June marks the start of winter here in Aotearoa. Night temperatures drop low and day temperatures are cool. We adjust our eating to the vegetables that can be grown in these cold conditions.Â
Our harvest crates are now full of green and leafy plants perfect to be added to a boil up, steamed or gently fried to complete a meal along with egg and bread. We are also harvesting cauliflowers which are very versatile produce. They can be boiled, steamed, mashed, baked, riced, roasted, made into a bake with cheesy white sauce or served in a curry with rice and roti. The cooler temperatures also produce very good lettuces.
These are perfect in salads with other leafy greens such as our rocket and parsley. You can even throw in some cut up, raw cauliflower for extra crunch. Another vegetable that is ready for harvest is yacon. This is a root vegetable that looks like a kumara on the outside, but is crisp when cut into. Yacon can be cut up and eaten raw. They really bulk up a salad into a filling meal for the family.
One of the purposes of the Community Garden is to teach how to grow low-cost, healthy food to sustainably feed ourselves. Every week our harvest crates go from the garden to the Community House to be distributed to the community via Food Bank and the Paataka Kai.
While we are pleased to be able to provide this food we hope that people will think about how easy it is to produce this food for themselves.
Community Garden mornings provide opportunity to work and talk with enthusiastic gardeners. They are a great opportunity to share knowledge and learn how to live a good life, promoting healthy minds and bodies through a diet of fresh food. You are welcome to join us at the garden every Tuesday. Start time varies depending on the season but we are usually onsite around 9am.
