What I’ve been mainly harvesting or what has been ready for harvest for the last month of October. October is usually yet another tricky month as it is highly variable each year like September. 2015 we had a very difficult period of growth with a couple of rolling heatwaves that got up to over 30c Plus for several days in a row and then the temperatures dropped to 15 for a few days and then back up etc.. This meant that the extremes disturbed a lot of natural fruiting cycles and created issues for many plants like Broad Beans and Garlic that rely on a steady cycle from cold to warm and dry weather. Garlic started to mature and dry off too early and many winter legumes just stopped growing or podding up. However there was still lots of good cropping – especially with he herbs that all sprouted early.

This period is traditionally the ‘lean’ period and September and October are dominated by a small selection of short period seasonal produce – like Asparagus, Artichokes and Broad beans. And all the fantastic Mints start to emerge from winter and the Poha or Cape Gooseberries are at their best ripeness.

Its also time to start preserving all the leftover and ripe citrus like Kumquats and good oranges.

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 October.

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 – Artichokes!!, Asparagus!!! (Poha) Cape gooseberries, Kumquats, Rhubarb, Lettuce, last of the field aged winter pumpkins, Daikon Radish seed pods, Wasabi leaf & flowers, new herbs like Anise Hyssop, Mint, Origano & Marjoram, Rocket, Fistulosum Onions, Turnips, Beetroots, NZ spinach, Parsley & Mitsuba, new leafy greens like Minutina, red vein sorrel & Dandelions and Lemon Balm.

Leaf

• Endive – green curled leaf
• Raddichio & chicory – Red & Green Grummolo, Treviso, Red Orchid, Catalogna
• Lettuce – various – Deer tongue, Devils ear, Romaine, Buttercrunch etc
• Mizuna – purple & green
• Mibuna
• Mustards
• 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
• Rocket – Eruca & Wild rocket
• 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

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

 Sprouting Broccoli – purple

 Artichoke

 Minutina