From Seed to Market: How Long Does It Take to Grow Winter Vegetables?
Behind every bunch of kale, spinach and silverbeet; every potato, beetroot and carrot; every broccoli, cauliflower and radish - are months of preparation and care.
Take our Brussels sprouts as an example: they were sown as teeny tiny little seeds way back in summer.
They germinated and grew into prepubescent little plants over the course of 5 weeks or so before being transplanted into the big wide world of the paddock.
Over the following 6 weeks, they invested all of their energy into vegetative growth: developing good, healthy leaves.
Another 10 weeks or so takes them through the growth, development and maturation of their delightful little sprouts that we all so fondly love (which we do, right?! We all love Brussels sprouts, don't we?!).
So only after a minimum of 5 months do we even begin to think about harvesting our Brussels - and that's all assuming the weather plays ball; some seasons bring too much rain (like this last summer), others: not enough.
Some winters come early, while others (like this one) give us plenty of time to prepare for the first frost - and, well, that's farming for you!
What I'm trying to say is that the lovely veggies we are appreciating right now weren't just grown on a whim - no, no!
There has been so much work behind the scenes to bring that box of organic goodies to your doorstep this week!
Of course, different veggies have different time periods from sowing to harvest… so, of you're at all interested, here's a table showing the rough time frames taken to grow some of our most popular winter crops.
Crop: Typical Time from Seed to First Harvest:
Radish 4–6 weeks
Spinach 6–10 weeks
Lettuce 8–12 weeks (winter)
Kale 10–14 weeks
Broccoli 12–16 weeks
Cauliflower 14–20 weeks
Leeks 20–30 weeks
Garlic 8–9 months