In Season: May's Fruit and Veges

image by donsutherland1

One part of the Lavender Experiment is to

live greener by: buying our fruit and veges locally and in season.

So I've decided to do a monthly list of common fruit and veges that are currently in season. This tends to help when you go grocery shopping, as in season produce should be cheaper and definitely fresher than its out-of-season friends (yes, I am looking at you, cherries in May!!) and, generally speaking, greener as you should find it to be a local product. Plus, it really should taste better too!

Ideally, you would buy your fruit and veges from local, organic producers, but really, who has the cash or the time to go on ten different trips to local farms? Not me, that's for sure. Most weekends Sparky and I do go for a drive to the Hawkesbury and visit a little farm that sells mostly local, in season produce that's free from chemical sprays, but if we don't have the time we just shop at the local IGA.

(Just a tip for any Sydney folk reading this, the Hawkesbury Harvest Farm Gate Trail is brilliant, and the website has lots of info on local producers, as well as a search by product function where you can find local prodcuers and seasons.)

Aaanyway, May = late autumn, which in my mind equals two delicious things: apples and rhubarb!! But there are a surprising number of options this time of year, with tonnes of Asian greens in season as well as your root veges which are ideal for soups and stews.

Fruits:

apples (bonza, braeburn, fuji, gala, golden delicious, granny smith, jonagold, jonathan, mutso, pink lady, red delicious, snow, sundowner)

banana

cumquat

custard apple

feijoa

grapes (purple cornichon, waltham cross)

kiwifruit

lemons

limes

mandarin (imperial)

melon (champagne)

nuts (chestnut, hazelnut, peanut, walnut)

pears (howell, josephine, packham, red sensation, williams)

persimmon

quince

rhubarb

Vegetables:

asian greens (bok choy, choy sum, gai laan, wonga bok) 

avocados (fuerte, sharwill) 

beetroot 

broccoli 

brussels sprout

cabbage

carrots

cauliflower

celeriac

celery

daikon

eggplant

fennel

leeks

lettuce, 

mushrooms (wild, field, pine, slippery jacks) 

okra

olives

onions (brown, spring) 

parsnip

peas

potato

pumpkin

shallots

silverbeet

spinach

squash

swede

sweet potato

taro

tomato

turnip

witlof

zucchini

*This list is for Australian fruit and vege seasons.

I know for me, shopping in season stretches my cooking muscles in sometimes uncomfortable ways, because it forces me to continuously revisit my go-to meals and start to look at ways of using less common (or less commonly used) veges. I think that can only be a good thing, and I'm aiming to this year start to try a few new recipes that take full advantage of all the good stuff we can grow here in Australia.