Autumn is traditionally viewed as a time for winding down the food garden, but it doesn’t need to be that way. With a cost-of-living crisis on our doorstep, Diana Noonan gives practical advice on adopting a waste-free approach to harvesting and preparing a garden that will provide fresh produce throughout the chilliest (and priciest) periods of the year. With plenty of heat still in the sun, and soil as warm as toast, there’s every reason to be gardening and growing right now!

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Care for the chaos!

At this time of year, the garden can look tired and unruly. But beneath the chaos, there’s a wealth of food. Check beneath long grass, browning vines, and wilting bushes for pumpkins, squash, and marrows (overgrown zucchini). If they’re mature, snip them off with about 4cm of stem attached, and leave them in a warm, dry spot (turning daily) for a week, to harden up their shells so that they store well for winter. Remove dead leaves from silver beet, celery, and brassica to prevent disease setting in. Hoe up around carrots and parsnip (and any potatoes you are not ready to dig) to prevent roots and tubers from turning green.

Autumn action

There is a whole raft of autumn and winter vegetables that can go in the ground now (see ‘sow and transplant’ suggestions below and right). If you don’t already have a garden bed established, chip off grass and weeds from a patch of healthy ground, dig and chop up the soil, add organic nutrients such as seaweed and compost, and cover in a mulch of organic pea straw or organic pine needles to prevent weeds re-establishing. This fresh, rough ground is best for seedlings, but can still be used for sowing providing you create shallow depressions of fine compost to receive the seed.

Already established gardens (and greenhouses) will have served you well over summer, but now the soil is hungry. Dig (or stir), into any spare sections of garden, mature compost, chopped seaweed, organic bone meal, and rock phosphate. Water well with liquid fertiliser before sowing seed, or transplanting seedlings. If seedlings include brassica (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale), cover with insect mesh to prevent white butterfly destroying them before they gain traction. Pick off slugs and snails after dark, using a torch to spot the pests. Your best chance of success with winter vegetables is to give them the best possible autumn start while there is still warmth in the soil.

TIP: Interplant brassicas with strong-scented companion plants such as mustard, marigolds or
pyrethrum daisy to disguise them from white butterfly.

Protein power

Autumn is the season of garden protein. Those peas and beans you missed when you were harvesting back in summer are now a valuable winter food source. If the weather is fine, leave them on the vine to finish drying. If there’s dampness in the air, pick them and finish off their drying on a sunny window ledge indoors before packing into jars with sachets of food-grade desiccant. Reconstitute by soaking, then boiling or steaming, and use in winter soups and stews.

Path preparation

Wild weather will soon be on its way, and with it, the danger of slips and falls in the garden. Don’t leave it until winter to prepare or improve your garden paths. If using gravel or grit, make it deep so that soil and debris wash well through and doesn’t create an environment for grass and weeds to flourish. Better still, consider laying down organic, untreated sawdust over a weed-proof layer. Sawdust provides grip (except in icy conditions), and as it weathers and rots down, it can be shovelled up and placed on the compost before a new layer is added to the paths. As well as providing safe access around the garden, well-constructed paths also avoid soil compaction and help keep vegetables healthy.

TIP: Use cardboard, layers of newspaper and/or bio-degradable underlay or carpet to create weed-proof layers under paths. Check to ensure the carpet does not have a nylon weave.

Take stock!

Avoid food waste by harvesting any leafy herbs that are past their best or which have run to seed (think: dill, fennel, parsley, and parcel). Gather vegetables such as over-mature celery, spring onions that are running to seed, and corn which is no longer tender. Chop up your harvest finely, and dry it in a slow oven or dehydrator. Wizz the dried edibles into powder, and combine with brewers yeast and seasoning to create dried stock for winter soups and casseroles. Check the internet for recipes.

TIP: Dry herbs by hanging bunches in a well-ventilated area. They look and smell great. When dry, crumble into jars for winter use.

Cold composting

Autumn is clean-up time in the garden and this material can be used in a winter compost. While summer composts heat up with relative ease, cool-season composts break down more gently, and as they do, they don’t ‘cook’ the micro-organisms that are so beneficial in the garden. Just remember, however, that a cool compost is unlikely to destroy plant material completely, so keep perennial weeds out of it. And when you use it on your garden, cover it with a deep mulch to prevent the germination of composted seeds. A cool-season compost will benefit from a waterproof covering to avoid nutrients washing through over the rainy season.

TIP: Spent plants, twigs, and dead and decaying vegetable leaves provide habitat for beneficial insects, skinks, and geckos, but also for slugs and snails so hunt out the pests. 

Let there be light!

Over the summer, your greenhouse covering will have collected a decent layer of dust. As you oust the remains of your warm season plants, and before you bring in the next lot of seeds and seedlings, wash down the inner and outer sides of the greenhouse glass or polythene with warm soapy water. This will allow the maximum amount of light and heat to enter into the undercover space and promote winter growth.

Grape work!

Table grapes are coming on stream thick and fast – sometimes a little too fast for us to take advantage of. While the traditional way to deal with a grape glut is to juice the fruit and discard the skins and pulp, we all know that whole foods are healthy foods. This year, instead of saving only the juice of excess grapes, pick off the ‘berries’ and pop them into the freezer to use over winter. They can be added to smoothies, as a natural sweetener, along with kale and beetroot.

Sow me now 

(In all but the coldest regions.)
Flowers: Hollyhock, nasturtium, phacelia, viola, spring bulbs.
Herbs: Coriander, chervil, rocket, chives, spring onions.
Veges: Autumn mesclun mix, Asian greens, cornsalad (Valerianella locusta), radish,
daikon radish, winter spinach, broad beans.
In warm regions only: carrot, beetroot, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale.
Note: in very cold regions, sow quick-growing pea shoots and micro-greens under cover.

Transplant me now 

Flowers: Winter colour (polyanthus, primula, Iceland poppies, pansies).
Herbs: Most woody herbs including rosemary, sage, thyme, marjoram, and already-established potted lavender. Hardy leafy herbs including parsley, parcel, and sorrel.
Veges (by early February in cooler regions, and by March in warmer places): Brassica – especially spring cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli (including purple winter-sprouting broccoli), winter-lettuce, silverbeet, perennial beet, leeks, and celery.

Diana Noonan lives in the Catlins where she grows 70 percent of her food using a variety of methods including permaculture food forest to French intensive. 

School holidays, trips to the beach, and a house full of visitors – all great fun – but not so helpful when it comes to finding time for a garden in full swing. Diana Noonan shares labour-saving techniques so you can keep on top of the garden chores while enjoying the summer and the culinary delights it produces.

We hope you enjoy this free article from OrganicNZ.  Join us to access more, exclusive members-only content.

Delay harvest

When so many garden edibles come on stream in early to midsummer, it can feel overwhelming, especially when you want to do your best to avoid food waste. But there are ways to slow down the rate at which you need to harvest. Peas and beans don’t have to be picked fresh. In fact, left to mature on their vines, they will dry into autumn, and provide a valuable source of protein for winter storage. They will also supply you with seeds to sow next season.

Unless you require the garden space for another crop, roots such as potato, Jerusalem artichoke, yacón, and beetroot, store best when left in the ground (at least until the cold, wet weather arrives). Other than in a wet summer, where fungal disease can be a problem, alliums such as shallot, onion, and garlic, will all but dry off, in situ, so leave them where they are to get on with the job. Devote your limited harvesting and processing time to hearting brassica, leafy salad greens, squash, corn, and greenhouse produce. The rest will wait for you.

Going green

Constructing a well-made compost stack is enjoyable, but it’s no walk in the park. So, whether you’re busy with a young family, or not as energetic as you once were, a ‘green manure crop’ is an excellent alternative. And in cooler parts of the country, late summer (rather than the traditional autumn period) is the time to sow it.

A green manure crop produces plants that can be chopped down and lightly dug back into the soil in late winter or early spring. It will provide similar garden nutrients to compost, but is easy-care, and also acts as a living mulch to protect the soil in harsh weather. When choosing a green manure crop for your garden, consider what will grow best in your region, and also your crop rotation plan (don’t, for example, grow a manure crop in the brassica family if you plan to grow brassica in the same spot immediately after it). Seed for green manure crops include mustard, lupin, vetch, field peas, buckwheat, rye, and tick beans.

Pick and choose!

Let’s face it, there are only so many hours in a day, even in summer, and sometimes it’s simply not possible to attend to ousting all the weeds at once. Over summer, when weed growth is at its height, I prioritise. Anything in flower is chopped and dropped. This stops seed setting, and also provides a nitrogen-rich mulch for the soil. Weeds which smother from above, such as cleaver and Chilean flame creeper, are next on my list because they quickly shut out light and put paid to whatever is underneath. Deep-rooted weeds (think dock and buttercup) are time-consuming to dig, so they are doused in a pine needle mulch until I can attend to them. Serious invasives, such as couch and kikuyu grass, go under black plastic to be solarised. Nitrogenfixers, such as clover and vetch, stay where they are, contributing to the soil, until there’s time to dig them up and add them to the compost

Warning: water can harm your plants!

In summer, our thoughts automatically turn to keeping our soil damp. But even in dry periods, there are situations where water can do more harm than good. The first is in the deep-root crop beds. Carrot, parsnip, salsify, burdock, and horse radish grow strong, straight roots only when they are required to head down deep in search of moisture. Water these roots, especially lightly, and you’ll only encourage them to head up and out to lap up the moisture. If drought conditions absolutely require you to water these crops, do so infrequently, and be generous with the moisture so it sinks down deeply.

Over summer, water can also be a danger in the greenhouse. In this hot environment, we can easily overestimate the amount of moisture plants require, and saturate the soil. This inhibits oxygen penetrating down into the root zone where it is vitally needed. I use the knuckle test to decide when my greenhouse requires water. I insert my finger into the soil to the second knuckle. If my finger comes out clean, it’s time to water. If soil adheres, I wait.

Water can also be a killer in summer, when sprayed onto crops with dense foliage (runner beans and peas are a classic example). Evaporation in these situations is slow, and before you know it, fungal disease has set in, and your plants are succumbing. I try to water all my plants at ground level to keep moisture off foliage, and I water early in the day when there are plenty of sunshine hours left to dry off any splashes

Flower power

It’s sap-sucker season – in both the garden and the greenhouse! But when you’re growing organically, these pest insects don’t need to spell disaster. That’s because your aim isn’t to eliminate them entirely from your garden, but simply to keep them in balance so that they don’t overwhelm your crops.

I achieve this in several ways. First and foremost, I keep my plants in top condition, because sap-suckers are opportunistic, and prey on the weakest first. I water regularly and deeply, and mulch to lock in moisture. I feed my greenhouse plants every ten days with liquid fertiliser so that they develop strong, mandible-resistant stems. I make sure my garden beds are well-stocked with nutrients before planting, so that leafy green growth is rapid enough to out-compete attack. I allow my herbs, which are scattered throughout the garden, to flower profusely so that their blooms are a haven for the beneficial insects that devour sap-suckers. And if the battle is a tough one, I don rubber gloves, and squish pests with my fingers (my aim is to knock them back, not to get every last one). As a last resort, I treat foliage (that isn’t intended to be eaten) with a liquid soap spray*.

*Dissolve 1/4 tsp of hard bathroom soap in 1 litre of hot water. Allow to cool before spraying onto non-edible foliage every 3 to 4 days.

Sow me now 

Flowers: Ageratum, calendula,
cleome, cornflower, cosmos,
nicotiana, nasturtium, phacelia,
sunflowers, sweet William, zinnia.
Herbs: Basil, borage, dill, chervil,
marjoram, oregano, summer savory,
tarragon.
Veges: Beetroot, broccoli, bunching
and spring onions, cabbage, carrot,
cauliflower, dwarf beans, late
potatoes, leeks, lettuce, radish.

Transplant me now 

Flowers: Asters, coreopsis, cosmos,
dwarf sunflowers, marigolds,
nasturtiums, rudbeckia.
Herbs: Basil, borage, chives,
lemongrass, marjoram, rosemary,
sage, thyme.
Veges: Broccoli, cauliflower and
cabbage (in cooler regions only),
cucumber, lettuce, leeks, purple
winter-sprouting broccoli, tomato,
zucchini.

Diana Noonan lives in the Catlins where she grows 70 percent of her food using a variety of methods including permaculture food forest to French intensive.