Sad times for lettuce, but spinach loves Hawke's Bay's winter wonderland, grower says

Epicurean Supplies owner Clyde Potter braves the cold to forage for winter leafy vegetables. Photo / Warren Buckland

If you're the kind of person who loves spinach and cabbage, it's your time to indulge.

Hawke's Bay's winter vegetables are hardy, and the chill in the air and an abundance of moisture in the ground is doing wonders for the leafy ones.

Owner of Epicurean Supplies in Hastings Clyde Potter said the weather was in a grand solar minimum phase, which meant winter started early and spring would likely come late.

That meant a boon for many winter veges, he said. Just not lettuces.

"The lettuces are starting to look a bit sad," he said.

Potter said the weather, unsurprisingly, had a lot of say in the type of vegetables and fruit which grow in Hawke's Bay.

Hawke's Bay was getting frosts as early as May, Potter said.

"The weather has been colder, this year, than a number of years previously, and has lasted for an extended period of time."

The Chef's Garden at Epicurean grows more than 100 different crops throughout the year, from micro-greens to cavolo nero, and supplies restaurants, supermarkets, organic food stores, food processors, caterers and home cooks.

Clyde Potter says spinach and cabbage are flourishing. Photo / Warren Buckland

It is a good microcosm of what's doing well and what isn't.

"We have plenty of leafy crops ... for us, the lettuce crops should have done well, but they haven't and even the growers are starting to feel it," Potter said.

Kohlrabi, and silverbeet were doing well, as were artichokes, and celeriac was popping up in abundance.

He said other vegetables like beans were frost-tender so they were not being grown, and this winter they were not growing anything from the pumpkin family either.

In terms of fruit, the weather had mostly been normal, Hawke's Bay Fruit Growers Association president Ben James said.

More than 7200 hectares in Hawke's Bay is planted in pipfruit, kiwifruit and summerfruit.

"The cherry and stone fruits are asleep at the moment, but the dry, wet, and cold weather would probably mean a later start to the season," James said.

"But the main that has been impacted by the recent rain is the planting of apple trees.

"The region had been dry for so long, and then it rained. The soil is petrified and the rain caused the top layers to wash away, which meant the planting of apples in orchards has been delayed."

Otherwise it was business as normal, he said.

"It's just the season."