Autumn Vege Bag - Week 13
Click on any vegetable that has a link to see previous posts with recipes and cooking tips. You can also browse the filter the whole vege bag archive by vegetable here.
Ka kite, cucumbers
Example Ōtaki Vege Bag - Autumn 2025, Week 13
After 52 weeks of saying vege bags will include 6-8 “items,” we’re finally doing a week with less than 8. As the season cools down and we reach the final week of the Autumn season, we’ve hit a little gap where our main winter crops aren’t quite ready to harvest and the summer crops are out.
We’ll be back for the first week of winter with spuds, leeks and some heartier greens (e.g. silverbeet).
This is the final week of the Autumn season. It’ll also be our final week of cucumbers.
This is also the final week of basil - we’ve got fairly generous (but somewhat 2nds-grade) basil this week, so I’ve got a suggestion to preserve it for winter below.
Ngā mihi to everyone who has been part of Ōtaki Vege Bags until this point. We’re rolling straight into the winter season - the first winter the Ōtaki Vege Bags has attempted to run. We’ll be working with some other organic and sprayfree growers through winter to keep the diversity and bulk up in Ōtaki Vege Bags.
This week we have
Carrots (from Ahoaho māra kai)
Mizuna Mix (Ahoaho māra kai)
Lettue Mix (Ahoaho māra kai)
Pumpkin or squash piece (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Tomatoes, Napa Cabbage, 2x Cucumbers or 2x Capsicums (Crooked Vege Ōtaki)
Coriander (Crooked Vege)
Vege highlights, tips & recipes
Basil - winter preservation
This is the final week of basil. Basil can be dried, but it loses a lot of the flavour. My favourite way to preserve basil is to blend it up with oil (olive is nice for salad, but a neutral oil like sunflower is a bit more flexible) and freeze it in ice cube trays. Once frozen, drop the basil-oil cubes into a ziplock/other freezer container.
That’s it.
Pull some out when you want to add a bit of summery-basil flavour to your salads, throw it over some pasta, make winter pesto, etc!
—
Ka kite ano,
Jon
