What vegetables to grow in Spring in New Zealand?

Thinking about what vegetables to grow in Spring? Here are some useful ideas of what vegetables grow well from seed in Spring.

Spring is almost here in New Zealand, and its time to start thinking about the vegetables and flowers you want to grow this year.

It is the time to sow seeds, which takes a little more time than buying ready to plant seedlings. However, it can save a lot of money, and often gives you surplus seedlings to sell or give away to friends and neighbours.

Check out my detailed Guide to growing vegetables from seed, which gives you step by step instructions.

Gardening jobs when planning what vegetables to grow in Spring

• Dig in compost in your vegetable beds, to add nutrients to the soil. See my guide for How to make Compost.
• Weed the vegetable beds (and the garden in general) well at this time of year, to keep on top of the weeds before they take off in the warmer weather.
• Use slug and snail control methods in the garden beds, especially to protect new seedlings as you plant them out. Check out some natural snail repellent methods if you don’t want to use commercial slug and snail pellets.
• Popular vegetables to plant in early spring include beans, beetroot, broccoli, lettuce, potatoes, and spring onions. Later in the season, when the soil has warmed up, you can plant capsicums, eggplants, tomatoes, and zucchini (along with many other vegetables!).
• There are some excellent planting calendars online that give you specific information about what to plant when in your region. Have a search for these to help you plan your vegetable garden.

Using a greenhouse to grow vegetables in Spring

If you have a greenhouse, you can grow vegetable plants in there earlier in the season. Growing in a greenhouse lets you to control the temperature and humidity for seeds to germinate and the seedlings to grow.

See this article for more information:

A list of vegetables to grow in spring

It’s good to grow a range of different varieties of your favourite vegetables. My favourites are capsicums, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini. These usually produce huge crops, with enough to preserve some for later eating, and surplus to sell, swap or give away.

I do struggle to grow a decent crop of cucumbers though, as they need a lot of water, and we have had to ration water over the past few drier summers. I will try these again, as my family enjoy eating cucumber with most meals!

Wondering what vegetables to grow in Spring?

These are the varieties of vegetable seeds I am planting this year:

Capsicums

• Giant Bell
• Bell (regular size)
• Sweet Allsorts

Cucumber

• Lebanese
• Spacemaster
• Poona Kheera
• Bushcrop
• Tendergreen
• English Greengrocer

Tomatoes

• Moonglow
• Tigrella
• Black Krim
• Big Rainbow
• Cocktail mixture
• Window Box Red
• Baxter’s Early Bush Cherry

Zucchini

• Gourmet mix
• All Green Bush
• Black Coral
• Zephyr

Other vegetables

• Peas – Wando Select
• Lettuce – Red and Green Salad Bowl mix
• Eggplant – Florence Round Purple
• Eggplant – Baby Brinjal

Flowers to grow along with the vegetables

Last spring and summer I grew many more flowers along with my vegetables. I usually grow marigolds and sunflowers, as companion plants and to make the garden look even more colourful.

Adding more flowers to my vegetable beds looked amazing, and increased the number of bees and butterflies in the garden.

These are the flowers I’m growing in with my vegetables this coming spring:

• Zinnia – Lilliput mixture
• Sunflower – Evening Sun
• Nigella ‘Love in a mist’
• Marigold – Starfire
• Marigold – French Vanilla
• Calendula – mixed
• Sweet pea – Old spice antiques mixed
• Hollyhock – saved seeds
• Cosmos – saved seeds

Benefits of growing vegetables in your garden

There are many benefits to growing vegetables in your backyard, whether it is lots of vegetable beds or just a few pots or containers:

• Growing your own vegetables can drastically reduce how much you have to spend on groceries
• Homegrown vegetables are fresher than store bought produce that might be picked and transported days before it gets to your shopping basket and then home for use.
• Growing vegetables yourself reduces the packaging waste – usually plastic packaging that ends up in landfill.
• It is satisfying to grow your own produce, you get a sense of pride and confidence from providing food for you and your family yourself.
• You become less reliant on the industrial food production systems, and more self sufficient.
• Health benefits of gardening are huge – getting fresh air and exercise while doing something productive. Remember to wear a hat, sunscreen and gardening gloves to protect yourself.
• You can grow your own vegetables in an organic or spray free way, instead of using pesticides and herbicides.
• Growing large crops of vegetables is useful for preserving the excess for use all year around.

What are vegetables are you growing in Spring?

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