Not happy with just growing your own 'normal' vegetables, there is also a call for growing varieties not seen in supermarkets. We can now accommodate those who hanker for the rare and bizarre, with seeds from Niche and new plants from Naturally Native.

Some of the offerings from Niche just ready to sow right now include:

Rainbow Carrots
Did you know that carrots were originally white, purple or red with a thin root? The Dutch developed the carrot we know today in the 1500’s for the Dutch Royal family – the House of Orange. Packs of the Rainbow Selection will include carrots that are purple, red, white and yellow. These taste like regular carrots and the different colours are said to have various health benefits and health-promoting substances.

Gourmet Cauliflower
The rare and unusual Brocoverde has a semi-rounded head, green rather than white and is a good source of minerals with a mild, sweet taste. The variety Violetta Italia is full of anthocyanins (said to have over 200 times more than white cauliflower). Just steamed lightly it will keep its purple colour or add lemon juice or vinegar if boiling. Overcooking will turn it bright green. Also delicious eaten raw in salads.

Monnopa Spinach
This is claimed to be the sweetest and most delicately flavoured variety of spinach because of its very low oxalic acid. It is relatively slow to bolt and ideal served fresh in salads. Continuous sowings can be made all year round.

Heirloom Pearl Onion ‘Borettana’
A gourmet Italian onion with an unusual ‘saucer’ shape and a mild, sweet flavour.

Heirloom Broccoli ‘Romanesco’
A broccoli, native to Rome, that has a lime green head and looks similar to cauliflower except for the cone-shaped florets that swirl upwards forming peaks. These may be snapped off individually when required. It has a nutty flavour delicious eaten raw with a dip or in salads.

Rainbow Beetroot
These packs include :

And, just arrived from Naturally Native are these unusual New Zealand culinary plants:

NZ Spinach Tetragonia tetragonoides
My mother once bought a punnet of this thinking it was petunia plants – they look so alike. The leaves are bright green and fleshy and is particularly good over summer when other spinach species tend to bolt. Use it to replace spinach in any recipe but don’t use as many leaves as it won’t wilt as much.

Captain Cook gave this to his crew as ‘greenstuff’ in salads and broths and it has been cultivated as a vegetable since 1809.

NZ Celery Apium prostratum
This creeping plant has thick grooved stems and a thick, deep taproot. It is found in the wild throughout NZ along the coast. The leaves and stems can be eaten raw or cooked and the seeds can be used for flavouring. Select the larger outside stalks leaving the rest of the plant to grow.

Cook’s Scurvy Grass – Lepidium oleraceum
A strong smelling coastal plant that grows up to 50cm tall now relatively rare in the wild partly due to stock grazing. It needs to be protected from the white butterfly caterpillar exactly as you would cabbage or any other brassica. One of the plants Cook used to prevent scurvy among his crew.

NZ Cress – Rorippa divaricata
This plant will grow into a rosette 30cm tall. The green leaves taste like watercress and can be used in exactly the same way.