The Vegetable Plot - November

“The gardener's feet drag a bit on the dusty path and the hinge in his back is full of creaks." -  Louise Seymour Jones

Around this time we get the first frosts, if you haven’t already, and so it’s time to lift parsnips and let their sweetness accompany what’s on the autumn warming menu.

But that will be at the end of the day when you’ve got the digging done and the manure spread on the vegetable bed to rot down over winter, divided and planted rhubarb, forced chicory and planted the asparagus bed.


You have probably pruned some fruit trees and bushes and planted some new ones. The brassicas are staked and the garlic planted with some organic matter, leeks have been lifted and heeled into a trench, the stored potatoes and onions are checked and any rotted offenders removed.

You will probably have worked out your crop rotation and grouped them into roots, legumes and brassicas and the rest. You’ve cleared up the climbing beans and sown some boxes of cut-and-come-again salads and herbs. Time for your reward.

• Tidy up strawberry plants
• Plant raspberry canes
• Prune pear and apple trees