Autumn in the garden ticks along at a quiet hum. Quickly waning daylight hours alongside warm days, warm soils and cool nights means growth starts to wind down but the garden remains steadily productive without being overwhelming.
It’s been a relatively dry and mild autumn so far, which has meant keeping up with watering as plants sneakily wilt behind my back, The heavy morning dew tricks me into thinking the soil has a lot more moisture than it actually does and while we’ve had a few showers this month it definitely hasn’t been enough.
This could also be the beginning of a longer term pattern as meteorologists are predicting a super El Nino which would see a drier autumn and winter. That may change how I do things this winter, and I’m already thinking some late autumn mulch for the veg beds might be a wise move.
The (frankly overzealous) silverbeet seedlings I planted in late summer are already turning into a mini jungle so I’m sneaking it into stews, sauces and casseroles by the handful. Similarly my cabbages bulked up way faster than I expected – probably due to the heaps of compost, worm casting and sheep manure they had access to, so by next month I’ll be starting on new batches of sauerkraut as well as Asian style cabbage wrapped pork rolls (hands down my favourite meal to make with cabbage). Nettles are also starting to emerge throughout my garden beds – which often raises an eyebrow when I talk about it, but they’re an absolutely delicious leafy green – especially cooked up in a spanakopita.
April is also apple season – what the valley is renowned for, and sees a constant stream of apple laden bins up my road. My own few trees also pumped out a massive crop this year – but luckily they’ll keep in storage for a while longer as I try to figure out what to do with them all. I harvested my grapes earlier in the month and although I get pretty decent regular crops out of them, the spot where I planted them is difficult to completely net and despite all the free food around, blackbirds will absolutely ravage a grape vine if they find their way in (which they invariably do). Once again, I’d like to have strong words with whatever muppet decided introducing blackbirds into Australia was a good idea.
I also tried out multi-sowing beetroot early this year, putting 3 seedlings in one hole and just taking out the largest ones as they size up. It seems to have worked well and I did my first batch of pickled beets from summer-planted seedlings.
Other crops of note this year were my quinces – which were huge but many of them had split which is a first for me. Still edible but the split causes rot to set in relatively quickly so I used up the most urgent cases and made a batch of quince confit as well as a Greek baked quince recipe where they are stuffed with sugar, sultanas, walnuts, brandy and butter.
On the other end of the size spectrum, my ever-reliable Chilean guavas are ready to be harvested. Fortunately they stay ripe on the shrub for a very long time and for some reason the birds don’t seem very interested. It’s a fair amount of work to get a handful but absolutely worth it.
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