Still time in November: what to sow and plant in a UK garden

November is a planting month more than a sowing one. You can still sow broad beans and hardy peas outdoors, and sweet peas in a cold greenhouse or frame. Garlic, shallots and rhubarb go in now, and bare-root fruit bushes and canes are planted from now through the winter.

These dates assume a typical UK garden, with the first frost around the end of October and the last around 20 April, which is normal for lowland England and Wales. In Scotland, the north of England and frost pockets, the window closes earlier, so aim for the first half of the month. In the south-west, near the coast and in cities, you have a little longer.

What to sow and plant in November

Crop	What to do	Window	Spacing
Broad bean	sow outdoors	mid-October to late November	20 cm apart, rows 45 cm
Pea (round-seeded)	sow outdoors	mid-October to late November	7 cm apart, rows 60 cm
Sweet pea	sow under cover	early October to late November	in deep pots
Garlic	plant cloves	early October to late November	15 cm apart, rows 30 cm
Shallot	plant sets	early October to late November	20 cm apart, rows 30 cm
Rhubarb	plant crowns	mid-October to late November	90 cm each way
Raspberry	plant bare-root canes	mid-October to mid-December	45 cm apart, rows 180 cm
Blackcurrant	plant bare-root bushes	early October to mid-December	150 cm apart
Redcurrant, gooseberry	plant bare-root bushes	mid-October to mid-December	120 cm apart
Blackberry	plant bare-root canes	mid-October to mid-December	200 cm apart
Blueberry	plant	mid-October to mid-December	150 cm apart

Broad beans and peas

Autumn-sown broad beans crop from mid-May, a few weeks ahead of spring sowings, and the plants are usually tough enough by spring to shrug off blackfly. Aquadulce Claudia is the standard variety for autumn sowing. Sow 5 cm deep, 20 cm apart, in double rows if you like.

For peas, choose a hardy round-seeded variety such as Meteor or Feltham First. Wrinkled-seeded peas are sweeter but tend to rot in cold, wet soil. Sow 4 cm deep and push in twiggy sticks or netting at the same time.

Mice dig up and eat both. On ground where they’re a problem, start the seeds in deep modules or root trainers in a cold greenhouse and plant them out in early spring instead.

On heavy clay that stays wet all winter, autumn sowings often fail. Wait until spring: broad beans from late February, peas from early March.

Sweet peas

Sweet peas sown now in a cold greenhouse or cold frame make strong roots over winter and flower earlier than spring sowings. Sow 1.5 cm deep in deep pots or root trainers, as they like a long root run. Keep them cool, give them as much light as possible, and pinch out the tips at about 10 cm to make bushier plants. They go out from late March.

Garlic and shallots

Garlic needs a cold spell to split into separate cloves, which is why autumn planting gives the biggest bulbs. Push cloves in pointed end up, 2.5 cm below the surface, 15 cm apart. Use seed garlic from a garden centre or supplier rather than supermarket bulbs.

Shallot sets go in with their tips just showing, 20 cm apart. Each one splits into a cluster of eight to twelve bulbs by midsummer. Birds like to pull new sets out, so net them until they root.

If your soil is very wet, plant both on a ridge or in a raised bed, or they may rot before they root.

Bare-root fruit

November is when bare-root fruit comes into garden centres and nurseries. Bare-root plants are dug while dormant and sold without a pot. They’re cheaper than potted plants and settle in quickly because their roots grow through winter.

1. Soak the roots in a bucket of water for an hour or so before planting.
2. Dig a hole wide enough to spread the roots out. Add some well-rotted compost to the soil you dug out.
3. Plant at the depth the plant grew before (the soil mark on the stem shows it), except blackcurrants, which go in about 5 cm deeper to encourage new shoots from the base.
4. Firm the soil, water well and mulch.

Blueberries need acid soil, at a pH of roughly 4.5 to 5.5. On chalky or neutral soil, grow them in a large pot of ericaceous compost and water with rainwater.

Don’t plant into frozen or waterlogged ground. If the weather turns, heel the plants into a spare corner, or keep the roots moist in a bucket of damp compost, until it improves.

Rhubarb crowns go in with the buds just at the surface. Leave them unpicked for the first year.

What you can harvest

In a normal year November brings leeks, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, kale, winter cabbage, swede, celeriac and the last of the maincrop carrots. Jerusalem artichokes are ready once their tops die back. Parsnips and sprouts are often said to taste sweeter after a frost. Under a cloche or in a greenhouse, lamb’s lettuce, land cress and winter salad leaves keep going.

Jobs for November

• Clear spent crops and put healthy material on the compost heap. Bin anything with blight or clubroot.
• Mulch empty beds with compost or well-rotted manure, or cover them with cardboard, so the worms work it in over winter.
• Collect fallen leaves into a wire cage or bin bags with a few holes. In a year or two they make leaf mould.
• Net brassicas. Pigeons go for kale, sprouts and cabbages once other food runs short.
• Cut down asparagus ferns once they’ve turned yellow.
• Check stored crops such as potatoes, squash, onions and apples, and remove anything that’s starting to rot.
• Clean the greenhouse and pots while there’s little in them, and keep fleece ready for tender plants overwintering inside.
• Plan next year. Work out where each crop goes so you can rotate beds, and order seeds and seed potatoes. VegLog lets you draw beds to scale and works out sowing dates from your own town’s frost dates, which helps at this stage.