A warm autumn is great for the garden

Autumn is again bringing warm weather to a season that is generally the driest of the year in much of our cool/cold climate region. This is great for our vegetable garden as persistent warmth means summer vegetables will continue to grow and ripen.

Other veggies, such as the chards and brassicas, will keep pace and continue to be productive as long as regular watering continues.

Alongside this predicted warmer-than-usual autumn is the real risk, according to BoM, of autumn heat waves and storms.

As gardeners, we can only do our best to prepare for such extreme weather events. Strategies include, for example, having shade cloth that can be used as a temporary cover to protect plants, especially seedlings and young veg, from heavy rain, hail or heat extremes. Watering ahead of very hot weather and making sure plants are well fed and strong so they have a chance to survive and thrive is also necessary.

Heading into autumn, the garden deserves a good helping of rich compost, lime/dolomite, blood and bone and a liquid or pelleted complete fertiliser. Existing plantings will benefit from a boost, especially if the month is one of weather extremes.

There are many wonderful vegetables and herbs that thrive in autumn.

A favourite is coriander. However, if temperatures climb, it can very quickly go to seed.

Coriander, although sun-loving, can tolerate partial shade, which can help deter bolting, as it can water well and prevent the soil around the plant from drying out.

It is quick-growing and when planted from seed will offer a plant of a harvestable size in 35 to 45 days. If coriander is one of your favourite herbs, you may want to plant a few small pots each week so that if one batch fails, you have a backup.

Also pots can be moved around in anticipation of damaging weather. For aficionados, it may well be worth such an effort just to have the herb in the garden for as much of autumn as possible. You might find excellent seeds for planting under the label “Slow bolting”. When planting coriander seedlings, a punnet of relatively young seedlings will do well if planted out close together in a group, soon after purchase.

Another herb that suits autumn planting is chervil. It is also known as French parsley or garden chervil, which distinguishes it from non-culinary similarly named plants, of which there are a few.

Chervil doesn’t seem to be grown much anymore, which is a shame, because it has a delicate, interesting flavour reminiscent of a combination of parsley and tarragon with a faint flavour of licorice. Some of the tried and true uses of chervil include egg dishes, poultry dishes, salads, soups, virtually anything French, and the one place it is often considered absolutely essential: Bearnaise sauce.

It is pretty easy to grow and is generally a biennial in cool climates, although removing seed stalks can keep it going for longer. Frequent hard frosts will cause dieback, but if trimmed, our experience says it will regrow. It may be difficult to find chervil seedlings, but since it grows well from seed, all is well. Planting now means it will be small but edible by late April.

Interestingly, the plant has a long tap root, which is easily damaged if seedlings are transplanted, so sow where you plan to grow. Like carrots, keep the seeds in moist soil until the emergence of a proper seedling leaf. It comes in flat-leafed and curly varieties. It likes a friable, crumbly soil with lots of organic matter. Regular watering with a complete liquid fertiliser will produce a lovely, healthy plant.

Lots of vegetables can be planted in early autumn. All the usual root vegetables such as carrot, parsnip, swede and European turnip can be planted as seed directly in the garden.

While we often turn our nose up at these vegetables, they are a mainstay of the winter garden – fabulous in warming soups and stews. Turnips have a mild taste, with a slight hint of peppery spice, sweetness and cabbage. Swedes are turnips originating in … Sweden. They are bigger, have tougher skin and yellow flesh, and are much hardier than turnips. They grow really well in icy conditions.

The taste of both turnip and swede can become more intense and the texture becomes woodier the older they become.

Fresh parsnip, swede and turnip from your garden will surprise you with their flavour. Also, all those lovely Asian greens – mizuna, mibuna, the choys – can be planted as seedlings now. Leafy greens: lettuce, silverbeet, and the big brassica (cabbage, cauli, broccoli, and broccolini) can be planted as seedlings or propagated now for late autumn to early winter planting.

Kohlrabi is another delicious member of the brassica group and unique in that it grows more like a beetroot than anything else. It comes in white (really, a very pale green) or purple. The leaves are very tasty when added to a stir fry and the peeled bulbs can be cooked or used raw in a coleslaw. This incredibly versatile vegetable deserves to be grown and eaten more often. It does well in our cool/cold climate and like all brassicas it likes lots of compost, well-rotted manure, blood and bone, lime/dolomite or gypsum and a complete pelleted fertiliser to set it up for its early life.

It copes with a good thick mulch, which is worth applying given we are entering what is generally a drier season in our cool/cold climate region and also likely to be warmer than normal. They grow well in a sunny spot without too much fuss or attention. If the stems get spindly or bent, the plant is under nutritional or weather-related stress of some kind. So watch for that and correct it with nutrients.

Your reward for growing kohlrabi will be the best coleslaw you have tasted; a lovely addition to your roasted veg collection and a new vegetable for a quick pickle, a stir fry or your steamer. At this time of year, there are still white butterfly caterpillars around who just love any member of the brassica family. Also keep an eye out for aphids and snails.

Bronwyn Richards and Helen Lynch run Wynlen House Artisan Village Farm and Learning Centre, a small village organic market garden in Braidwood, NSW. Since 2006 they have grown and sold fresh vegetables, eggs, preserves and garlic, and teach others to do the same.