November Gardening Tips and Autumnal Recipes

The leaves are treating us to a colourful display as we dive further into the autumn.

The team will be focusing on structural jobs and protecting plants from the weather this month as it gets progressively wetter and windier. Here’s what is on our to do list:

• Clear up fallen leaves, especially from ponds to keep it healthy for the wildlife
• Raise containers, using pot feet or bricks, to enable better drainage and stopping the pot contents from freezing
• Tidy up lawn edges whilst they’re clear over the winter
• Insulate outdoor containers from the frost. You can use hessian as a plastic free alternative to bubble wrap
• Tidy up strawberry plants
• Put out bird food and ensure they have somewhere to access some water. They’ll thank you by helping keep down pest numbers during the winter
• Prune roses to approximately half their height to prevent wind-rock in the strong winter gusts we’ll have ahead
• Spread manure over winter beds for it to rot down over winter, for nutrient rich soil in the new year
• Clean out water butts, ready for autumn rainfall to refill them
• Harvest parsnips after the first frosts
• There’s not much to plant at the moment, but we will still be planting lots of delicious onions and garlic

Sounds like hungry work right?!

So, naturally, we need some incentives for our hard work. These are on the team’s ‘to-try’ list for the next few weeks as it gets chilly. Some of us will be using produce from our own gardens too.

- Many of us thought this sounded delicious. Roasted Butternut Squash Wedges Recipe with Sage Pesto | olivemagazine Perhaps with some roasted parsnips in there too

- If you’re a mushroom lover, do you really need to be told twice to throw them all into a pastry? This recipe looks delicious Wild mushroom tartlets recipe | BBC Good Food

- For those who find themselves better motivated by a sweet treat, this is a very season friendly recipe Pumpkin Pie Recipe | olivemagazine

- And another dessert classic, the crumble. One team member says this is their go to, fail-safe recipe Apple & blackberry crumble recipe | BBC Good Food Are you an apple and blackberry kinda person? Or do you prefer a different combo?

And we haven’t even started on soup recipes! Big hot bowls of comfort that are always a great way of using up your garden harvest. What incentives are you using to help motivate you through your garden jobs this month?