If you don’t know what zone your garden is in, find your USDA hardiness zone here. Enter the code on the security pop-up (it is case-sensitive), then enter your ZIP Code to see your zone. If you click where you live, a window will pop up showing your exact zone info.
What to Do In Your Garden This Month
Zones 1 – 4
- Review your notes from this season and start planning next year’s garden. Think about which crops did well and which didn’t so you can decide if different varieties are needed next time. Think about the amount of each crop and whether it was enough or too much. Take stock of lessons learned before ordering seeds for next year.
- Inventory your left-over seeds and compare with what you need for next season.
- Browse our online store, make a Wishlist and order early to avoid disappointment.
- Continue harvesting greens from the hoop house or coldframe.
- Try growing salad greens or herbs in pots inside – a south-facing window helps but isn’t essential. If you are a beginner at growing inside, start with sprouts and enjoy crisp greens in a week.
- Spend some time reading a new gardening book or research an aspect of gardening you’ve wanted to learn more about.
- Remember gardening is for everyone when making out your holiday gift list!
Zones 5 – 6
- Review your notes from this season and start planning next year’s garden. Think about which crops did well and which didn’t so you can decide if different varieties are needed next time. Think about the amount of each crop and whether it was enough or too much. Take stock of lessons learned before ordering seeds for next year
- Cover overwintering crops with 8 inches of straw, and then top with a row cover.
- As weather permits, continue to harvest leeks, spinach, kale, carrots and other late fall crops. Keep straw snuggled around any crops still in the garden for extra protection
- If you are using a coldframe to grow greens through winter, consider rigging a plastic tunnel over the frame for extra warmth
- Cut back asparagus fronds
- In areas with a wet winter, cover your compost pile to prevent rains and snows from leaching out nutrients
- Make unique, signature holiday wreaths from grapevines, visually interesting plant stalks, greens, and dry seedpods
- Protect your perennials with a layer of winter mulch after the first few freezes.
- Clean up garden debris to eliminate overwintering areas for diseases and insect pests.
- Try growing salad greens or herbs in pots inside – a south-facing window helps but isn’t essential. If you are a beginner at growing inside, start with sprouts and enjoy crisp greens in a week.
- Browse our online store, make a Wishlist and order early to avoid disappointment.
- Spend some time reading a new gardening book or research an aspect of gardening you’ve wanted to learn more about.
- Remember gardening is for everyone when making out your holiday gift list!
Zones 7 – 8
- Review your notes from this season and start planning next year’s garden. Think about which crops did well and which didn’t so you can decide if different varieties are needed next time. Think about the amount of each crop and whether it was enough or too much. Take stock of lessons learned before ordering seeds for next year.
- Remember to gather leaves for mulching, composting, or digging into the soil before they blow away or snow covers them up.
- Feed your winter flowers when the weather is mild.
- Cover strawberries with a thick cover of straw mulch—they’ll fare better over winter and bear earlier next spring. Remove just after the last frost next season.
- If you add a second layer of row cover protection for leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce, and collards they’ll continue producing longer. Remove the covers during the day and replace around sunset.
- Add a half to full month in growing season by filling a few plastic jugs with water and placing them between still-growing rows; they collect heat during the day and radiate it back at night.
- If you have a coldframe, continue planting chives, spinach, mustard, peas, beets, lettuce, and radishes.
- Clean up garden debris to eliminate overwintering areas for diseases and insect pests.
- On warm days, start getting beds ready for spring by adding lots of compost. Six inches isn’t too much as it will settle and be incorporated into the soil by earthworms and other soil organisms.
- Try growing salad greens or herbs in pots inside – a south-facing window helps but isn’t essential. If you are a beginner at growing inside, start with sprouts and enjoy crisp greens in a week.
- Browse our online store, make a Wishlist and order early to avoid disappointment, paying special attention to cool-season, early planting vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and peas.
- Spend some time reading a new gardening book or research an aspect of gardening you’ve wanted to learn more about.
- Now is the perfect time to plan and design any garden upgrades you want to do next season.
- Remember gardening is for everyone when making out your holiday gift list!
Zones 9 – 10
- Review your notes from this season and start planning next year’s garden. Think about which crops did well and which didn’t so you can decide if different varieties are needed next time. Think about the amount of each crop and whether it was enough or too much. Take stock of lessons learned before ordering seeds for next year.
- For a greatly improved soil next season, sow a winter cover crop. Single varieties of cereal rye, oats or buckwheat work well, but a mix incorporating both legumes to fix nitrogen and grasses to till the soil work better.
- In some southern areas, you can still start cold tolerant vegetables like beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots, peas, cabbage, spinach, and lettuce. You’ll get an early harvest before the heat arrives late next spring.
- The same holds true for cool-season herbs like parsley, thyme, sage, dill, fennel, and cilantro.
- Even though you are in the longest growing season, watch the weather forecast. If frost is predicted, be prepared to protect your garden with row covers.
- Browse our website, make a Wishlist and order early to avoid disappointment, paying special attention to cool-season, early planting vegetables like lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and peas.
- Keep harvesting the garden to continue production and remove any dead plants and fruits to prevent disease and insects from moving in.
- Remember gardening is for everyone when making out your holiday gift list!