Solution 1. Move in with Grandma, or even Great Grandma … assuming Grandma, or GG, is a passionate gardener – a skill and dedication that was more common a generation or three ago.

If you don't have a grandma or GG (or at least not one with a flower-filled garden) see if you can rent someone else's. Look for granny flats surrounded by flourishing gardens – often rented out by grannies rather than occupied by them – or converted garages, where you can enjoy the flowers without the sweat and skill.

You may even find a gardener who badly needs help to keep their garden glorious. They get the benefit of your strong back (and your back will be strong after a few months of gardening … or it will be crook, if you don't lift carefully and follow instructions).

You will learn two of the most valuable skills in life: how to fill your garden with flowers and, possibly, how to grow your veg, fruit and herbs thus saving you tens of thousands of dollars in food bills – and even more in doctor's bills because of the fresh produce, your extra fitness, increased vitamin D levels and regular peaceful episodes in your life. An hour of gardening can take a train wreck of a day and turn it into one that is calm and productive.

Solution 2. Rent/buy an already flower-filled garden and hire a gardener. Sorry, delete this one: this is supposed to be about the free options …

Alternative Solution 2. Do not move in with the above gardener, but put polite notes in letter boxes offering unpaid help in return for lessons and big bold bunches of beauties (the flowers, not the household's daughters) and possibly a cabbage or six.

Solution 3. This is the season of seeds: veg going to seed, flowers dripping seeds from withered petals, even rose seeds in red, ripening hips. Harvest, shake, look up a useful book in the library on what needs what and how long you will need to wait for it – my New Plants from Old is only one of many. Then get planting. The useful book will also tell you how to take hardwood cuttings at this time of year, which is another way to get lots, which is what every garden needs. Always be generous with your garden, not to mention to every passer-by who will enjoy it.

Don't have your own garden from which to harvest seeds and cuttings? Look for the most abundant garden in your area and offer some winter work – like digging up and thinning dahlia bulbs, dividing the agapanthus, pruning the roses or daisies or deciduous hibiscus. Those withered dahlias may also have seed heads – you can grow dahlias surprisingly fast from seed and get some gorgeous – or hideous – surprises from the results. A well-fed and watered dahlia grown from seed may give you a solid bush and abundant flowers by late January. You may get grevillea cuttings, banksia or wattle or strawflower seed. If necessary, have secateurs in one hand and the "how to take cuttings book" in the other, but in a truly stunning garden you may even find a gardener who knows their onions, not to mention their melaleucas and will show you how to get yours too.

One word of warning: we were given "volunteers" from a neighbour's garden decades ago – violets, lemon balm, lamium, jasmine, potato vines … and are still trying to eradicate them. Anything that gives masses of seedlings or spreads across the ground too lavishly is called a weed. Avoid.

Another warning: hybrid seeds may resemble one parent or another. Go seeds that declare "new hybrid variety" as their granddad may have been hardy but tasteless, colourless or otherwise boring - but very hardy indeed and worth perpetuating some of his genes.

You can also plant your fruit and sometimes vegie leftovers. Most fruit you buy has –sadly – been cold stored which means that, just as deciduous fruit needs winter chilling before it germinates, the pips or seeds in your fruit cores can be planted now, to germinate in spring. Give them a year of cosseting before you plant them out and, with fingers crossed, you'll have good fruit in about four years, only one year longer than it would take if you planted a more advanced tree, as it will have had less shock changing from its early environment to your garden.

Apples, oranges, plums, peaches, cumquats, tangelos, pears, persimmons, lemons, limes, grapes … they may not be identical to their parents, but will be pretty close. Sadly, bananas won't give you viable seed or not unless you have found some wild ornamental variety.

But on the other hand, do the "just a cup of coffee trick". Work out how many bulbs, banksias, camellias etc you can buy each week with what you spend on takeaway coffees. Which will give you joy for longest? Bring your coffee in a thermos from home for just half of the time (you'll savour the other 50 per cent all the more). But one new plant a fortnight will give you a lot of tucker, beauty or both combined.

It is worth remembering that for most of humans' gardening history, plants were given away as seeds or cuttings, and rarely bought, except by the most wealthy and most lavish. A cottage gardener might be given "slips" by the head gardener of the local lord's estate and they, in turn, would pass on "slips" too. Buying plants is one of my favourite indulgences. But it is also good to go back to the heart of gardening: giving to others and treasuring the generosity of the earth without a cent needing to be exchanged.

This week I am:

* transplanting leeks so they grow fat, not tough and skinny;

* marvelling at how long proteas last in a vase – at least three weeks and maybe longer if you keep them out of direct sunlight and remember to change their water;

* realising that the sasanqua camellia I pass on the way to town that was planted about five years ago, is now roof-top high and covered with single blooms, a testament to what a dedicated gardener can do with regular watering and feeding. Sansanqua camellias may have the least spectacular blooms of the camellia family, nor are the bushes as rounded and glossy as some other members, but they are fast, hardy, and if you get the timing right i.e. beginning in mid-autumn, they'll give you flowers for months. (On the other hand, if they flower when its hotter, you'll get a magnificent flush and then just greenery for another 10 months.);

* thanking Bryan for trimming the front steps – it makes coming home late at night much easier with all that foliage out of the way; and

* cutting back the dead tree fern fronds from last summer (though I suspect there'll be many more in next summer's head) but a tree fern can thrive on surprisingly little water, as long as you pour it right on top so it sinks in and don't bother about the roots. The water you brush your teeth in does well, or the cold water in the kettle you need to throw out before you fill it again for a cup of tea (double boiled water – or triple boiled – has a flat taste. Try it and see. The best cuppas are always made fresh: fresh water and fresh tea, loose leaf, and a tea cosy, to help it brew.

I have eaten many flourless chocolate cakes since the craze began. All would be better called chocolate bricks or chocolate sludge and none felt light enough to truly be called cake, nor chocolatey enough. If I am going to indulge in cake calories, they need to be superlative.

And then I ate my niece's a few weeks ago, left over from a dinner party, and my faith in flourless chocolate cakes was restored. This one is deeply chocolatey, extraordinarily rich and gorgeous. It is also highly alcoholic and adults only, especially with its coffee content too. One piece at 4pm will put/keep you sparking until midnight.

260g extremely good dark chocolate, broken into pieces, at least 70 per cent chocolate – forget about the cheap "cooking chocolate" for this one.

250g butter
1 tbsp strong coffee
8 eggs, separated
250g brown sugar
½ cup cocoa (for extra bite)

Topping:

1 cup raisins
½ cup rum
½ cup strong as possible black coffee, hot

Cover the raisins with the hot coffee. Leave until cool, add the rum, then leave overnight or up to a week, until the raisins are soft and fat and the coffee and liqueur slightly thicken with their juice.

Grease a cake tin and line with baking paper. If possible, use a pan where the bottom can be removed – this cake is heavy but fragile.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave in 10-second bursts. It won't look melted so stir each time. If you overcook the chocolate it will turn grainy and useless. Stir until smooth, then stir in the coffee and set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until they are pale, smooth and doubled in volume. Gently fold in the cocoa powder. Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until smooth.

Gently mix the chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture, then very, very gently mix in the egg whites. Even more gently, pour into the tin. Bake at 150C for about 40-50 minutes until it springs back when you touch the top. Cool in the tin.

Turn out, then top with the raisins and their liquid. To be really lavish, scrape chocolate curls and add them to the top.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream, or creme fraiche. I like the whipped cream version, especially if the cream is very slightly sweetened and coffeed: 1 tablespoon of sugar to two cups cream to ½ cup very, very strong coffee. Your faith in the power of chocolate will be restored.