The herbs and vegetables that give me the most food in winter

Australia Broadcast Center

02-05-2025

As the weather starts to cool, growth in the veggie patch slows, but with a few strategic plant choices, I can maintain a steady supply of homegrown food throughout winter.
I'm something of a lazy gardener, with only a city backyard to grow in.
So, over the past few years, I've learnt to prioritise plants that are cheap to get started, compact and easy to grow, yet deliver a decent harvest that has multiple uses in the kitchen.
Here are my top picks for edible plants that deliver the most value in wintertime.
Cut-and-come-again leafy greens
I've never bothered to grow iceberg lettuce — it sits around, inedible, for two months while maturing and then is harvested all at once and gone.
Instead, I focus on quick-growing "cut and come again" lettuce — you pick leaves from the outside and leave the rest to keep growing, ensuring a gradual harvest over many weeks.
And I plant lots of varieties, both to keep things interesting and tasty for myself and as a safeguard in case some fail. This is a practical application of the permaculture principle "use and value diversity", which helps build resilience in your garden.
Spinach is a great cut-and-come-again winter leafy green.
(
Supplied: Koren Helbig
)
My favourite lettuce varieties include
red and green salad bowl
,
oakleaf
and
heirloom Amish deer tongue
, which can also be cooked like spinach.
Mizuna, sorrel
and
rocket
are great cut-and-come-again plants too.
My winter garden also has an endless supply of leafy greens such as
kale, spinach and rainbow chard
, which go into everything from salads and sandwiches to curries, pies, omelettes and even my homemade veggie stock powder.
Veggies that self-seed readily
I like to guarantee myself future free plants by choosing varieties that self-seed prolifically, so it's easy to grow them again and again without needing to purchase more seeds.
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Parsley, dill, borage, amaranth
and
mustard lettuce
are fairly fool-proof self-seeders for beginner gardeners. It's as easy as allowing a couple of the best-looking plants to flower and set seed at the end of each season.
You can collect the seeds and germinate them in pots for planting out. Or simply let them fall to the ground, which builds up the seed bank in your soil and allows plants to germinate when conditions are just right.
This works especially well in winter, when regular rainfall kick-starts the germination process — suddenly you have free edible plants popping up everywhere.
I don't overlook the prolific "weeds" that pop up during cooler months, either. Many are edible and highly nutritious, such as
mallow, cleavers, chickweed, stinging nettle
and
plantain
.
Instead of killing them, I regularly pick and eat them in everything from salads and pesto to soups, curries and pies. I am well versed in
Plants that yield prolifically
Radishes
are often lauded as just about the quickest-growing food plant, ready to pick and eat in as little as four weeks. I like them best when lacto-fermented with a little salt into a crunchy and tart (if a little stinky) probiotic condiment.
But it's
broad beans, peas
and beans that are the real heroes
in my winter garden when it comes to quantities of food — the latter two grown up trellises to save space.
Photo shows
Koren Helbig in her garden, with plenty of summer veggies growing in raised garden beds she filled using hügelkultur.
After building four raised veggie beds in my backyard, I baulked at buying in loads of costly soil and compost to fill them. Instead, I opted for a thriftier route.
They're easy to grow, super nutritious and every part of the plant is edible, including shoots, flowers and leaves — so I can nibble away at the edges while waiting for the main event.
Picked regularly, peas will deliver a harvest for a good month or more.
They're so much more delicious than the frozen ones you buy at the shops — most of mine get eaten straight off the plant and don't even make it to the kitchen.
And a lazy gardener's tip for broad beans: I pick the pods while young, so I can eat the beans whole and sidestep the tedium of having to shell each one first.
Veggies that store well
Turnips and beetroots
are my favourite winter root crops because they grow easily from seed and don't need much space, fertiliser or fuss.
Once picked, they store well for weeks in a lidded container in the fridge and are versatile to cook with — delicious roasted, steamed, or grated fresh into a salad. Pickled beets are extra tasty.
Beetroot grows well from seed and doesn't need much space.
(
Supplied: Koren Helbig
)
I also use winter's chilly soil temperatures to effectively store plants in my garden.
For example, I like to plant a couple dozen leeks by mid-autumn, so they have time to establish before soil temperatures plummet.
In the deep of winter, growth slows almost to a standstill and my leeks will essentially sit in the cold soil and wait, allowing me to harvest one-by-one over many weeks.
With these strategies under my belt, I'm easily able to supplement my diet with something homegrown most days of the week — helping save on my fresh food bill too.
Koren Helbig is a sustainable city living educator who practices permaculture and grows organic food in the backyard of her small urban Tarntanya (Adelaide) home.