Month in the life of an urban gardener: November 2024.
The tasks, problem solving, wildlife spots, learnings and reflections from an organic food grower in a North London kitchen garden.
Welcome to this separate reflection — as part of the Food-Fibre-Fashion publication — on what it’s like to be an urban organic food grower. This started as short snappy videos to condense moments across a month, before realising that actually the narrative and context behind them could be useful, whether successes or mistakes.
As this is part of the wider Food-Fibre-Fashion publication that shares essays, articles and resource newsletters, there will be stories and musings to raise your awareness of how interconnected these systems are, even when we’re looking in small scale, such as an urban garden.
Watch reels of previous months here → October 2024. / September 2024. / August 2024. / July 2024. / June 2024. / May 2024. / April 2024. / March 2024. / February 2024. / January 2024. / December 2023. / November 2023. / October 2023. / September 2023. / August 2023. / July 2023. / June 2023. / May 2023. / April 2023. / March 2023.
This is the thirteenth in this series of articles — A Month in the Life of an Urban Gardener. To read about the context of where I work, head to the first article.
Watch November 2024 in the form of a reel here.
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Month in the life of an urban gardener: November 2024.
Images: 1. Silver berries on the Elaeagnus x ebbingei (Silverberry); 2. Purple toadflax with soft leaf columns; 3. Embraced the end of autumn with my leaf crown.
Harvesting.
I think the only thing that was harvested in November was a single goji berry in order to see if it was nice when fresh as opposed to the usual dried way you eat them. It wasn’t particularly tasty, but they look cute on the vine like fairy lights. The hacking I did back in summer to remove dead bits seems to have done the trick to get it fruiting again, despite having taken off some vines with flowers on. We’ll keep hacking and maybe we’ll get a harvest sufficient enough to dry.
Did anyone harvest anything else? I don’t think so. We had no customers, and with a quick frost over the third week, a lot of annual veg became soggy.
images: 1. Technically, some button mushrooms were harvested from the compost where clearly some spores had found their way; 2. Also, technically harvested some cast iron Victorian artefacts from the castle grounds; 3. A goji berry looking like a joyous fairy light.
Plant care.
The frost had weakened the cell structures of certain plants, so to protect the roots from future frost, they were either fleeced (as with the broad beans) or chopped down (as with the yacón). Fleece is a fine non-woven polyester fabric that is laid over hoops to keep warmth over the top of a bed, and consequently stop the water in plant cells from freezing directly. Chopping down any soggy leaves and stems prevents the plant from putting energy where it’s not needed. Yacón is part of the daisy family, native to South America, with tubers that we store in the ground until they’re needed, but stems are chopped to savour energy.
The two chard beds we have were also de-sogged; snipping away any leaves that had gone soggy or were showing signs of other disease. This improves airflow as well as the energy preservation. Bad stuff is of course composted.
Images: 1. Chard beds got some de-sogging of sad leaves; 2. Yacón significantly drooped after the first (and maybe only) frost; 3. Sage bushes got a little fondle to rid it of dried leaves to help with airflow.
We have small lemon geranium plants indoors and these were getting a bit bushy. They tend to be fleeced as well over winter, again for the warmth, so they needed to be trimmed. I got a headache from how potent the essential oils are. Height was brought down by half to encourage shoots lower down, with leaves dried to be used later in balms (where the essential oils can be released) and the stalks made into cuttings.
The camomile seedlings had started rooting out of the broadcast tray so were transplanted in clumps into modules of potting mix to grow on. I reckon we have around 15 trays of 6 modules with 30 individual seedlings in each.
Lettuce and mustards were moved about into cold frames and onto heatpads to encourage them to either acclimatise or grow on. Due to the frost the ground was too hard to plant out anyway, and indoors the beds were being a little trashed from a pooing cat, therefore making planting low priority. Some did go indoors just so they’re somewhere proper and have so far mostly survived the animal digging.
Some kale seedlings had grown a little, and to prevent them being ravaged further from any late-season caterpillars, they were backfilled on a warmer day into the two beds kept under netting. The nets are there to stop any butterflies laying eggs on them come spring, but also any birds from nibbling away. The successions of kale plants we have are actually looking really nice, and it’s consequently a nice winter crop. If anyone decides to need it.
Images: 1. Lemon geranium leaves for drying and stalks for cuttings; 2. Kale seedlings planted out to backfill spaces between the established plants; 3. Camomile seedlings being transplanted into modules with potting mix.
Maintenance.
This is where the good November stuff is. I really feel like I made a good dent in landscaping/health and safety of the garden this month. My colleagues and our volunteers too.
It started with getting frustrated by constantly tripping on edging bricks before clambering over scaffolding when attempting to get to the main water taps. Oh, no, it actually started with wanting to tidy up the old medicinal garden around the front but wanting to populate it with some herbs. We had spare herbs in and around the salad beds, which are next to the taps. In order to excavate some herbs for transplanting, I had to tidy up a brick edge. This led to digging out layers of broken down woodchip, pulling out grass tussocks, chopping down the died back Marvel of Peru, pruning the saltbush, re-laying the brick edging, and laying new woodchip. I was then able to dig up some salad burnet and fennel to put around the front in the medicinal garden.
Images: 1. Stage 1 of clearing around the entrance with digging up old path soil; 2. Tidy entrance with refreshed brick edging, pruned bushes and new woodchip; 3. Forest Garden paths dug up, re-edged and laid with fresh woodchip.
But, before I could actually do that and plant them out, I had to weed the medicinal garden to establish what was there first. At the same time, because one side of the garden entrance was now freshly tidied, the other side needed sorting. And because I’d discovered fox poo on the rosemary bush here. ON the bush. This involved weeding, digging up the layers of broken down woodchip, escavating gravel (used in the outdoor cutting trays repurposed from shower trays), pulling out more grass tussocks, laying new plastic Mypex weed suprressant, laying wood chip and getting my colleague to help bring over an unhappy olive tree and palm from a windy part of the garden. I’d go back and forth between the jobs over three work days.
Images: 1. Stage 1 of the other entrance was digging out old soil and removing ruined Mypex sheeting; 2. Stage 2 was laying fresh Mypex around the manhole; 3. Stage 3 was chipping and replacing potted plants (and gnome).
The medicinal garden needed to be done in stages because I was getting RSI in my right shoulder from all the trowel weeding, and because there are only so many hours. In October I’d introduced the revealing of concrete post edging and lavender trimming, and now I needed to continue with weeding around what else existed there, label everything, and plant out more medicinally-inclined stuff. I dug into the clay to put in a marshmallow root dug up from elsewhere (which was a task on its own) and uncovered a cast iron Victorian nail. Motherwort that had been stored in a plastic storage box for I don’t know, a year? was also going to go here, so another clay hole dug and an ant’s nest disturbed. The motherwort had completely rootballed the rectangular space and ants were well established amongst it, but hopefully they found their new home in the ground comfortable enough. I also scavenged more calendula, common mallow, ribwort plantain, broadleaf plantain, salad burnet, fennel, and a Verbena bonariensis (it apparently doesn’t have a common name, just verbena) from home. Currently looking trashed because nothing is growing, yet at least well-labelled so that come spring we’ll know what should be there.
Images: 1. Medicinal Garden weeded, old path soil dug out, and edging redone; 2. Holes dug into the clay to transplant plants from elsewhere such as this mandrake-looking marshmallow root; 3. Signs labelled so the herbaceous perennials don't get dug out once died back!
I think by this point in early November I was feeling very well accomplished and happy to have made some areas appear more “gardeny”. Others had been digging up, re-edging and re-laying with fresh chip the Forest Garden paths. And otherwise fires had been going on so piles of rotting scaffolding planks and whatever else were removed.
My next project was to continue with the Leaf Mould Area. Volunteers had begun sieving this beautiful low nutrition matter and starting a fresh bay of 2024 leaves. However, as with the above jobs, you do one thing and five things are added. I realised that the ton sack of sieved leaf mould was preventing us properly getting to the back hedge where bramble vines are, and anyway the path was atrociously slippy with caked clay mud. So the remaining leaf mould was sieved, spare bays cleaned out, half ton sack of sieved leaf mould put into an empty bay, ton sack of sieved leaf mould halved by filling up the other sack, then dragged into another empty bay. I could now get to the path fully, but it turned out there was mud on Mypex on mud on Mypex. One long sheet was cleared and set aside in order to work on the one below. There was no easy way to do this other than getting right down onto the ground. Bit by bit I was able to clear the plastic sheeting, level the ground and pin it all down. Over two work days I got it to a point where it was actually navigable and safe to wander down. It’s just that now the other paths leading to it look a mess.
I’m sure my colleague also felt really great after he’d successfully cleaned years of algal grime off the outside of the polytunnel sheeting. I hadn’t realised how dirty it was, and how shady it had become purely because of it. Couldn’t blame it all on the overshadowing sycamore and mulberry. Sunlight was actually able to penetrate, for which the small amount of mustard seedlings, ailing non-fruiting aubergine and somehow fruiting chillis and pepper were surely grateful.
Images: 1. Sieved leaf mould is a cacophony of organisms and beautiful dark matter; 2. Freshly tidied Leaf Mould Bays with safe pathway; 3. Colleague cleaning the outside of the polytunnel shows a distinct stripe of algal scum.
Additionally I’d weeded Herb Terrace now that certain plants had swiftly died back in the frost, such as cosmos and amaranth. I hadn’t yet harvested the indigo because seeds hadn’t shown, and I’d rather those than pigment at this stage. I found a mat of mycelium around and under chickweed, which I tried to minimally disturb, though I wanted the weeds out for airflow for the flowers still existing such as scabious.
And also weeded and cleared leaves in the apiary, mostly to reveal the ground so I could see what dead bees were amassing. I managed to get stung in my thigh by a lady hiding in some leaves I picked up.
Images: 1. Bee sting on my thigh; 2. A mycelium mat under chickweed on Herb Terrace; 3. Leaf raking.
Wildlife.
Squirrels had found their way onto the so-called Squirrel Buster bird feeders. One was spotted hiding in one of the castle holes watching me.
Many toads and frogs disturbed, as usual. Including this cool pinky-red one that camouflaged with the leaf fall.
Came across this weird mossy algae lump in the cuttings tray and couldn’t figure out if it was an animal. There were regardless some water sprites darting in and out of it. Micro ecosystem.
Fox was seen again, possibly Rufus, and his poo too. The new ginger cat was seen, and was seen pooing in our polytunnel. River cat both did and didn’t want to be handled. I’d been sorting the path by the back hedge for hours before I noticed a bloated flat rat on the ground; this was put in the Ridan anaerobic composter. Chunky caterpillars hiding in the nooks of the chard, probably trying to escape frost. Another caterpillar was found on a kale seedling, having probably eaten it’s fill then cocooned itself on the wooden lollystick label. Spiders catching confused bees in the glasshouse.
Images: 1. A pinky-red frog found in the apiary camouflaged amongst fallen leaves; 2. A mossy underwater chunk playing host to water invertebrates; 3. A caterpillar cocooned on a wooden lolly stick label.
Beekeeping.
With the temperature dropping, it was time to feed the smallest warre hive. Last year we’d done some sugar syrup, but fondant is somewhat easier when cold as it’s already solid. The bees can go to it and nibble off a bit that they then break down with enzymes into honey. Both fondant and sugar syrup is bad, in that it’s harder for them to digest, but as I explained in last month’s journal post, we didn’t have honey from other hives to give them. The block of icing was turned upside down over a hole in the top cloth over the hive, an empty box over that, quilting put around the tub for insulation, and the quilt box and roof put back on. I thought I’d harmed them when I didn’t see activity over the following couple days, thinking maybe the fondant had warmed up and melted down into the hive drowning them. I lifted the lid to check and there was many all gorging away inside the box.
However, there was a significant amount of worrying sights regardless. Bees on the ground is usual; numbers drop off in winter. But there were a high relative number of drones. Amongst the corpses were also unhatched bees — pupae that hadn’t fully formed into adult bees yet, all white with no markings. And then I spotted some workers coming out of the hive on their entrance platform walking confusedly and with deformed wings. Clear signs of varroa mite. Because a bunch were feeding, some foragers were still going out, and due to pupa on the ground, it seemed as though the family knew what was going on and were trying to sort it out. The amount of drones though was weird; there’d be no reason for them to have any at this time of year unless the mother had died or left. As a reminder, this is a hive with cross-comb, so we can’t inspect without breaking the comb.
I cleared the platform and the ground so we could see what the reset death toll was a few days later. About the same, but this time I saved the bundle from the platform to inspect. There were a few varroa mites visible, more pupa, more drones. Interestingly, here is where we could see what a drone phallus looks like! The family continued flying and dead continued to pile up, so, all we can do is observe.
The other warre hive had it’s bottom box removed and an entrance hole blocked with a wine cork so it could stay warmer, and the mouseguard put on. The national hive had a mouseguard put on, but no box removed because it’d be too tricky. On the warmer days I checked to make sure the foragers were able to get in and out through the holes of the mouseguard quick enough without a traffic jam, and all looked well.
Seriously got to get to building new boxes and stands, and reparing these ones though. Such a load of work and planning required. March and warm weather will come soon enough!
Images: 1. Small honeybee hive receiving a block of sugar fondant for an early winter feed; 2. Dead honeybees at the hive entrance with visible drones; 3. Group of dead honeybee drones.
Workshop.
I hosted my last nature connection workshop of 2024 over at The Mobile Garden in Hackney Wick. Unfortunately it was listed as a free workshop and so of the 16 booked only 5 showed up on what was a very blowy day. However, those 5 had been keen on learning hapa zome plant printing for some time and so were dedicated in attending, and that’s the joy of leading these sessions — folk keen to give themselves some time to connect with nature. It was quite trying though, with textiles and equipment blowing away, and the wind makes me angry. I returned home with a banging headache and a need for some quiet. Great community garden space though, and grateful to have support to continue bringing these activities.
I’ll be launching dates for 2025 shortly — for hapa zome, bundle dyeing, nature weaving, and embroidery collage.
Images: Textiles printed by hammering at The Mobile Garden using leaves and flowers foraged on site such as nasturtium, chard and yarrow.
Sundries.
I also did manage to top up jars of herbal tea blends for the cafe. It’s one of those tasks that’s almost luxurious, because it’s not being outside in the cold doing physical labour. And you’d think it’s going to be a really chill task because it’s just adding an amount of herbs together in a smelly delight, but in actuality you end up with herb dust up your nose, a headache from all the scents, and on this occasion a need to move quickly to get out of the room (and so I could go for a swim). I’d been at the centre doing a four-hour cleaning shift prior to this, and so adrenaline was pumping. It is so difficult for me to slow down.
Colleagues made some firelighters from an old mushroom log and very old manky beeswax. A very frosty day required a fire, and it was an opportunity to get some dirty beekeeping equipment on there. Rather than sort out frames that had been left with wax comb on it, so wax moths had got to it, I wanted to burn them. It’s the weigh-up of labour in cleaning versus ease of burning, and getting some wood ash in the process. Colleagues, though, decided they were totally fine with processing some of the wax to dip this porous mushroom log wood into. What they didn’t spot was the hundred or so dead bees halfway-hatched from a comb and so into the pot they went too. A rather symbiotic firelighter was made.
Trainees helpfully sorted out the saved flower and herb seeds into packets, such as the Marvel of Peru, strawflower and garlic chives. I utilised the end of the day to sort out saved beans. The bean casings I’ll use in nature weaving workshops — they have such a nice pearly shine inside and are a fun texture. White beans were in fact a yellow runner variety, the beans with purple-with-black-speckles were actually green runners, and the pinky-taupe ones were purple runners. Or French. I don’t know what the difference is. Flat versus not flat? We save whatever beans have “gone over”, meaning that they became too big inside the pod to be a tender green bean and would instead be a bean bean. These are labelled on the plant and allowed to dry before harvesting and then sorting and saving for next year.
Images: 1. Blending garden herbs for cafe teas; 2. Homemade firelighters from old wood, old beeswax and unfortunately, dead bees; 3. Sorting saved beans into their varieties.
What was November? It wasn’t autumn and it wasn’t winter. We got both and none. I’m writing this, finally, on 10th December and it’s damp out. Our brief spell of frost came early — with other regions receiving snow, of course — and then we retreated back into the usual sogginess for the remaining 26 days or so. We prepped for an incoming extended dry cold that didn’t happen. This warmth was apparent in plants putting out shoots not usually visible until spring, and the honeybees going out foraging after they’d been settled in already for the season.
It meant that a lot of maintenance work was done, however, as this is much more gardener-friendly when it’s not raining. Particularly with London clay. For consecutive work days I’d return home with muddy knees and a sore back from scraping or digging away layers of path. Body tired, but mind slightly cleared. At least, for some thoughts. A lot of frustration crept in towards my colleagues who seem to finish up as soon as dusk comes, despite there still being many tasks to do. Different motives; December doesn’t actually give us many days, especially when we remove the fun ones for festive gatherings or the ones where it’s simply too wet to work, so I want to do the things when I can do the things.
Yet, others perhaps have greater self-preservation in these scenarios than I do. Perhaps that’s why I can endure long trail running days out, because my mindset is more about the completion. Is that right? I’m unsure that’s right. No. I am about the journey, the steps along the way, the process — because it allows me to process. So I want these tasks done and out the way so I can move on. That presents itself well with this post as an example; because I’d spent all my free time in the last weeks writing a sustainable fashion course I’m teaching online, I had to put this writing aside. And that weighs on me. I want it out my head. I want to keep to some sort of schedule, and yet I’m aware I have to be flexible according to weather and other people. So, is it an incongruity between folks’ internal seasonality? Winter actually isn’t for me about shutting down, but consolidating. A time to reset, rather than for rest.
Well, I imagine come January when I write December’s gardener post for you, I’m going to be saying that I was discombobulated due to not getting actual winter, that taking time away from the garden for teaching meant I was disconnected, and that whatever festive time I had was actually taken up with thoughts of what 2025 would bring. So I’ll stop myself here; despite the Solstice, there is time for winter. Months of it in fact. 2025 is an arbitrary date. And, you don’t always need the actual location to feel connected because it’s a part of you.
Images: 1. Rush hat, crochet balaclava and squash t-shirt garden outfit combo; 2. Campfire; 3. Parakeets at dusk nibbling on beans of the Catalpa tree, with castle in the background.