November ’25: Comical, really

You’re invited to laugh at/with me when I tell you I dutifully dug up my dahlia tubers, rinsed them clean, set them in the basement to dry ... and didn’t have time to divide and store them before they shriveled up on me. November is my busiest work month so I really should have seen that coming. But that seems like an appropriate ending to the tale of my half-ass attempt at growing dahlias.

Being November, it’s been fairly uneventful in the garden other than these determined little lettuces that are cracking me up. The oakleaf hydrangeas are still clinging to their brick-red leaves. The Sungold finally gave out, while the field peas are out there trying to fix nitrogen in the other two tomato pots while they can. The birch leaves have been raked into the beds. The terra cotta pots are in the garage. The cushions from the carporch pod chairs will head to the basement this weekend, to be stripped of their covers for cleaning and repair before spring. And I laid cardboard over a 3'-wide swath grass along the front edge of the front bed, under a nice thick layer of mulch, to prepare for expanded planting up there next year — after which I ran into this critique of using cardboard in planting beds. I still feel mostly ok about it in this situation, especially since my boxes of choice are the ones PlantPaper comes in and their whole business is about the avoidance of chemical-laden paper products. Surely that extends to their packaging.

WEATHER
We did get about another inch of rain at the last minute in October, but a good soaking has continued to be hard to come by in November. Just the occasional pointless drizzle, really.
Highest high temp: 62° on Nov 5 and 8
Lowest high temp: 36° on Nov 11 (only day with a high in the 30s)
Average high temp: 43°
Rain days: Just 2 with measurable rain, by my count
Snow days: None so far

I hope you’ve had a nice start to the holiday season this week. I’ll be back next week with some book-gift recommendations and a bunch more great links!