LIFESTYLE NEWS - Take heart, cooler days are hopefully around the corner, which means that there’s no time to lose when it comes to planning your autumn and winter veggie crop.
It can be quite daunting. There are cabbages galore, cauliflower, kale and broccoli, not to mention beetroot, carrots and turnips, all the leafy greens including Asian greens and an array of lettuce, not to forget garden peas and broad beans.
A quick, and easy way to get going is to browse through online catalogues and order seeds online. One such supplier is Gro-Pak which set up an online service during the early days of Covid-19. It supplies seeds for compact veggies for containers and small spaces, as well as heirloom and open-pollinated varieties. Seed is dispatched every working day so that gardeners can order seed as they need it.
When browsing through veggies online it is easy to get over-enthusiastic, says Gro-Pak’s Kathy Varney and her advice is to stick with what you like to eat and what grows best in your type of soil.
To help you make that shortlist, here are four ‘edible’ categories with suggestions for the appropriate veggies:
Veggies for soups, stews and roasts.
Root veggies like beetroot (for roasting), carrots, parsnips and turnips are ideal for slow-cooked, earthy dishes because they absorb the flavours during slow cooking and are hearty and filling. Try these:
Carrot Cape Market is a sweet, cylindrical, medium to the large carrot for roasting or slow cooking. It is harvestable from 90 days onwards and can stay on the ground in cooler weather. Carrot Amsterdam or Carrot Sweetheart are both baby carrots equally good for roasting and stews, as well as a healthy snack.
Beetroot Chioggia Guardsmark is an Italian heirloom with a candy-striped interior and is harvestable within 60 days of germination. Plant in free-draining, light soil in full sun.
Turnip Purple top white globe’ is a quick-growing autumn veggie for containers as well as in the garden. Harvest from 60 days and the younger the turnip the sweeter it is.
