Spring Swooning for Summer Fruit

By Heidi Lewis

Here they come, rolling into town—
They get the hungriest looks from, everyone around—
[drum fill”¦]
Hey, hey, they’re the summer fruits! And they’re super duper cute!
It may not quite be summer—but that point is moot!

When summer fruits start to arrive in May, there’s a bit of a giddy vibe at The FruitGuys. There’s some flat-out swooning. We have people linked arm-in-arm doing the Monkees “walk”—you might think we’re practicing for a flash mob, but we’re all just rooting for our favorite summer fruit. It can be hard to mediate the favorites—it’s like debating John vs. Paul, Micky vs. Davy, or Posh vs. Sporty Spice.

Strawberries, our fruity rock stars of spring, have already started making an appearance in FruitGuys cases. Their season can reach into fall, weather depending. And we’re just beginning to see stone fruit! Our winter citrus stars, like tangerines and grapefruit, will soon be giving up their box cubbies for peaches, plums, cherries, and all the stone fruit celebrities.

Early summer fruit loves spring-fever days (the kind that makes you want to play hooky). As we’re just at the start of the season, the fruit trees and plants haven’t completely come into their own yet, and the natural sugars are not yet fully developed—but as we get closer to the season’s peak, you’ll notice the fruit getting sweeter and sweeter.

So if you’ve been daydreaming about summer fruits, here they come!

Strawberries

Strawberries are picked ripe and should be enjoyed as soon as possible. For overnight storage, they may be refrigerated. But don’t wash them until you’re ready to eat them (or freeze them).

Stone Fruit

Stone fruit is climacteric, meaning it continues to ripen after being picked. Let stone fruit ripen at room temperature until it’s fragrant and gives slightly to light pressure. You can turn up the volume on ripening climacteric fruit by placing it in a paper bag with an apple (apples give off ethylene, a plant hormone that accelerates ripening). Stone fruit should be enjoyed once it’s ripe, but it will also keep loose in the crisper drawer of the fridge for a few days.

As always, to see what’s in your mix and where it came from, visit our Mix Pages at fruitguys.com/mix.

Enjoy & Be Fruitful!