Autumn … Waring Wombat Season

“Autumn symbolises the inevitability of change and the beauty of transition. As summer fades away and nature prepares for winter slumber, the autumn season serves as a reminder of life’s ever-evolving nature.”

We are in what Europeans would call autumn and Waring Wombat Season on the Kulin Nation calendar.

It’s a time when temperatures drop, we start to see morning mist (maybe not in the city). It’s the end of daylight savings, the start of football and plants and trees are slowing down as sunlight decreases.

The arc of the sun across the sky changes with each day as it starts shifting south and lowering in the sky. The days start to become shorter and nights longer calling us inside earlier.

Paying attention to our gardens and landscapes around us we notice the change – the golden reds and hues of deciduous tree leaves as they change colour and drop to the ground providing material for soil organisms to decompose and provide nutrients.

These falling leaves represent the changing seasons and the beauty of impermanence. Just as leaves fall, we could let go of patterns, attachments, or regrets that no longer serve us and make space for winter's deeper rest, contemplation and new growth.

In our gardens, autumn is a time to feed our fruit trees and soil with compost, to replace lost nutrients after the heavy growing of the sunny months. Divide perennials and transplant them.

Plant peas, beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, spinach, lettuce all year round, parsnip, all year-round radish, silver beet and rainbow chard.

Harvest black olives and feijoa fruits. Enjoying the harvest is one of autumn’s treats with pumpkins galore.

Remove any summer annuals that have finished flowering and deadhead any perennials. It’s a good time to visit a pine forest for harvesting of mushrooms. Plant bulbs that you would like to flower in spring as when they bloom, they provide food for the early pollinators.

Plant deciduous trees as they are going into a dormant state putting their energy into root growth into the warm autumn soil.

Aligning our lifestyle with the seasons can lead to an eco-friendlier way of living. Eating fruits and vegetables in season means they are typically fresher, more flavourful and nutritious than those out of season. Eating seasonally supports local farmers and reduces the carbon footprint associated with transporting food.

In autumn we can focus on energy saving activities, like sealing drafts in our homes to prepare for winter and putting on warmer clothes and socks rather than turning the heater on.

Living in tune with the seasons can bring a sense of balance, wellbeing, and a deeper connection to the world around us. The changing seasons provide variety as each seasons brings its own set of activities, opportunities and delights. •