This Week in the Garden: November 25, 2024

We've been lucky to get a ton of moisture and then a bit of sunshine and warmth, here at the end of November.  After a brutally hot summer, everything needs a moisture recharge.  Several beds were cleared of corn stalks, cosmos and zinnia stalks, and weeds getting it prepared for the next step in their evolution.

Most of any available time, given the short daylight hours, has been spent working on the storage shed and trying to get it 'dried in'.  Progress is slow but steady with many, many trips up and down ladders.  Right, wrong, or indifferent (perhaps ineffective), I did spray the fruit trees with dormant oil and plan to do so again in the spring.  I also tied down a few more branches (sun was out and they were flexible enough) on the espaliered pears.  There is certainly an optimal time to do many tasks in the garden, but I have often read that the best time to do something is when you have the time, energy, and money to do it!  

The raspberries were thinned, taking out old canes and clearing up a bit.  There are several sprawling raspberry plants with very flexible canes that do not want to stand upright that may need to be moved somewhere else in the yard and replaced with a variety that will stand upright.  They are more suited to an area with room to sprawl rather than an area where they need to be more upright, rigid and easy to tie into training wires. 

Weedy Pete