Monthly jobs on your allotment
For some monthly advice and tips on what you should be doing on your allotment, please choose the month from the drop down menu.
November
No time to rest. There is just enough daylight to clear and tidy up the allotment of any old crops in preparation for next year. Don’t leave the remains of summer crops to rot and harbour overwintering pests and diseases. Wait for a clear, crisp, sunny day and go for it. You might feel worn out, but you’ll be a lot better at the end of the exercise!
Vegetables
- Start to harvest winter cabbage, Brussels sprouts, leeks and parsnips, wait until after a frost for the parsnips because the chilling effect turns the starches into sugars, and this gives them their natural sweetness.
- Pick the Brussels sprouts working from the bottom of the stalk upwards to make sure that all the sprouts get a chance to swell. At the same time snap off any yellowing leaves at their base to ensure that there is good air circulation around the plants. It also makes the sprouts easier to pick on cold, wet and frosty days, brrrr!
- Clear the ground of any remaining vulnerable crops such as celeriac, carrots, Florence fennel and put them into store before any hard frosts are forecast.
- Now is a good time to plant new fruit trees and bushes. Soft fruit bushes can also be moved now if needed as well.
- Autumn-fruiting raspberries bear fruit on new wood, so cut down all of the old canes to the ground once they have finished fruiting, between November and March.
- Take hardwood cuttings from fruit bushes. It is very easy to do, and will give you a decent-sized plant in a few years.
Greenhouse
- Sow a crop of your favourite variety round seeded hardy peas in 3” to 3”/9 cm pot and transplanted later when the roots have reached the bottom of the pot.
- Transplant any pot raised broad beans sown earlier somewhere sheltered and protected from cold, icy blasts. It not too late to take a chance on a sowing of broad beans if it is done early in the month.
- Transplant October sown lettuces to grow on under cloches or frames space them 6”.15cms square.
- Plant tulips and hyacinths in pots or in the open ground.
- Sow sweet peas and harden off any that were sown last month. The colder and harder the plants are grown the better; just keep heavy snow and winds from the young plants and don’t pinch out until after Christmas
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