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Broccoli
Broccoli is an excellent source of Vitamin C and Calcium. A lot has been written about the benefits of eating Broccoli to fight some diseases, especially cancer. Purefresh Organic Broccoli has the added benefit of having been trimmed and prepacked for you so that nobody else touches it before it gets to your kitchen.

Organic Broccoli is quite difficult to grow over the hotter months due to white butterfly, the diamond bug moth, and the fact that it just gets too hot for the plants in the field. So you will find hardly any broccoli on the supermarket shelves after Christmas. But who thinks of broccoli when there’s plenty of beans and courgettes and capsicum and salads and tomatoes around that we can only enjoy in summer!

Carrots
Carrots are one of the best sources of Vitamin A, which is essential for healthy skin, hair and eyes. Fresh carrot juice is one of the best natural medicines for colds, viruses and teenage ACNE!

Unfortunately we run out of them in October, and have to wait until spring carrots arrive sometime in November/December to be able to sell them again.

The main reason for organic carrots being more costly than conventional is weeding: all weeding has to be done by hand, and it costs 120% more per hectare to weed by hand than to spray with weed-killers.

Cauliflower
Together with Broccoli and Cabbage, Cauliflower is one of the best health foods you can have in your fridge.

Organic Cauliflower is quite difficult to grow over the hotter months due to pests and heat . So you will find hardly any cauliflower on the supermarket shelves after Christmas, but who thinks of cauli when there’s plenty of beans and courgettes and capsicum and salads and tomatoes around that we can only enjoy in summer!

Onions
Onions are an excellent source of phytochemicals, organic substances synthesized by plants which provide protection against cancer and other diseases like diabetes, ulcers, heart disease, asthma and allergies The latest in research indicates that onions also increase skeletal mass and inhibit the natural breakdown of bones.

The main reason for the price difference between conventional and organic price is yield in this case: onions need to be planted in rows twice as far away from each other as conventional to help prevent onion fly, making the yield per hectare half of that of a conventional crop straight away.

Organic onions are available from January to September. You might find the odd sprouting onion towards the end of the season: sprouts do not change the quality of the onion, it’s just a natural process that occurs at that time of the year, or when the onions have been exposed to light, or when they go from cold to warm temperatures suddenly. To prevent onions from sprouting they have to be treated chemically. That would destroy their organic status, so from September onwards we have to sell imported organic onions.

This year they come from the US, and have been grown according to the Californian Certified Organic Farmers standards (CCOF), a body IFOAM certified, and approved by Biogro NZ.

Potatoes
Potatoes are very high in Potassium, the muscle mineral. Try to eat them with skins on to retain nutrients.

Baking or Boiling?
In general most early new season potatoes are waxy, or good for boiling and salads. Other potatoes are floury or good for baking or roasting, and frying. And some others are all purpose. However, as the season progresses potatoes can change, and a waxy potato can become floury towards the end of the season when a lot more of the natural sugars have converted to starch. Weather and soil also affect the quality of a potato, so be prepared to change your cooking method if a variety does not perform as predicted! We indicate the best cooking method according to season and variety in each potato bag.

Potatoes go to seed around September, they sprout so they can be planted again. They need to be chemically treated to prevent this natural phenomenon. If you find the odd sprout in your organic potatoes around that time, knock it off, and cook as you would normally. They won’t harm you!