Vegetables in South Africa

The highly demanded vegetables in the country are lettuce, chicory, pumpkins, tomatoes, and carrots. However, there are leafy vegetables, like cleome, amaranth, blackjack, and Jew’s mallow, which are locally produced, are also consumed in the country. Most of the country’s oilseed demand is met by domestic production.

What is the best month to plant vegetables?

Generally March and April, when the soil begins to warm, are the best months to begin sowing many hardy annual vegetable seeds outdoors including broccoli, cabbage, chard, carrots, peas and parsnips.

Highveld	Western Cape & South Coast
Leeks	Jan – Mar	Mar – May
Lettuce	Jan – Mar Aug – Oct	Aug – May
Mâche	Aug – Oct April – June	April – Oct
Onions	Feb – Mar	April – May

What can I plant now in South Africa?

Excellent choices include fenugreek, bio-mustard and a specialist Autumn Green Manure mix available at Diggers. There are lots of plants that you can sow in autumn including: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Asian greens, lettuce, rocket, silverbeet and spinach, as well as gorgeous sweet peas and Australian wildflowers.

What can I plant in March in South Africa?

In South Africa, march is a good time to plant the following vegetables, Namaqualand daisies, sweet peas, poppies, primula, foxgloves, hollyhock, larkspur – don’t be scared to sow the flowers that you love, it is easy and success is guaranteed if you just follow the instructions on the seed packet closely.

What’s the easiest vegetable to grow in South Africa?

Here are the Easiest Vegetables to Grow Yourself:

• Lettuce: There is no known  garden that cannot grow lettuce. Lettuce can be sown directly in your garden bed, or started indoors for transplanting. It’s one of the few crops that can be grown all year in our climate, but in hot weather it should be shaded and harvested at smaller sizes. 
• Green Beans: Beans grow even in fairly poor soils, because they fix the nitrogen as they go! Bush varieties don’t require trellising, but pole varieties provide a more extended harvest. In cool areas, snap beans are easiest. In hot areas, lima beans, southern peas, and asparagus beans are also very easy to grow.

• Peas: Plant peas as soon as the soil can be worked—2 weeks before the average last spring frost  for your region, if possible. To harvest a continuous supply of peas during the summer, simultaneously sow varieties with different maturity dates. Then sow more seeds about 2 weeks later. 

• Radishes: Radishes can be harvested in as little as 24 days after planting, and can be inter-planted with slower-growing vegetables. You can plant radishes as soon as you can work the soil in the spring.

• Carrots: Carrots are super easy to grow “as long as they’re planted in loose, sandy soil” during the cooler periods of the growing season—spring and fall (carrots can tolerate frost). 

• Cucumbers.
• Kale.
• Swiss Chard.