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Fresh kumara

Spring Planting: Kumara in the Ground

Spring is when our first kumara slips go into the ground, for the next year’s kumara harvest! With only 1 harvest annually, this is a critical time of year to grow our kumara right and plant in good ground so we can provide you with the best tasting produce.

When new season kumara is later on to the market at the start of autumn, this is usually due to wet weather at the start of spring which delays all plantings.

According to old Maori custom, the whole tribe went out to plant their kūmara when the kōwhai bloomed. The Kōwhai tree, a native tree to New Zealand, blooms around the September weeks, where the colder weather is easing off.

So much was this the custom that when they wanted to hint that a man was lazy they would use the proverb, “Where were you when the kōwhai bloomed?”


The season begins with our team carefully washing the kumara that will be planted. These are then laid out in what we call “kumara beds”, where they start to sprout. Shoots emerge from the beds and are carefully cut and collected into crates. These shoots, known as slips, are then planted into moulded rows in the field, where they grow into fully mature kumara plants, ready for harvest a few months later.

Here’s 3 recipe ideas from our collection, for you to enjoy Kumara this spring:

1. Kumara Quinoa Picnic Jars

    Great fresh way to enjoy NZ’s iconic vegetable!

    Put your dressing on the bottom of the jar to save your salad ingredients from going soggy before you get to eat it.

    Either tip onto a plate, or shake in the jar to combine: Kumara Quinoa Jars

    2. Kumara can be pretty sweet too!

    Try these sweet scones for a tasty morning tea: Kumara Scones

    3. Kumara & Mussel Fritters

    Fritters are a simple but tasty staple for the family! Try this twist on a kiwi classic; the mussel fritter!

    Recipe here for Kumara & Mussel Fritters

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    Storing and Curing of Kumara

    Kumara only has 1 harvest annually, so storage becomes a crucial part of the journey onto the supermarket shelves. Bad storage can lead to the product losing weight, shrivelling and bringing low returns back to the grower with a low quality product for New Zealanders.

    Kumara Storage has long been a practice, dating right back to when early Maori in New Zealand, when kumara was even then a key part of their diet! Pictured are 3 kumara storage pits that were in use in the 1930s. According to history, pits were dug into the side of earth banks with wooden doorways and reinforcing added. This also helped give protection against pests and thieves.

    The process of ‘curing’ requires careful management and a knowledge of the crop as it comes in from the field. Each block has to be treated differently and careful storage to keep the sheds organised as we progress through the year.

    As the bins come in from the field, our Storage Manager will unload into temperature controlled sheds to start the process of ‘curing’.

    Curing is a process where the produce is held in specific climate conditions for a short direction, then moved to a very different storage condition.

    Kumara’s sweet spot for curing is high humidity for the first few days.

    At our harvest, our motto is ‘treat them like eggs’. Vastly differently to the average potato, kumara are a very delicate crop to harvest so they take careful handling.

    As the kumara goes through the process of curing, this helps form a layer of ‘suberin’ – a waxy substance covering the tuber. This toughens the kumara skin making them easier to pack and ultimately a better quality product that lasts longer on the supermarket shelf.

    Curing also converts some of the starch in this high-starch vegetable, to natural sugars,  by triggering the sugar-producing enzymes in the kumara. This gives them a better taste overall.

    Maori History Source: https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/40255/kumara-storage-pits-1930

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    Why is Dargaville the Kumara Capital?

    the kumara capital

    You’ll often hear of the phrase “The Kumara Capital of New Zealand”. And it makes us wonder, does everyone actually know where this is and the reason behind it?

    Dargaville is the Kumara Capital of New Zealand. And it stands with good reason, as 95% of kumara you’ll find in your supermarket comes from the Kumara Capital.

    Dargaville is a small farming town located 2 hours north of Auckland. Only a short 10 minutes from the West Coast and winding alongside the Northern Wairoa River, the land in the Dargaville region is typically quite flat.

    Kumara growing in the Kaipara region dates right back to early Maori times where kumara was a long lasting crop for the tribes to store and they included it in their diets most of the year.

    And do we really know why it is called the Kumara Capital?

    Most will tell you it’s because of the shallow clay bed that makes up a lot of the land on the river plains near the Wairoa River. Kumara grow well in the alluvial plains of the northern Kaipara Region. Rich top-soil of the river plains is furrowed to a depth which ensure a good-looking well-shaped kumara crop. This shallow clay bed means the kumara, which is a root crop, grows to a good depth, before hitting the  clay layer.

    Another reason is because the Kaipara region also has a very tropical climate, with warm summers and very mild winters. Kumara are a subtropical plant, grow best in tropical areas. The average temperature in the Kaipara is relatively high with our warm nights and high sunshine hours.  We typically have more sunshine than other parts of Northland even.

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