November closes the loop on this zone's earliest planting of the year: garlic, sown back in March, finishes its harvest window this month. Turnip's harvest closes alongside it, while feijoa, lime, passionfruit and broccoli all make their last call to go in the ground for the year.
Quick Answer: What to Sow Now
Twenty crops in total remain open for sowing this November: basil, beans (climbing), beetroot, broccoli, carrot, coriander, courgette, cucumber, feijoa, lettuce, lime, mizuna, pak choy, passionfruit, peas, pumpkin, radish, silverbeet, spinach and tamarillo.
Last Call to Sow: Feijoa, Lime, Passionfruit and Broccoli
Feijoa, lime and passionfruit all close their September–November planting window at the end of this month — miss it and none reopens until next spring. All three go in as potted nursery stock or trays rather than direct into a bed, so this is really a last call to buy and plant rather than to sow seed on a whim. Broccoli's August–November sowing window closes at the same time, the last chance for this year's crop — raise it in trays and transplant at 4–6 weeks, netted against white butterfly from the day it goes in the ground.
Harvest Closes: Garlic and Turnip
Garlic's harvest window ends this month, finishing a cycle that started with this zone's distinctively early March planting — roughly seven months from clove to bulb. That March start was itself the payoff of mild winters giving less natural cold-chilling here than colder zones, and November's harvest is where that whole chain of reasoning actually resolves into bulbs coming out of the ground. Turnip's harvest also closes at the end of this November, so any roots still in the ground are worth pulling now rather than letting them sit into the heat this crop genuinely dislikes.
New Harvest This Month: Eggplant, Kale and Mustard Greens
Eggplant's harvest opens this month — the first fruit from trays started back in June, sown alongside capsicum and tomato but needing a month longer than tomato to reach harvest, since it needs the longest run of warm weather of the tender trio to fruit well. Kale and mustard greens both open their harvest windows too, kale running through to January and mustard greens through to December — both were sown or transplanted back in September and October respectively, and neither needs anything special done to them now beyond regular picking.
Still Sowing
Basil, beans (climbing), beetroot, carrot, coriander, courgette, cucumber, lettuce, mizuna, pak choy, peas, pumpkin, radish, silverbeet, spinach and tamarillo are all still comfortably within their windows from last month, with nothing new to flag for any of them this November specifically. Tamarillo is worth a second look if you haven't started one yet — its October–December window still has a few weeks left, and it's the only sowing chance this crop gets all year, unlike everything else on this list.
Also Cropping This Month
Lemon (cropping since June) and orange (since July) are both still going, alongside tomato (since October). Brussels sprouts remain in their October–November transplant window — last call this year to get seedlings into the ground.
Timing Notes for Sub-Tropical Gardens
This zone's frost window has been closed since the end of September, so nothing above is frost-driven — feijoa, lime, passionfruit and broccoli are closing their sowing windows on their own annual cycle, not because of any change in conditions this month. Garlic and turnip's harvest closing is the same story from the other end: both were always going to finish around now, regardless of what November's weather actually does.
That's worth remembering before assuming every "last call" this month is somehow connected. Sub-tropical NZ genuinely doesn't have a single seasonal trigger doing all the work the way a hard frost date does further south — some of this month's deadlines trace back to a specific planting decision months ago (garlic's March start, the June-sown tender trio), while others are simply how long a particular crop's own window has always run, in this zone or any other.
Know your zone? Explore the full NZ Sub-Tropical Planting Calendar for month-by-month sowing and harvest timing.