, will determine which buds will turn into flowers (and therefore fruit) and which buds will turn into leaves when the tree wakes from its dormancy in spring 2025.
Soil moisture is incredibly dry for this time of the year, and for the next six weeks, you should give your established fruit trees a good, deep soaking fortnightly (weekly for newly planted trees). Don't bother with light, regular watering. That doesn't encourage a good root system or help as much as a deep watering. Avoid over-feeding your fruit trees with lots of nitrogen, as that will only encourage leaf growth at the expense of fruit (remember my neglected but extremely productive pear tree?).
In October 2023 I wrote about how my apricot trees had suffered from the sudden flip from wet to dry in spring 2022, and the long term impacts on the trees. The good news is the trees have all overcome this problem and fruit set has been amazing this spring. Too good. During November I’m going to gradually reduce the amount of fruit that each tree is carrying. I don’t want my apricot trees to become biennial croppers. This is where they produce an overabundance of fruit one year and then need to take the next year off to recover. General wisdom is that prevention is better than cure when it comes to biennial cropping, and fruit thinning is the best way to go about preventing it.
Some of my apple and pear trees are already in a biennial cropping pattern. After a huge fruit set on most of the pome fruit last year, many of the apples and pears have much smaller crops this year. But I am seeing some promising results from my efforts to correct an established biennial cropping pattern. One of the pears that has been on and off again for five summers is now covered in developing fruit for the second year running. I’ll write more about how I’ve achieved this in a future post.
Thinning of fruit is an important task in November. This ensures good size and quality of remaining fruit (and helps to prevent biennial cropping). You are aiming to thin the fruit so that when it reaches full size it is not going to be in contact with another piece of fruit. Thinning should be completed over the next month. I do this in stages because the trees may naturally abort some fruit themselves.
Make sure that each piece of fruit that remains on the tree isn't going to come into contact with any other fruit as they swell to full size. Clusters of ripening fruit create habitat for pests such as earwigs. I've found that it is better to have less fruit on the tree, of better quality, than to have masses of fruit all damaged by pests and disease.
My to-do list this November
As explained above, thinning fruit is a critical task at this time of the year. Stone fruit needs to be done right now. Later in the month, I’ll start thinning the apples and pears, as they develop.
Activate the remaining irrigation zones. I’ve already tested and flushed all the lines; now I just need to pay close attention to which zones need activating and when (do you have a crystal ball you can lend me?). Come along to my irrigation workshop to learn more.
Harvesting broad beans and digging the green manure plants back into the soil ahead of planting the summer crops.
Planting, planting and more planting. Sweetcorn and tomatoes, basil and beans. It’s the busiest time in my planting schedule. There’s not much time for anything else, other than mowing, of course.
I’m not planting any this year, but if you’re looking to plant citrus, passionfruit, avocados or other subtropical plants, now is the perfect time to do it.
Weeding. I have most of the garden under control, but the weeds that remain are now flowering. It’s important to remove any that have been missed before they set seed and add to your workload next spring.
Watching where I step. The snakes are about, so I’m focusing on whipper snipping any long grass and tidying up the place to reduce snake habitat around the house and the areas where the kids play the most. This all goes hand in hand with preparing the property for fire season.
Towards the end of the month, when they start flowering, I’ll be hand pollinating zucchini. Often the first few flowers don’t pollinate that well, and the bees need some help to ensure good fruit set. After a while the bees seem to have it under control.
Enjoying plenty of delicious strawberries and watching the blueberries and raspberries develop.
Want me to visit your garden and give you some tailored advice on growing your own food?
What to plant in November
Most summer vegetables are best planted out into the garden in October or November. That means that right now you have a wide range of crops to select from for planting. My spring planting guide is a comprehensive list of what to plant now. It includes recommended varieties and plenty of hints and tips.
The Vegetable Patch from Scratch series is popular with both novice and seasoned gardeners alike. It covers everything you might want to know about growing vegetables. It might save you a bit of time and frustration by steering you away from preventable crop failures.
My planting guide generally refers to vegetables planted in the garden (as opposed to a greenhouse). This planting may consist of seeds directly sown (my usual and preferred method) or plants transplanted as seedlings. Read more about using this guide here.
You can start a herb garden almost any time of the year. Try growing the following and save yourself a heap of money you would otherwise spend on over-packaged bunches of herbs at the supermarket:
Basil
Dill
Thyme
Sage
Mint
Rosemary
Chives
Oregano
Spring onions
Leafy greens will thrive in the garden now, although most of them will bolt to seed fairly quickly. Try growing them from seed. Transplanting seedlings such as lettuce during the warmer months can cause them to bolt and go straight to seed. Planting them in shadier, cooler parts of the garden may delay the onset of bolting.
Lettuce
Spinach
Rocket
Endive
Silverbeet
Mustard greens
Celery
Chervil
Kale
The following root vegetables can be planted in November:
Radishes
Turnips
Parsnips
Onions
Leeks
Beetroot
Potatoes
Most fruiting plants are grown over the summer and should be started in late October or early to mid-November. Right now!
Beans
Pumpkin
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Capsicum
Okra
Good luck and happy gardening!
Duncan
Access my previous work
My back catalogue of articles about growing food is quite substantial. The articles are sorted into different categories. Click on the following links to explore more of my work.
Articles on backyard orchards and growing fruit trees
Hello Duncan I have very carefully netted my tomatoes to save my plants from birds and delinquent chooks. Will this be a problem for the Bees to do their thing. Great newsletter by the way
Hello Duncan,
I too have begun picking an abundance of strawberries this week.
I have had the same plants in the same patch for the past 5 years with barely noticeable difference in yield.
My annual preparation involves clipping off all of the remaining top growth in winter. Then I vigorously scarify the patch with a hand rake. I am left with almost bare ground with only the strongest plants with good roots left after this (abuse). I fertilise with chicken manure pellets and simply wait for spring and the plants come through
Regards Mark