We begin where every good season begins: with a plan. What can you actually grow through a Portuguese winter, and when does each crop need to go in? We map the autumn planting window, look at what to plant now to harvest before the cold, what will grow slowly through winter, and what overwinters to be picked in spring. You leave with a planting plan shaped to your own land.

We map three groups: crops to harvest before winter, crops to harvest through winter, and crops that overwinter for spring.

The heart of the course. We prepare beds for the autumn planting and get crops in the ground together: direct seeding, transplanting, and the spacing and timing that make the difference between a full winter bed and a disappointment. We work with the crops that need to be planted now to mature before the cold slows everything down.

Planting to harvest before winter: beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, potatoes, parsley root, onions.

The last of the summer abundance is still with us, and none of it should go to waste. Roni leads a session on natural preserving of the summer harvest: figs, tomatoes, peppers, stone fruits and whatever else the land gives us. We learn to use salt, oil, and heat to capture the warm season in a jar and carry it into winter.

Autumn is the time to sow grains and legumes at home scale, and to protect and feed any bed you are not actively cropping. We cover sowing wheat and other grains, planting overwintering legumes like broad beans, and using cover crops to build fertility, hold the soil through the winter rains, and prepare the ground for spring.

We sow: grains, overwintering legumes, and cover crops for soil and fertility.

Olive oil is the backbone of the Mediterranean pantry. As our own harvest approaches, we cover the whole picture: how to read the olive and choose the moment to pick, how pressing works and what determines quality, and the principles of caring for olive trees through the year. Understanding oil is understanding the season itself.

A second preservation session, now working with the autumn harvest. As the beds and trees give their October produce, we build on the first session with more methods: lacto-fermentation, more advanced preserves, and the techniques that turn a glut into a full shelf. Preserving is a rhythm, not a one-off, and we practise it as the season provides.

A winter garden needs different care from a summer one. We cover protecting tender crops from cold and frost, managing the winter rains and drainage, staying ahead of winter weeds and pests, and using simple protection like fleece and low tunnels to keep lettuce and herbs going. The crops sown in September are growing now, and this is how you carry them through.

Harvesting through winter: beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, parsley root, radish, onions, leek, winter spinach, kale. With protection: lettuce, herbs.

Growing the food is half the work; keeping it is the other half. We cover harvesting for storage rather than for the plate, and the methods that need no kitchen: curing onions and garlic, storing roots in sand, keeping crops in the ground as living storage, and building a simple cold store. Done well, a good autumn harvest feeds you long into the new year.

Stored for winter: beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, potatoes, parsley root, onions. Harvested in spring: garlic.

The final session is not a lesson. We gather around a long table and cook together from the garden and the pantry we have built through the season. The beds are planted, the shelves are full, the year ahead is already growing. We eat, we celebrate, and we send you home ready for your own winter garden.