Vegetables

• Don’t forget to check on any tomatoes that you have picked and stored in a shoebox or drawer to ripen.
  
• Early leeks can be lifted now because they are less hardy than the later cultivars.
• Maincrop potatoes must be got out of the ground before the end of the month using a potato or garden fork to lift them to prevent damaging the tubers.
• Harvest the last of the peas and runner bean crop for this year, and keep harvesting chard, spinach, carrots, celeriac, lettuce and the Oriental vegetables.
• Lift and store any Florence fennel bulbs before they are damaged by frost.
• Sow winter lettuce and a couple of short rows of winter hardy peas and broad beans towards the end of the month to provide you with an early crop next Spring.
• Plant out Spring cabbage and overwintering types of onion and garlic. It is also a good time to plant rhubarb crowns.

Fruit

• Continue to harvest apples and pears as they ripen, taking care not to damage or bruise the fruits. Only the best should be set aside for storage.
• Any late grapes should have any leaves that cover the ripening fruit removed to allow in as much light as possible.
• It is the last window for planting new strawberry beds, either from new plants or from runners rooted in the summer.
• Lift a root of rhubarb for early forcing; allow the root to sit on the soil and be subjected to a few good frosts. The crown will then be much better for forcing, and some sticks may be ready at around Christmas.