A calendar you understand once and never have to look up again. Orange means it is coming fresh from the field. Grey means it is still around, but out of storage.
Shopping seasonally is not an ideology, it is arithmetic. A kilo of lamb's lettuce in October costs a third of what it costs in April and tastes better anyway. The calendar below covers 28 vegetables and 14 fruits: when buying them is worth it, when they are only available out of storage, and when you are better off cooking something else. Underneath is a guide to making it all keep.
These dates are for outdoor growing in Central Europe. Further north or south, the edges shift by several weeks — the underlying logic stays the same wherever you are.
Half the work of seasonal cooking is not the shopping but what happens afterwards. Ten kilos of cheap carrots in October are only worth something if they are still good in February.
Carrot, beetroot, parsnip, celeriac
Twist the leaves off rather than cutting them. Keep in damp sand or cloth, cool and dark. Lasts three to six months.
White, red and savoy cabbage
Whole heads keep two to four months somewhere cool and dark. Once cut, wrap in a damp cloth and use within about a week.
Dark, at 4 to 8 °C. Never next to apples — their ethylene makes potatoes sprout. Light turns them green and inedible.
Airy and dry, never in the fridge and never beside potatoes, which give off moisture and spoil both.
Whole and with the stalk still on, at room temperature. Keeps for months. Once cut, refrigerate and use within a week.
Lamb's lettuce, rocket, spinach, chard
Unwashed, in a damp cloth, in the crisper drawer. Three to five days. Wash only just before eating.
Not in the fridge. Below about 12 °C the flavour collapses and does not come back, even at room temperature.
Cool, but away from everything else: both give off a lot of ethylene and ripen whatever sits near them.
Unwashed, spread out in a single layer, never stacked. One mouldy berry infects the whole punnet within a day.
Wrapped in a damp cloth in the fridge, standing or lying. Two to three days, after which it turns fibrous.
This exact calendar is also available as a printable sheet for the inside of a kitchen door — two A4 pages, all 42 varieties, plus the storage notes from above. At the stove a sheet of paper beats a phone, and it reads just as well printed in black and white as in colour. The sheet itself is in German.
Download the seasonal calendar as PDF · 2 pages, 80 KB · free, no email required