My Autumn Vegetable Garden: Death, rebirth and the cycle of life

Autumn is a time to reflect. As the tomatoes decline, the sunflower's wither and hang dried from their stems, I think of my own decline and mortality and the impermanence of all things. As with the leaves fall from the grapevine, I too, as with you, will sooner or later, become part of the earth, the universe, once more.

Autumn is a time to enjoy your successes, a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries and an abundance of herbs; to savour each warm day before the cold sets in and the long wait for spring begins. It is a melancholic time but also a time to plan, to move that black currant, or cherry tree that hasn't been doing so well, and to smile at the little green lemon that sits on the top of the tree amongst another promising blossom.

For me any success I have comes form working with nature, to cultivate a small piece of cultivated wilderness. Water always follows the easiest course. With this philosophy I haven't had much of a fight with weeds, for like in nature I have made sure all the nooks and crannies that weeds might occupy were already planted with herbs and flowers compatible with the larger tress, canes and vegetables. At the edge of my stairs I have planted oregano, alyssum, strawberries, camomile. In the corners and gaps between plants I have parsley, marigolds, lavender, and in the shadier areas between the raspberry canes and the fence I have various mints and fragrant herbs, pennyroyal, chocolate mint and lemon balms.

All of this has lead to a garden that looks wild, and like the wild, it tends to look after itself, with a balance that allows the predators – a thousand and one spiders, praying mantis and ladybugs – to keep down the caterpillars, flies, aphids and the like without the needs for dangerous sprays. It is a garden even tough enough to withstand Fluffy, our pet rabbit, who has made trails through the tomato plants and amongst the raspberry canes, with little cool spots here and there to protect himself from the 40 C plus temperatures of the summer.

Borrowing on the ideas of Fluffy, instead of air-conditioning I have grapes growing over the back veranda to provide shade in the summer, but let the light in through the winter, along with a moonflower vine that covered our kitchen window and which soon will die, but hey it was fun why it lasted, and a casuarina tree, fast growing and in a spot that will give a shady spot to sit in another year or two, but won't shade out my raised bed garden, full of basil, lemon grass, more parsley and whatever else I decide to plant there in the spring – once my garlic bulbs have sat through the winter and are ready to harvest.

Autumn, yes, it is a time of death, but to the attuned gardener it is just part of the bigger cycle of nature, of death and rebirth, where nothing is permanent and nothing remains the same.