Waco Planting Calendar: November

Flowers, Groundcovers, Trees and More...
While I don't usually cover these topics in my planting guide, I did try it one November, so you can go back and read my post here for tips on planting flowers and other plants this month.

WATCH FOR FROST!
Usually this is the month we'll get our first real cold weather (we get a little in late October, but it's usually stuff most plants can survive.).  Watch first for temps under 45 degrees at night...you'll want to harvest your basil leaves before it gets that cold.   When it dips below freezing (32 degrees), you'll need to decide what annuals to let go and which to try to hold onto a little longer.   Many plants can survive a short frost with some help.  Make sure they are well watered before a frost, then covering your plants with sheets or plastic (sheets are less likely to freeze to the plants--with plants I was most concerned with saving, I sometimes would do a double layer...a sheet followed by a plastic bag).  You can places lights (such as Christmas lights) under or around them to add some heat.

Herbs and veggies to plant this month:

 
START SEEDS OUTDOORS:

Carrots  (Nov 10)
Chives** (see note)
Cilantro***
Leeks** (see note)
Onions** (Nov 15)
Radish (Nov 25)
Shallots (sets...see note)**
Spinach (Nov 15)



TRANSPLANT

Cabbage*
Celery*
Kale*
Kohlrabi*
Lettuce*
Spinach*
Swiss chard*


Most of the info for this month's planting guide came from the Aggie Fall Direct Seeding Guide.   Some info also came from   Month to Month Gardening in Texas, which are marked with.*   

*These are from Month to Month Gardening in Texas.    The Aggie guide doesn't list most of these as transplants, but they do list flowering cabbage and kale as annuals you can transplant through December (grouping them in with ornamentals).  

**Aggie Fall Direct Seeding Guide says we have until Nov 1 to plant onions, but their article just on onions says in our zone we have til November 15.   I've planted onions and chives, both seeds and onion sets, all through the fall in Waco, and had them survive all through the winter (the article says late planting can lead to smaller onions in the spring, but since I mostly want little onions to use in the winter, this wasn't a big concern to me.)  

***The Aggie Guide for Cilantro says to plant Cilantro weekly starting in September for a November harvest. I personally planted cilantro in Waco starting in October and going all through the winter   If it freezes it may die, but I just harvest when a freeze is predicted and then plant more in its place (and cilantro is pretty hardy...so sometimes it can survive a freeze).  Any time it warms up it will bolt, but because the weather is generally cooling during this period, you at least have longer windows before that happens.    Once it's bolted I usually let cilantro go all the way to seed so I can harvest the coriander seeds (and have more seeds to plant), then pull it and replace it with more cilantro until the weather starts to warm in the spring.   At that point it bolts so quickly that I find it's cheaper and easier to just buy cilantro at the grocery store.