FARMING AND GARDENING NOTES FOR NOVEMBER
November 2: As the Halloween high-pressure system moves east, it is often followed by a brief, second Indian Summer, which can last into the first week of the eleventh month. When the November 2nd cold front does arrive, however, (sometimes it comes as late as the 5th), the major snow season begins for the North and the nation’s midsection.
--Transplant perennials, shrubs and trees. Cut your wood, fit storm windows, gather wild flowers for winter bouquets, and harvest corn and soybeans. Put in spring bulbs and dormant roses, and mulch perennials. The final winter wheat should be planted, and the harvest of corn of soybeans completed. Test the soil, and mow the lawn for the last time.

November 6: The second high-pressure system of November typically brings the end to the canopy of maple leaves across the north and central states. Ginkgo and white mulberry foliage often comes down when this front is especially fierce.
--Dig manure into the garden. Plant next year's sweet peas and spinach. Set garlic cloves for spring. Seed the very last winter wheat. Fertilize trees and shrubs: leaf drop should be complete on most plantings except forsythia and Osage orange. Cut wood. Remove tops from everbearing raspberries.
--Nearly all leaves have fallen by this date. Trees that have held out until now suddenly turn color overnight. Fall isn't over yet, of course; your collards and kale are holding out; your mulched beets and carrots are doing fine; but four hundred hours from now, the transition to early winter will be underway.
November 11: Sun often follows this front and often provides some of the best days in the first half of the month for harvest.
--Clean up all around the yard and garden, cut your wood, clear out the hedgerows and haul manure. Plant next year's sweet peas for early April sprouting. Mulch perennials. Fertilize the lawn. Finish repairs to the outbuildings.
--Plant an evergreen in the yard - now that the leaves are down, you will be able to position it for best winter appearance.
--In the garden, strawberries can be mulched with straw. Perennial aficionados: divide and transplant peonies. As the nights chill, check the chicken house for places weasels could get in.

November 16: Look for an increased chance of heavy snow in the Rockies and travel disruption across the Plains and the East. But after the front passes, more favorable pasture and harvest conditions typically follow.
--Between showers, work gypsum into the soil where salt, used to melt winter's ice, may damage plantings. Feed the lawn - fall is a better time than in the spring - the winter's rain and snow, freezing and thawing, will gently work the fertilizer through the soil. Mulch the wet perennial beds to prevent drying, January's heaving, and cold damage.
--New winter wheat is sometimes well enough developed by today to turn the fields green again. Lawns have grown since their October cuttings, can be long and thick in warm, wet years.
--Around the yard, stake young shrubs and trees. Parsley and thyme should be brought inside pots for winter seasonings. Wrap young transplants to protect them against frost cracking. Clean up the last of the garden. Start feeding the birds. In southern counties, tobacco stripping is well underway.
November 20: This weather system can be followed by single digits along the Canadian border and by a hard freeze deep into the South.
--The sun has now moved to within two degrees of solstice, and enters the Early Winter sign of Sagittarius on the 22nd. Plant the last of the spring bulbs, and then water heavily.
--All the major harvest is complete; fall seeding should be done; the garden's pretty well picked clean and the cover crops have sprouted. Supplies are lined up for the winter, hopefully enough to weather the worst January cold spell. Now it's clean up time all around the farm and garden. Don't wait for February; do what you can before your mind gets set on spring. Put the vehicles in shape; polish the tools; paint when the sun shines; repair the fences when the wind is quiet. By solstice, the
whole place should be cleared out, everything lined up and waiting for April.
--This is the time for planting all your indoor bulbs like amaryllis and paperwhites.
November 24: The Thanksgiving cold front is often a cruel one, spreading snow and ice from the Great Plains to the East Coast.
November 28: The seventh important high-pressure system of November generally arrives around the 28th, preceded by rain or snow three years out of four. This is one of the most wintry systems of the month, and precipitation typically lingers for the 29th and 30th. Temperatures ordinarily moderate around the last day of November, setting the stage for an early December thaw.

FARMING AND GARDENING FOR DECEMBER

December 3: All across the central states, this is the last front of late autumn, and mild weather typically fills the South and the Border States prior to its arrival. Even in the North, temperatures are relatively gentle.
--The corn and soybean harvests are usually complete by today all around the county. Growth of winter wheat slows in the cold. Some fields yellow from low nitrogen levels. New garlic shoots are firm and green, but they've stopped growing and remain at their mid-November height. The Christmas tree harvest has begun in the North, and the last poinsettias from southern farms have reached the Canadian border. Along lakes and streams, beavers still strip bark from trees for food.
--The days before the arrival of early winter (December 8th) are recommended for all livestock and pet maintenance activities, especially worming, vaccinations, crutching and facing ewes, dipping for parasites, and trimming feet. Carefully monitor nutrition of your pregnant animals - that’s one of the major ways to prevent abortions.

December 8: This wave of high pressure typically carries the first severe system of early winter, and a secondary front often reinforces the chill between the 11th and the 13th. Completely overcast skies can be expected, and relatively heavy precipitation sometimes occurs as these cold waves approach. The moon’s entry into its second quarter on the 8th, however, may soften the impact of the front associated with that date.
--It’s time to plug in the electric bucket heaters and try to keep the water near 50 degrees. Maintain good ventilation in the barn, and watch for stress from overcrowding. Keep on the lookout for pneumonia.
--Bring in oregano, rosemary, parsley and thyme for winter seasonings. Stake weaker shrubs and trees. Mulch strawberries with straw. Prepare to transport goat and sheep cheese, Christmas cacti, dried flowers and grasses, poinsettias, mistletoe and ginseng to market.
--As the full moon approaches, be especially careful of abortions in your more delicate livestock. Traditional supplements to ward off abortion include rose hips, hawthorn berries, raspberry leaves, tansy leaves and hollyhock root. Herbs to help with birthing: peppermint, thyme and chamomile.
--Try to save your best quality feed supplies for the colder months, the months closest to late winter and early spring birthing time. Use lower grade feed early in December, gradually increasing nutrient value and quantity throughout the winter. December 15: The strongest cold wave so far in the season typically moves across the nation between the 15th and the 17th. Some of the coldest December days on record follow this front.

December 15: The first significant bout of below-zero temperatures in weather history occurs, and double-digit below-zero temperatures enter the realm of possibility in over half the states. The strength of the December 15th high-pressure system is also associated with higher-than-average precipitation both before and after its arrival. Since the moon becomes full on the 15th this year, the chances rise for severe weather (strong winds and rain across the South, blizzard conditions across the North).

December 20: The December 20th high-pressure wave is the first of two “white-Christmas” fronts. It is often a relatively mild system, but it has a good chance of producing snow all across the northern tier of states. Travel is favored after the arrival of this front but before the general meteorological disturbances of the 24th. The waning moon should lower the chances for dangerous weather to occur with this front and the next.

December 25: The Christmas front is usually a potent one; it brings snow about half the time to the upper half of the nation, and its temperatures are brisk. Sun follows the cold, and the 25th and 26th can be some of the brightest days of December. As the New Year’s weather system approaches, however, the sky usually grows cloudy.
--In the warmth of greenhouses, bedding plant seeding is fully underway, and young plants scheduled to be sold in April and May can have four to six leaves. In the barn, expectant ewes, does and cows quietly nurture their babies to be born a few weeks from now. In the cold woods, white-tailed bucks in their gray winter coats are starting to drop their antlers, and the earthstar fungus appears, shaped like a six-pointed star. Multiflora rose buds swell in the sun. One or two pussy willow catkins crack in the thaws.

December 31: The New Year’s front often brings wind and sleet or snow. A 50-percent chance for precipitation begins on the 30th and continues through the 31st, but relatively mild weather accompanies the moisture. After this weather system moves to the east, however, the chill of middle winter grips the nation for the next six to twelve weeks.