You'll Regret NOT Planting These 10 Crops In November RIGHT NOW!

What's growing on, gardeners? It's hard to believe, but November is already here, and that will not stop us from growing things in our vegetable garden. November is a shockingly great time to plant things out in our garden because the weather is generally calm and mild and the pests and diseases have gone away almost entirely. So on today's video, I am going to show you 10 awesome crops that you should plant in November right now for the best late fall and winter garden of your life. If you're new to the channel, please subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and check out my Amazon store and Spreadshop links in the video description for everything I use in my garden and awesome custom apparel and gear. Over the course of this video, I will be mentioning different varieties of the crops that I've been growing in my garden and have had great success with. If you're interested in where to buy those seeds, I will place direct links down in the video description for your convenience. As a point of reference, I live on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, Zone 8b, but the truth is that hardiness zones do not matter when growing an annual vegetable garden. They're only applicable to perennials. All that matters when growing an annual vegetable garden are our first and last frost dates as well as our average temperature, but truly, they don't even matter because everything I'm featuring in this video is very tolerant of frost and freeze. The actual limiting factor this time of year is the lack of strong sunlight. It's the short days and the low UV index that can cause problems. Our more demanding crops can stall this time of year due to the lack of photosynthesis. That is what makes the 10 crops in this video so amazing. These are fast-growing crops that can photosynthesize despite the lack of intense sunlight. But just in case it's a little bit chilly where you live, I recommend you do something like build a PVC hoop structure over your garden beds like I have right here, and then you can just cover them with an agricultural fabric to keep the hard frosts and freezes off and that will keep them growing deep into January, February, maybe even all throughout the winter and into the spring. I'm using an insect netting currently, but you can just swap that out and clip a frost fabric over it. I'll link to a video both above and down in the video description that will show you how to build one of these PVC hoop structures in only about 20 to 30 minutes. Crop number one is the king of all winter crops and the one crop that nobody has any excuse not to plant, and that is garlic. There is maybe nothing more critical to grow over the winter than garlic because garlic needs the cold weather accumulation, the chill, the vernalization of the cold throughout the winter to form nice big bulbs. There are two different types of garlic, hardneck garlic and softneck garlic. Hardneck garlic generally grows between zones 3 and 8, but truthfully it's so cold-hardy you could grow it all the way down to zone 1, into tundra. Your softneck garlic tolerates warm, mild winters much better and can be grown from zone 5 to zone 10, but truthfully there is a trick that allows you to grow garlic down in the tropics or grow any type of garlic no matter where you live. Most of us watching this video are going to be in zones 5 and warmer, so for that reason it's going to be easier for a lot of us to grow softneck garlic because it doesn't require nearly as much cold vernalization, but I find hardneck garlic is spicier and more robust. Where I live in zone 8, we have marginally mild winters where if we have a warm winter it could be too mild for hardneck garlic to really grow large, yet hardneck garlic is all I grow. All of this garlic that you see right here is my leftover harvest from last June. I still have pounds and pounds and pounds of it. So what I do is, I eat the small and medium sized heads of garlic, and then I save the absolute largest ones for replanting next year, and that is what you see in here. This is a hardneck garlic variety called Moosic, and it is one of my favorites. So in order to get chill on my hardneck garlic, I take the largest cloves, because the largest cloves that you plant will make the biggest heads the following year, I'll roll it up in a paper bag, it has to be paper because paper breathes, and then I will pop it in the refrigerator for about 4-6 weeks to put cold chill on it at refrigerator temperatures, and that will accumulate the chill hours I need to plant them in my garden. Now if you live in a place that gets almost no chill, say Miami or you live in another country in the tropics, well you can refrigerate them for 8-10 weeks, and then you can just plant them no matter where you live, and even if it never gets cold, they'll get the appropriate amount of cold vernalization. So if you use that trick, you can grow garlic nearly anywhere. Seed garlic heads can be a little bit expensive, but if you save the largest ones, you'll get such a huge harvest you won't be able to use it all, and you can just replant year after year after year. So it's really only a one-time investment, garlic stores for months. But of course, you could always go to the grocery store and just buy heads of garlic there, break the cloves off, and plant them in the ground, and they'll grow just fine. You'll get a nice garlic harvest. The varieties they carry in grocery stores are very mild, so I do think it is worth the investment to get really robust specialty varieties of garlic to get the super strong ones, but if you don't want to spend $20-$30 for seed garlic, you can just go to the store and buy them for $0.50 a head and plant them. Awesome crops 2 and 3 that I strongly recommend you plant in November are cool season lettuces and spinach. Now, the beautiful crop of lettuce that you see right behind me is a romaine variety called Giant Caesar, but most green romaine varieties are not very cold-hardy. Even a light frost can damage them and cause the tips to turn brown. So if we were to get a light frost, I would cover this with agricultural fabric. So unless you live in zone 9 or warmer, I don't recommend you growing romaine lettuce all throughout the winter because it's just not cold-hardy. It's more heat-tolerant than it is cold-hardy. And your larger heading lettuces like those, well, they take a lot more solar energy to grow. So if you live at a high latitude, you may struggle to get enough sun intensity to grow big heads of romaine. That's why I recommend you grow red leaf lettuces. They are much more cold-hardy and they can grow quickly with a fraction of the amount of solar intensity. And I have trialed so many of them over the years. My favorite over the years have become the varieties New Red Fire, Marvel of Four Seasons, Rouge d'Ivoire, and Red Sails. All of these varieties have been basically bulletproof where I live. Zone 8 winters are no match for them, and with an agricultural fabric pooled on top of them, they can easily survive temperatures below 15 degrees. The varieties New Red Fire and Red Sails are really good to grow in rows and cut-and-come-again harvests where you just snip the leaves as they appear. New Red Fire can make a decent head given enough time and solar energy, but it's a really good leaf lettuce. If you want to attempt to grow larger heads, I think your best options are Marvel of Four Seasons and Rouge d'Ivoire. Specifically Rouge d'Ivoire, it's a red romaine, and although it's not as robust and texturally equivalent to a green romaine, this is probably the best you're going to find for a super cold-hardy heading lettuce. At least that's what I've found. Spinach is even more cold-hardy. Temperatures below 10 degrees are pretty easy for established spinach plants if you pull a row cover over them. They're actually more heat-sensitive than cold-sensitive, so I have to wait until now to plant my spinach because they're very bolt-prone. So what varieties you choose, you should base on your latitude and your average temperature. If you live in a warmer place where you get more solar energy, it's probably a good idea to pick something that is known to be bolt-resistant and has a higher days-to-maturity, like this Giant Noble or like a Bloomsdale spinach. However, if you live in a colder climate, that 43 days-to-maturity, well, it may grow too slowly for you. So something like this. This has a days-to-maturity that start as low as 28 days, so this is maybe a better solution for somebody that lives at a higher latitude with colder winters. So you really want to be choosy with your days-to-maturity. If you don't get a lot of solar energy, pick an earlier-maturing variety. If you get more solar energy, you live at a lower latitude, pick something more bolt-resistant because if you have Januaries where you're liable to be 45 degrees one day and 65 the other, that can actually cause your spinach to bolt. Crop number four that you simply must plant in November has become my favorite newly-discovered green since I moved to the South eight years ago, and that is mustard greens. This is the ultimate flavorful winter stewing green. This is great in soups, stews, and sautés. They have flavor for miles, but what I love most about it is not only are they super cold-hardy, but they grow so fast, particularly this Southern Giant Curled variety right here. Even in the dead of December when the UV index and the days are the weakest and the shortest, they put on huge leaves, so we can grow this practically anywhere. Now I will say this variety right here will start taking damage at about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but again with a row cover over them, we took no damage at all multiple nights in the teens. Night after night after night. And while they did start to turn a little bit purple, which the plants can sometimes turn a little purple when it gets really cold for a very long period of time, but as soon as it warmed back up, it put on nice new growth, and I was picking mustard greens all throughout the winter. If you want to try something super flavorful, super delicious that you've maybe never tried before, give mustard greens a try. They are just an absolute delight to grow. Crop number five that you simply must plant in November is a new discovery for me as well, and that is bok choy. I tried growing bok choy for the first time ever last year, and it absolutely blew my mind. I was dissuaded from growing bok choy because I was told it was only cold-hardy to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, and here in Zone 8B, we get multiple nights in the teens almost every year. Nonsense. With a row cover on top of them, they easily sat through five nights in the teens, covered in ice and snow with absolutely no damage, and what was amazing about them was despite the coldest December and January I've ever had in the eight years that I've lived here, they formed huge heads with ease. So this is something that can grow very, very large, even in places that get very limited solar energy, and these are so awesome, so versatile. They are amazing in soups, stews, and sautés. Anything Asian-inspired, this is one of my new favorite greens, and if you've never tried growing them, you simply have to try them because they're a delight to grow. They're so versatile. They're so tough. Just delicious. Crops 6 and 7 that you simply must plant in November are my two favorite root crops, albeit for different reasons, and they are carrots and radishes, and that is what you see planted in this bed right here. Now the reason why it's so important to grow carrots in the fall and the winter is because the sweetness of carrots is inversely proportional to temperature. That means the colder it is when they mature, the sweeter they will be. Carrots that mature in the late spring and the summer when it's hot, they tend to be fibrous and starchy and not very sweet, but when they mature in the late fall and the winter when the temperatures are coolest, their sugars are concentrated and they are so much more tender. They're also a breeze to grow. They require little to no fertilizing. In fact, with carrots, less is more. If you give them too much fertilizer, they'll grow big green tops, but the root development will suffer. So they're kind of a set-it-and-forget-it crop, but most of all, they're one of the most cold-hardy root vegetables that you can grow, easily tolerating temperatures around zero to ten degrees Fahrenheit uncovered, but they can survive below zero with an agricultural fabric or some type of protective cover on top of them. So you simply have to grow them. They're delicious. If you've never had a winter-harvested carrot, you're missing out. Now radishes are not nearly as cold-hardy as carrots are. They're only cold-hardy to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and if they fluctuate in temperature too much between freeze and thaw, they may split on you unless you cover them with an agricultural fabric. But the real reason why we grow radishes is because of how fast they mature. They will go from planting that seed to ready for harvest in only about three to four weeks. So if you live in a place where you just don't get that solar energy and you feel like nothing will grow, well, radishes break the mold. And you can get some really, really beautiful radishes instantaneously, it feels like. They germinate in only a matter of days, and they're ready for harvest in only a matter of weeks. And again, just like with carrots, fertilizing them less is more. You can put a little bit of an organic 5-5-5 the time you plant the seed, but other than that, don't give them anything else or else you'll grow big radish tops, but the bulbs will suffer. The way I recommend you plant your radishes and your carrots throughout the year is to basically just sow successive rows. Instead of planting a very, very large bed where everything comes to maturity at the same time and you don't know what to do with your harvest, just sow a little bit of a row at a time. Plant six to ten radish seeds every week. Plant anywhere from a four to six foot row of carrots every month or so. That way you can have a continual harvest throughout the fall and winter. That is what I like to do. Crops eight and nine are kale and collards, and I'm lumping them together because they are the most cold-hardy of the brassicas. They can tolerate temperatures down to ten degrees Fahrenheit, maybe even colder with a row cover over them. So let's start with kale. Kale has been a staple in my garden for years, and I grow now primarily two types of kale. There are your lacinato-type kales, and there are your curly kales. These are the two that do the best in my garden, and I grow them almost exclusively now. Although I do like experimenting with some interesting hybrids like this dazzling blue, which is a really beautiful-looking lacinato type, so I'm growing this as well. Now years ago, I used to grow red Russian kale. Your red Russian and white Russian kales are thought to be the most cold-hardy of the kales. So if you live in a very, very cold climate, you may want to give them a try. But I'll tell you what, here on the southeastern coast of North Carolina, we tend to have warm spells during the winter. And when we get those warm spells, I always found my red Russian kale would get attacked by worms or caterpillars or aphids, and I never had that problem with the lacinato and the curly types of kales, probably because the ruffled, crinkled leaves were just kind of a turn-off to them. But I've always had less issues with pests on those varieties. And I also find them to be more tender. So that's a personal preference, and they do better in my climate. But you can switch it up, try all the different varieties of kale, see what performs best where you live. But the one bit advice I strongly recommend you follow is that you isolate your kale. Or at the very least, don't interplant it. And that is because kale is a biennial. I used to plant my kale with my broccoli, my cabbage, and my other brassicas, but the problem is, your kale will continue to grow all the way into the summer, and your cabbages and your broccoli and cauliflower and things, they'll be ready in anywhere from two to four months. So I would have half my bed turned over, and I'd have all this kale growing all over the place for months and months and months, and that would kind of ruin that raised garden bed. It would take up real estate. So I've learned to basically grow my kale in isolation, because it's going to grow longer than any of my other winter crops. And that's what you see right here. In this small raised garden bed, I have my dazzling blue and my dwarf blue curly kale varieties, and they're going to grow all the way until probably June or July, until the pests get them. The only thing that I've interplanted with them is brussel sprouts in the back, because brussel sprouts also take forever to grow here. They probably won't be ready for harvest until something like April, and I can deal with that amount of bed turnover. Just consider how long your crops are going to take, and how long they'll live when planting them. It often shocks gardeners to learn that collard greens are actually even more cold hardy than kale. I know I told you that they were both good until about 10 degrees Fahrenheit or so, but the truth of the matter is, expect a little bit more cold tolerance from your collard greens. So if you can grow kale just fine where you live, collards are going to be no issue at all. Now, that being said, collard greens grow much more quickly, especially this variety right here, Georgia Southern. This has been an absolute dream to grow, and it grows so fast, so I can get big leaves and big heads even in the dead of winter when UV index is lowest, and I've never had it take any kind of cold damage at all. So if you want to try something new, or you love collards, I strongly recommend give this variety a shot. But that being said, your collard greens are not as long-lived as your kale. So for that reason, I interplanted all of my collard greens with my cabbage and my broccoli and my cauliflower, because they will have similar lifespans. They are not going to make it into the spring, so all of these crops are probably going to be harvested by March, and I will be able to turn this bed over without issue. And crop number 10 that you simply must plant in November is one of my favorite crops that I have to wait all year to grow, because this is the only time of year it will do well here. And that is cilantro. I know those of you that have that genetic anomaly that makes cilantro taste like soap probably just threw up in your mouths a little bit, but I absolutely love this stuff. I go crazy for it, and I can finally grow it this time of year, because this stuff is the most heat-sensitive stuff you can ever grow. I mean, temperatures in the 60s will cause this stuff to bolt. I can really only grow it from November to March. Even March is pushing it. So when the cold weather finally sets in, I just have to go crazy planting cilantro. Cilantro is super cold-hardy and very easy to grow. Temperatures at 10 degrees or lower are really no issue with this. I've never had a cilantro plant die where I live here in Zone 8. It grows all throughout the winter, and again, it's one of those things that can grow very quickly despite not a lot of solar energy. So it's a good plant to grow that can put on growth when a lot of things can't. It's also very easy to grow. Cilantro, also known as coriander, has very, very large seeds. So you can just direct sow the seeds half an inch deep. They'll germinate very, very quickly, and they're just a piece of cake to sow. They basically have no pests, no diseases. They laugh off the cold. If you want to try growing an interesting herb that maybe you've never grown before, give cilantro a try. Or if you're a cilantro nut like I am, go crazy with it. Plant it everywhere. And that right there are 10 awesome crops that you can plant in November right now. Now, just to be clear, these aren't the only 10 crops that you can plant in November. I think they're just 10 of the most important and most versatile because they're some of the most cold-hardy, and they can grow when there isn't a lot of solar energy. But if you live in a milder zone, or you get more solar energy, or you just want to try some other things, well, there are dozens of different crops that you can plant. A couple of years ago, I made a much more comprehensive video, 24 crops that you can plant in November. I'll link to that video both above and down in the video description. If you want a more comprehensive list of things that maybe take a little bit longer to grow, or they're just less popular vegetables that aren't as common, so I wouldn't put them on a top 10 list like this. But that being said, I sure hope that you did find this video helpful and informative. If you did, please make sure to hit that like button, subscribe to the channel, and please ring the notification bell so you're notified when I release more videos like these. Again, for all of the seeds I featured in this video, I placed direct links down in the video description for your convenience. For everything I use in my vegetable garden for growing plants this time of year, that's all linked in my Amazon storefront. So expand the video description, click on the Amazon storefront link, and you'll see everything that I use in real life in my yard and garden. And if you have some time, please check out my brand new website, themillennialgardener.com. I just started it up, I'm going to turn it into a blog and put all sorts of useful information there, and I also have custom merch that you can purchase through that website if you want to support my channel. Thank you all so much for watching, and I hope to see all of you again on the next video. Well, I'm here cleaning the espresso machine, and someone is bothering me. Does Dale want a puppuccino? Oh, you must want one. So we're just going to take a little bit of milk, about an ounce and a half, and then put a pinch of cinnamon in it, and then we're going to put it on the cold froth. And we'll make Dale his puppuccino. And the froth is done, and we have a beautiful little puppuccino in here. Oh boy, doesn't that look good? Very good, Dale. Wait. Okay, buddy. Let us know how it is. I think he likes it. You gotta finish it before the vacuum gets here.