Much of the vegetables Accra eats is grown inside Accra. On narrow plots along drains and streams, between roads and on open land waiting to be built on, about 800 to 1,000 farmers grow lettuce, cabbage, spring onions, tomatoes, okra and greens, watered by can, for the city’s restaurants, chop bars and markets. That closeness is why the vegetables are fresh and cheap - and why washing them properly matters more here than almost anywhere.
This guide goes vegetable by vegetable, then covers washing. The seasons come from the same research as the seasons page.
— What is in season this month
Tomatoes
All year, best December to April. Best supply December to April, from dry-season irrigated plots.
The base of almost every Ghanaian stew and of jollof, and the vegetable whose price everyone watches. The largest vegetable area in Greater Accra, and one of its five most common crops by number of farms. Out of season, and especially in the rains, the tinned paste in every kitchen takes up the slack.
Buying: In the rains tomatoes bruise and rot faster, so buy less, more often.
Pepper
All year. All year. The sources disagree on when supply is highest - one says in the rains, another that dry-season irrigated pepper peaks from December to February - so no peak is shown.
Fresh pepper ground with onion and tomato in an earthenware asanka is the everyday pepper sauce, and dried pepper goes into shito, the black pepper sauce on every table. The second most common crop in Greater Accra by number of farms.
Buying: When pepper is cheap, dry it whole or blend and freeze it.
Okra
All year. All year.
Okro, as it is usually spelled here, makes the slippery soup and stew eaten with banku and with fish. A traditional vegetable of the city's farmers.
Buying: Pick small, bright green pods that snap cleanly.
Garden eggs
All year. All year.
The small white or pale green aubergine of West Africa, stewed with fish and palm oil and eaten with boiled yam, plantain or kenkey. Grown on a smaller scale than the other traditional vegetables.
Buying: Smooth, glossy skin means fresh. Wrinkled ones are old.
Kontomire and ayoyo
All year, best April to July. Three to six weeks after sowing.
Kontomire is the leaf of the cocoyam, cooked down with palm oil, egg and fish into kontomire stew - palava sauce - and eaten with boiled plantain or yam. Ayoyo is jute mallow, the slippery green soup of northern Ghana eaten with tuo zaafi. Ayoyo, jute mallow, is one of the city's traditional crops. No figure for the area grown in Accra was found.
Buying: Cheapest and freshest in the rains. Wash the leaves in several changes of water.
Salad vegetables: lettuce, cabbage, cucumber, carrot, spring onion
- Lettuce: all year, best december to february. Grown on drain and stream banks and sold to hotels, restaurants, canteens and street food sellers. Almost all the lettuce eaten in the city is grown in or around it.
- Cabbage: all year, best december to february. A high-value city crop, at 35 to 40 tonnes a hectare. Heavy, tight heads are best. Peel off the outer leaves and wash it well.
- Cucumber, carrot, spring onion and cauliflower are on sale all year, from irrigated city plots.
These are the “salad” that comes beside waakye, jollof and fried rice, and the vegetables in the fried rice itself. Because they are eaten raw, they are the ones to wash with the most care.
Onions
September to December. From September or October on, depending on planting.
A modest crop here. Most of Ghana's shallots come from Keta and Anloga in the Volta region, not from Accra. Onions on sale outside these months are stored or brought in from elsewhere.
Washing what you eat raw
This is the one section to read if you read nothing else. The water city farmers use comes from drains and streams, and studies of Accra’s vegetables have found it carrying far more faecal bacteria and worm eggs than the WHO’s guidelines allow - with lettuce contaminated whatever the water source. How vegetables are handled on the farm, at the market and in your kitchen makes a real difference.
- Peel off the outer leaves of lettuce and cabbage, where most of the dirt is.
- Wash in several changes of clean water, not under one quick rinse, and separate the leaves so the water reaches each one.
- Soak raw salad in clean water, or a vegetable wash, before eating it.
- Cook leafy greens when you can. Kontomire and ayoyo are always cooked, which is part of why they are safe.
- Scrub or peel carrots and cucumbers.
- Wash your hands, the knife and the board after handling raw vegetables and before anything that will not be cooked.
At a chop bar or a waakye seller, the salad on the side is the part to think about; the hot food is the safer half of the plate.
— Street food, and how to eat it safely
— Malaria, water and staying healthy
Where to buy them
The big markets have everything and the best prices; the smaller neighbourhood markets and roadside tables are fine for the day’s tomatoes and pepper. Buying where the farmers sell - and asking where it was grown - is the way to know what you are getting.
— Accra’s markets
— Where to buy food cheaply in Accra
Growing your own
Many Accra households grow pepper, tomatoes, okra and greens in a corner of the compound. When to plant each is in its own guide.
Where next
— A month-by-month food calendar
— Fruit in Accra
— Farming in Accra: where the city’s food is grown
The seasons and figures on this page come from the research behind the seasons page, compiled on 6 October 2026; its sources are listed in full there.