What I’ve been mainly harvesting or what has been ready for harvest for the last month of November.

This period is traditionally the spring transition period and the end of the ‘lean’ period in September and October and things in November start to grow and produce their first fruits for the spring and summer period. There are a few green that have dropped off the ‘best’ list for this month as they go to seed and die back a bit. December will see these all with new seedlings coming up.

All the new sprouts are coming out and up and the root vegetables are starting to mature fully. The herbs are at their very early best with lost of really nice new growth – they usually all sprout early but this month they are in full strong growth.

The first Garlic matures and can be lifted and the main crop of broad beans are being picked early in the month – some will still flower and produce right till the end of December.

The passionfruit are forming on the vine and berries all flowering and starting their run for December harvest.

The first lavender buds are forming and flowering – these can be used for teas and favouring in food.

And there are lots of wild food types around now – such as the LillyPilly and other native foods.

The specific varieties available will vary on the seasons selection and the weather. But these are all examples of what have been harvested at some stage during November

Some perennials are just pulled as needed and there are more specialist items that will come to mind… I’ll keep this up to date as I remember…

Best of the month – First early Garlic, Broad Beans, Artichokes!!, Asparagus!! (Poha) Rhubarb, Lettuce, Wasabi leaf & flowers, Silver beets and new beetroots, new herbs like Anise Hyssop, Mint, Origano & Marjoram, Fistulosum Onions, NZ spinach, new leafy greens like Minutina, red vein sorrel & Dandelions and Lemon Balm.

Leaf

• Lettuce – various – Deer tongue, Devils ear, Romaine, Buttercrunch etc
• Land Cress & Water Cress & other cress like plants
• Pak choy & other related brassica greens – various colours (Komatsuna, Choy sum, Bok choy etc)
• Sorrel – Lamb’s Head & Red Vein
• Silver Beet & Chard & other perpetual leaf beets  – green and coloured
• Salvia Sclarea – new leaf
• Mitsuba – Japanese wild parsley
• Minutuna – Plantago coronopus
• Sow thistle – leaf
• Stridolo
• NZ spinach – Warragul Greens
• other selected salad greens

Allium family

• Chives – poly and garlic
• Leeks – Carentan
• Garlic – new shoots
• Shallot – new shoots
• Onions – bunching var and new shoots – Ishikura, Red Firenze & Tropea
• Rakkyō

Roots & Shoots (Root crops where typically leaf material is possibly also used seasonally)

• Asparagus
• Skirret – new leaf
• Salsify & Scorzonera – roots and  shoots
• Beetroot – roots and shoots
• Mangelwurzel – roots and shoots
• Daikon and other radishes – roots & shoots
• Carrots – roots and leaf
• Turnips – roots and shoots
• Dandelion – roots and shoots
• Horse radish – new shoots
• Fennel – green & bronze leaf
• Hablitzia – new shoots and leaf.

Legumes

• Peas – peas and shoots – Telephone
• Snow Peas
• Broad Bean – new leaf shoots and full pods – various

Assorted

• Cape Gooseberries – Poha berries
• Sugar cane – new growth
• Chili – Santaka, Aji Chanca & Amarillo & Serrano
• Wasabi – fresh Wasabi leaf, stalk and stem & flowers
• Pepino
• Rhubarb
• Kumquat – and other late season citrus fruit
• Lilly Pilly and other wild bush foods

Herbs

• Anise Hyssop – leaf
• Lovage – leaf
• Australian native pepper – leaf
• Mints – various
• Lemon Balm – leaf
• Coriander – Cilantro – seeds and leaf
• Parsley
• Oregano & Majoram
• Salad Burnett
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Nasturtium flowers and leaves
• Calendula – new flowers
• Rose Geranium
• Field balm – Calamintha nepeta & various
• Prostanthera – Incisa, rotundifolia
• Winter Savoury

 Artichokes

 Broad Bean – Chocolate flowered

 First hardneck garlics lifted

 Lavendula angustifolia

 Creek lilly Pilly – Szygium australe

 Passionfruit forming on vines

 Skirret – full growth stage