Growing fruit trees should be fun and rewarding. People buy young fruit trees to grow at home or in their backyards every year. It takes time for them to bear fruits, but the wait is worth it!
Whether you grow your fruit or want to get the most out of what you buy from the store, harvesting it at the right time will make a big difference. Over-ripe and over-soft fruits (and vegetables) can taste bitter and unpleasant and be less nutritious than they could have been.
If you only harvest at one time of year, it’s easy to miss some perfectly ripe fruits and vegetables – so we’ve put together some tips to help you get better results with your garden or orchard.
How to Know When A Fruit is Ready to Harvest
You can say that the fruits are ready to harvest if they are ready or ripe. To have a confident harvest where no fruits are still unripe, you should have a calendar and set a harvest date. There is a guide on how many days a fruit should be harvested.
Fruits that need to be harvested regularly must be picked as soon as they turn ripe. This one is significant because the fruit will get rotten or over-mature to get a different taste or flavor.
How to Harvest Fruits
There are many ways to harvest your fruits; you can do manual picking with your bare hands or have fruit picking tools.
Use a fruit picker basket. Use long-handled fruit picker garden tools for hard-to-reach fruits. You can wrap the hooks around the fruit’s stem and tug at it. The fruit falls right into the basket.
For all of the fruits, cherries are fruits that need to be picked gently at a perfect time. For harvesting cherries, use cherry fruit pickers for easy and ideal fruit picking. Cherries should be harvested when you are sure they are ready because they do not ripen once picked. Cherries are ready to harvest when they have intense color and look plump, almost to the point of bursting.
These two fruit pickers are handy when harvesting that would help you harvest faster:
- The twister fruit picker with an extension pole
- Cut and hold fruit picker
We will also give additional tricks about making a fruit picker from a plastic bottle. This trick can save our environment from plastic pollution because these plastics will be recycled and produced as a fruit picker, a very innovative technique.
Set a Date that is a Perfect Weather
Being a fruit picker is not easy; it needs determination, courage, and proper knowledge. As a fruit picker, you should be knowledgeable enough about your fruit trees, especially in harvesting, because there are many things to prepare and things to set in this period.
First thing to put in mind when harvesting fruits is to set a date that is a perfect weather – sunny day. Continually harvest your fruit on a dry day because if you gather on a rainy day, the fruits would be highly susceptible to fungal disease. Also, harvesting in the rainy season would have a greater chance of injuries because trees are wet and branches are slippery. It may be the cause of unwanted incidents.
Know-How to Handle your Fruit
Fruits should be handled carefully, with particular attention paid to certain fruits. It is vital to take the fruits carefully because careless handling may damage them to the point that they can’t be edible anymore.
Some fruits, like goji berries, can be shaken down and collected on a sheet beneath the tree. Apples and pears should quickly be removed from a tree with their stalk intact by twisting the fruit. If it requires heavy force to pull it off, leave it longer before trying again.
Like peaches and apricots, soft fruits should also quickly come away from the tree. You can do this by holding the fruit in your palm and gently pressing it around the stem. Again, if this does not come off the tree quickly, leave it to ripen for longer.
Store Fruit Correctly
Appropriate storing of the fruits once harvested can help the fruits stay fresh and in good condition. Fruits that need to be stored in the refrigerator are berry-type fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, and blackberries.
Also, always put your fruit in a fruit container with a lock or an airtight container to eliminate the air to make the fruit last longer.
Remove any damaged or diseased fruit or leaves from the healthy ones. While you’re harvesting, be cautious to pluck out any fruit that appears to be damaged. Not only will it rot before ever ripening, but the injured fruit is also taking precious resources from the stalk’s other blossoms and vegetables. Keeping the “bad apples” out of the bunch can also assist to prevent illness and rot from spreading to other fruits.
Conclusion
Harvesting fruits is not an easy job to do; there are many things to consider. Using the right equipment in harvesting, as the fruit picking tools, will help your job done quickly and efficiently. Harvesting fruits should be done in good weather to prevent incidents and damage to the fruits.
We should be knowledgeable in a better way of harvesting to make the harvested fruits last longer and be a great benefit to the consumers.
This article is a great help for beginners to harvest fruits well. Harvesting your fruits with this guide will make you gather in no time.