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Overview
Maybe you consider yourself something of a Costa Georgiadis in the garden, or maybe you just want to brighten up your concrete-ridden urban existence with your own little floral paradise. Either way autumn is the time to dig in. Free from the baking sun of summer and the wet bog of winter (mostly), now's your chance to hang outside with your leafy friends and let the delight of green growing things keep you warm through the coming cold. To help you out here are some tips on what you should be planting this autumn.
To really get your garden thriving, check out some of the workshops from Green Villages, the City of Sydney's program encouraging sustainable living.
VEGETABLES
Autumn is the time to plant the veggies you'll want on your table in winter and spring. A great variety of leafy greens you can plant now will be perfect for your winter and spring salads, including spinach, rocket, silverbeet and lettuce.
Green beans are an especially great veggie to plant in autumn as they are one of the easiest to grow and give you a good harvest through winter — the more you pick the more they'll produce. For those of you with tiny urban gardens, climbing varieties of beans are a great way to grow a good crop with little space. Beans can easily be grown from seeds or seedlings, but be careful not to over feed them as they will start giving you more leaves than beans.
These leafy greens and the beans all work well as companion plants (meaning they grow better together/they are cute vegetable friends), so it's a good idea to plant them all in a bed next to one another.
FLOWERS
Autumn is a great time to get planting the flowers you want to have blooming for the rest of the year. A great first choice are primulas, because you should only have to wait until winter to see them bloom, giving you a burst colour to compete with grey winter skies. There's even a primulas seed mix you can buy called Lollipops that is sure to look as great as it sounds, with a mix of lavender, pinks, burgundy and white blooms. Plant your primulas in cool, moist areas with well-drained soil for the best show come winter.
Daisies are another great flower to be planting in autumn and are among the easiest flowers to grow. They like well-drained soil and full sunshine, with a bit of general fertiliser early in their growth while they are establishing their stalks. One of the bonuses of growing daisies is that they are self-sowing, so they grow into thicker and thicker bunches, which you can divide and spread around the garden to save them from smothering.
If you're looking for a native daisy species to plant, the Rodanthe species (also know as Paper Daisies or Everlasting Daisies) are a great choice, producing dry petals that will last for extended periods in a vase once cut, so you can bring their colours inside. This native breed prefers sandy soil, good drainage being essential, and shouldn't be watered until the seeds have germinated (takes about a week). After that, water only every two weeks.
HERBS
Whether you're growing them on your windowsill or out the back, nothing is quite so satisfying as a good harvest of home-grown herbs pinched under your nose. Coriander, oregano, parsley, thyme and winter tarragon are all great herbs to plant in autumn and will be great to add into your winter soups and roasts.
If you've already got basil growing in your garden, plant the new herbs as companion plants in the same bed and you can use the basil as a good indicator of when your new herbs are needing water. If your basil is looking thirsty, then your coriander and parsley will be too.
Top image: Fallen Apples via photopin (license).