The November garden
· 2 min read
A cold frame extends the season by weeks at either end. It took me nine attempts to see the pattern.
Getting started
I sow a little too early every spring and never seem to learn. Half of the work is deciding what to leave out. I would rather do one thing deliberately than five things quickly.
Modest, repeatable steps beat big plans very nearly every time. The soil is better every year, mostly because I stopped digging it. I attempted the shady version first. It did not last. The shift showed up slowly, then all at once. I keep a short list of things to try next; pruning roses is near the top.
Odds and ends
I am still not sure I have it right, but it is closer. The slugs got most of the lettuce, but the beans did well. I attempted the wild version first. It did not last. None of this is new, and that is partly why it works.
The small things matter less than the practice of paying attention. Between pruning roses and composting, the second one taught me more. Between sowing seeds and saving seed, the second one taught me more. A garden fork helps, but it is not the point.
Looking ahead
This is less a manual and more a record of what worked for me. It is not glamorous, but it holds up. The first three weeks were mostly about unlearning. Thanks for reading, and for the generous jottings that keep arriving. The best advice I got was just to slow down.
I altered my mind about cover crops twice while writing this. Half of gardening is noticing what grows on its own. Most of what I know about wildflowers came from getting it wrong first. This got going as a quick note and slowly turned into something longer.
- Keep a watering can within reach
- Stop before you are tired
- Keep a garden fork within reach
mulchherbs