Claire Mummery: These hero herbs will be a game-changer for your garden

Herbs are not only good cooking ingredients, they have myriad other uses too. Photo / Getty Images.

Autumn/winter is a great time to get your herb bed established. Herbs are a great complement to any garden, not only by boosting flavour in all your meals and herbal teas, but also by attracting beneficial insects, as good companions for your vegetable garden and orchard. I like to think of them as great all-rounders in the garden.

The beauty of growing herbs is that a lot of them can be shared with neighbours or friends via root division or cuttings, and autumn is the best time to do this. When dividing up herbs to share, put a spade through part of your established plant and share it with a friend - roots and all - and you will actually find that it makes your original plant more vigorous! This is especially true for the thyme, oregano, marjoram and lemon balm plants. Perhaps they enjoy the gift of giving too …

There are many varieties of thyme available these days and so many of them have such unique flavours that offer something different, depending on your culinary creation. One variety I always grow is Thymus Vulgaris, which is otherwise known as common thyme. This is an upright plant with pointed thyme leaves and is so versatile. It doesn’t take up as much space as cascading thymes and it is great as a mucous expectorant for colds and chesty coughs when drunk as a tea. It is soft and gentle for the little ones in our lives with a wee bit of honey added - worth having in the garden as the weather cools and the winter bugs start to make the rounds.

Lemon balm is a great herb to grow in the corner of the garden or balcony, as it makes such a soothing tea - not only great for any stomach upsets, it is also known for helping you to relax before bedtime. Both thyme and lemon balm make great companion plants for strawberries, so these herbs are well worth making space for.

Where would we be without true oregano? Fantastic for pizzas and dried as part of a mixed herb combination, this hero herb is hardy and will really grow anywhere it is planted. When taking cuttings of oregano, be sure to plant the main stem just under the soil, as this will give it a strong start in life, especially as it likes to cascade over the edge of pots or garden beds, so needs a good solid anchor point. It is a beneficial plant in the garden, as it repels sap-sucking insects like aphids.

Coriander is another fantastic herb to grow in the cooler months of autumn, winter and early spring. It is easy to grow from seed and I find it almost always tends to produce a much stronger plant when grown from seed, likely because it has a very long tap root and, if damaged while transplanting, it can cause the plant to bolt away to seed. Pop a few seeds in the ground close together and wait until it has at least six leaf stems before you start harvesting. Growing this way will mean that, by the time summer comes, your plant will be producing edible flowers and then green seeds, which deliver delicious pops of flavours in salads or stir-fries. Then the seeds will go brown and you can harvest and store these for the following season and for cooking.

To make the most of your herbs and to keep them growing for years to come, be sure to give them a feed four times a year, or at the start of each new season. Remember when transplanting in autumn/winter that we have fewer daylight hours, so above-ground growth will be slow, but rest assured that the roots will be establishing themselves under the soil. Always cut your plants back after flowering to reinvigorate the plant, and take cuttings or root divisions every few years to keep your plants vigorous and reproducing. Then you will enjoy these aromatic plants for life.

For more gardening advice, visit growinspired.co.nz and discover Claire Mummery’s online gardening course at www.growinspiredacademy.com