Gardening: Time to restock the vege plot

As harvest time draws to a close, it's time to replant the vegetable patch with more produce to enjoy over the cooler months.

What to sow: Hardy all-year-round veges beetroot, spinach, carrots, winter lettuce, radishes and silverbeet.

Use a seed-raising mix as a base to ensure best results.

Carrots will take a week or two to germinate but will establish themselves before long. Thinning of carrots is important in autumn and winter as the growth is slower - thinning enables the roots to develop faster.

What to plant: You can plant most seedlings you find at the garden centre. Seedlings are a brilliant way to fast-track harvest in the vege garden. Now is the perfect time to plant all members of the brassica family (cabbage, caulis and broccoli, bok choy, kale, cavalo nero), as they enjoy the cooler temperatures. Plant at least two hand-widths apart as they will grow quickly.

Spinach and silverbeet enjoy autumn conditions and harvesting can begin within a month or so of planting. Select outer leaves to eat first. In raised planters, add in some more vegetable mix and Novatec fertiliser to give the plants a boost. Spring and summer crops would have gobbled up valuable nutrients and need to be replaced.

Salads: Salad greens can be sown or planted. Mesclun mix will happily germinate and grow through the winter months. Rocket, mizuna, corn salad, chicory and kale will feed you for months if kept well watered and regularly harvested. Lettuce Drunken Lady, a red frilly type of lettuce, thrives in the winter.

Red leafed Radicchio, which Jamie Oliver loves, is a cool season crop too; seeds are probably the best option for this as plants aren't widely available.

Slugs and snails are still around, lay plenty of Quash to deter this enemy from your patch.

If you decide to put up the closed sign for the winter, you may like to give your garden and yourself a holiday.

Treat your soil to a green manure crop - mustard and lupin are popular choices; these act like manure by feeding the soil.

Top tip, economical broccoli: Don't remove broccoli plants once you have cut the first head of broccoli. New smaller heads of broccoli will appear in a few weeks below where the first one was and continue to sprout for the rest of the season. This bonus crop makes it one of the most economical and easy vegetables to grow.