Stephen Albert
March is harvest time in the Southern Hemisphere. Autumn will come officially in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile on March 21.
Beans are harvesting now. Tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn can be picked now. Your potato harvest can begin as soon as the foliage dies back. Pumpkins can be cut with the stalk attached and “cured” in the sun for several days before taking them into storage.
Apples and pears will be coming to harvest soon. Be sure to pick them with a bit of leaf and stem attached so that they will continue to ripen indoors.
At the farm markets in the Southern Hemisphere this month you will find the following fresh and locally harvested vegetables: beans, capsicum, carrot, chilies, Chinese cabbage, corn, cucumber, eggplant, kale, lettuce, melons, okra, peas, pumpkins, purslane, rutabaga or Swedes, summer squash, tomato, turnips, and zucchini.
Fresh local fruits and nuts coming to the farm market in March include: almonds, apples, avocadoes, brambleberries, grapes, kumquats, figs, hazelnuts and filberts, lemons, melons, mulberries, nectarines, olives, oranges, passionfruit, banana passionfruit, peaches, pears, pecans, plums, raspberries, strawberries, and tamarilloes.
