This summer’s incessant rains have been bad for many crops. Our strawberries matured as either red, flavorless mushy masses or tasteless slug bait. I expect the local crop of peaches to look more like inflated softballs and feel like a Nerf ball than they should when conditions are right. On the other hand, our raspberries and thimbleberries seem to be immune to the weather and have been producing cupfuls of sweet succulent fruit that grace our cereal or yogurt every morning.
The best time to pick is in the early morning with a chill still in the air. I find that if I am tardy and get to the bushes after the sun has warmed the air a bit, the mosquitoes have already stirred and start their breakfast with me as their morning coffee, tea or juice. When I am late, the picking tend to be lean, fast and incomplete to the available ripe fruit.
When the time is right picking berries is a peaceful, almost meditative exercise. I stand with my basket sizing up the ripe berries from the soon-to-be ones, carefully nudging a fruit loose to fall in the basket. A heavy-handed approach never works because of the berry’s fragile nature. The fruit can either be squished or the tightly packed drupelets come apart. I work carefully around the bushes but in no repetitive pattern. I let my eyes and hands take me to different bunches.
Unlike many other fruits, the size of each raspberry varies greatly both in total size as well as its component drupelet making picking a challenge for someone like me with thick and calloused fingers. I tend to shy away from activities that require manual dexterity or fine motor skills; the rewards of fresh berries trumps my clumsiness. Picking berries gives you new found respect and empathy for those who do it for a living who’s end result shows up in transparent little tubs at your local grocery.
While picking tends to be a singular pursuit, my wife and I sometimes share the task, though not early in the morning. Here I tend to harvest the hard-to-reach fruits, she concentrates on the more immediate and easily accessible berries. We make a good team.
Deciding when to stop is always difficult as I need to balance how many fruits I will consume in a day against the fruit I will lose to either birds, wind fall or rot. It seems more wasteful to see a group of mushy berries on a plate than not to see what has been lost to nature so I try not to over pick. There is no singular event or observation that causes me to stop as I seek the next piece of fruit.
