Gardening: Winter feasts ahead

Meg Liptrot's autumn harvest includes pumpkin varieties Musquee de Provence and Amish Pie. Photo / Meg Liptrot

Take advantage of the daylight hours and make hay (or compost) while the sun shines. We'll be turning back the clocks on daylight saving in two weeks, and it won't be long before we'll be coming home in the dark after work. So enjoy gardening in the warm early evenings while you can.

It has been a dry, hot summer, and one upside of Cyclone Pam is that our parched soils got a drink, just in time for autumn planting.

In addition, plenty of nutritious seaweed will have washed up on East Coast beaches. Organic gardeners love this sought-after ingredient for healthy soil.

Embrace your food-growing heritage
Squirrel away the last of your autumn harvest. Knowing how to store produce correctly is vital when growing your own food. This is as important now as it was in our grandparents' day, as a little knowledge reduces waste.

Store pumpkins in a dry, airy location and leave a decent stalk on them to dry and reduce the chance of stem rot.

Store apples spaced out on racks in a ventilated, cool location, away from pumpkins and other fruit, as the ethylene gas from apples increases the speed of ripening and decreases the shelf life of other fruit. Pears such as beurre bosc are good keepers.

Dehydrate sun-ripened tomatoes and fragrant herbs or preserve in a sauce or relish.

Make compost, boost your soil
Pull out crop residues, dry leaves and annuals past their best. Layer dry brown and green waste in your compost bin.

Add kitchen scraps, seaweed or chook manure to give the heap digestive fire, sprinkle with water and add a couple of handfuls of lime to achieve a nice, hot heap which will break down quickly.

Digging compost into your autumn garden will improve moisture retention in your soil and make it easier for plants to develop healthy root systems. At our place we make plenty of vermicast from our worm bin, but not enough compost, so I bought Living Earth's Organic Vege Garden mix (which is compost-based) for the depleted soil along our citrus hedge.

Now that the tomatoes and pumpkins are finished in this narrow roadside garden, I've also added dolomite lime, organic manure-based fertiliser and rock dust, and have planted kale, plus flowers for beneficial insects - allysum, chrysanthemum "Snowland" and white cosmos to brighten up the spot.

Get winter crops in - broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, silverbeet, cold-tolerant cos lettuce and carrots. Brassicas prefer soil on the alkaline side, so add lime or dolomite before planting.

Leaves a bit yellow?
If your citrus are feeling the effects of dry soil and looking the worse for wear, give them a good soak with liquid fertiliser or topdress with manure-based fertiliser and compost, and water well to encourage fruit as they start to form. If the leaves are yellowing, mix Epsom salts into your watering can for quick effect, or apply dolomite lime for longer lasting results.

Flower garden focus
In the flower garden it's time to prune perennials and pull out annuals that have stopped flowering. Prepare the soil for your next planting effort. Allow roses to set hips for autumn and winter colour. Rosa mutabilis and other long flowering roses can be deadheaded to encourage blooms throughout autumn.

Deadhead dahlias every couple of days and you'll be rewarded with continuous colour until the plants die back in winter.

Cut back your hydrangeas before winter, or leave the dry heads for an autumnal look in the garden, and prune in early spring instead. Remove weak old growth right down to the base.

Vigorous healthy stems should be pruned back to a fat bud.

Plant spring flowering bulbs now. To get more plants free, divide established bulb clumps in your garden to spread the cheer.

Lush lawns
Scarify lawns using a wire rake to break up thatchy dead grass and to aerate. Now is a good time to sow lawn seed to repair patchy areas. Keep newly sown areas moist.

Mix natural water-retaining granules into the surface of your prepped soil to give germinating seeds a chance to establish.

Tackle bush weeds
Target invasive weeds while growth is dormant. Work up a sweat and dig the lot out, roots and all. My uncle dug out a huge heap of kahili ginger from the bush at their Titirangi property this month.

Wage weed war

The WeedFree Trust and Keep Waitakere Beautiful are running their annual "War on Weeds" action in West Auckland until March 31. For more info, locations of bins and the type of weeds to put in them, go to

kwb.org.nz/war-on-weeds/