Summer is moving to autumn quite quickly and some of the fruit being harvested this week includes apples, pears, nashi pears, feijoas, passion fruit, limes along with new season green and gold kiwifruit. There is a good supply of Hawke's Bay apples with Ambrosia, Braeburn, Royal Gala, Granny Smith, PacificBeauty and New Zealand Rose being the main varieties.
The Royal Gala and New Zealand Rose are both lovely eating apples and the early Granny Smiths are ideal for cooking. Doyone Du Comice, Beurre Bosc and Packham pears are selling well and the nashi pears are extremely nice eating, crisp and crunchy.
Passionfruit and feijoas will add some variety to the lunchboxes and the local green and gold kiwifruit harvest has started. The fruit is very firm, to say the least, but will improve over the next month. Most of the stone fruit is now finished for the year, with just peacharines, some late golden queen peaches and the beautiful eating royal star plums being your best choice.
Green vegetable prices have rocketed up over the last few days. Fresh broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce supplies are limited as a consequence of the heavy rain a fortnight ago. Your best buys will be green beans, brussels sprouts, celery, courgettes, leeks and silverbeet.
With the cooler weather at night potatoes and kumara are two lines that everyone is buying. The best value potatoes are always the 10 kilo bags and as I have said in the past, try the small red kumara, not only are they delicious but the price is right. Ohakune carrots, parsnips, swedes and washed potatoes are in full supply and I recommend you have a look at the 1.5 kilo boxes of red and white gourmet washed potatoes from Kim Young and Sons. The best buy in the pumpkin lines are the green buttercup squash and it is nice to see some of you trying the spaghetti squash.
On the import scene we have good supplies of bananas, US navel oranges and lemons, pineapples from the Philippines and a new shipment of Peruvian mangos arrived last week.
Remember to buy what is in season and on special.
■David Stewart is the owner of The Fresh Market Gate Pa and home delivery service mygreengrocer.co.nz
