Fruit Season Calendar – What Grows When?

Strawberries, blueberries and raspberries simply taste best fresh. If you don’t have a garden, there are strawberry farms all over Germany – and farms to pick yourself or buy fresh on the day. But what is ripe for picking and when? We have put together a fruit season calendar for you!

A year without sweet, delicious strawberry punch and homemade ice cream with raspberries you picked yourself? Without me! Even when it’s still cold, I look forward to the berry season. Picking strawberries or wild blueberries together with friends is one of the greatest leisure activities from June. But the sweet berries don’t just taste delicious: some even prevent cancer and wrinkles and others are a painkiller! Did you know that blueberries have 3 times as much vitamin C as oranges?

To make sure you don’t miss the right time to pick berries, here’s a fruit season calendar and surprising facts about the delicious berries.

Harvesting Berries Together – A Great Leisure Activity for Summer

Wild blueberries are particularly aromatic

A trip with friends or family to the strawberry farm and the blueberry farm is not only fun for children: it is worthwhile for everyone who enjoys good, fresh ingredients and draws the comparison between strawberries picked by themselves and those bought in the supermarket from Spain.

Freshly picked berries, which ripen on the plant until the very end, taste much sweeter, more intense and more aromatic than unripe imported goods from Spanish greenhouses. Often, inexpensive “normal” strawberries are harvested unripe and sprayed before transport to prevent them from spoiling: so it really is worth spending a little more money and making sure to buy unsprayed organic strawberries.

Picking berries can also be wonderfully combined with other leisure activities! When outdoor hiking with friends you can pick delicious wild blueberries, raspberries and blackberries from May onwards, and nature also has a lot to offer in autumn. You can check what is ripe and when here in our fruit season calendar.

Attention! When picking wild berries, make sure to only harvest the aromatic fruits from a height of 70 cm and heat them above 70 degrees before eating them: Then you will be safe from fox tapeworm!

Picking berries together is the most fun if you then prepare them together: as a fresh punch, juice, liqueur, cake topping, jam or syrup. You can swap recipes or get creative together. Unless you have harvested fruit from your own garden, you should always rinse the berries because you never know when the berries were last sprayed or treated.
Basic rule: Soft berries do not keep for long (maximum 2 days in the fridge), hard berries like currants and gooseberries keep for up to 1 week.

Do Strawberries and Raspberries Make You Fat? Wrong!

Fruit contains a lot of fructose and is therefore poison for the slim line and health? This is actually a big misconception. A bowl of 100 g of strawberries contains just 32-37 calories, while a 100 g bar of milk chocolate contains 536 calories, i.e. a good 16 times as many!

The delicioussummer berries are also really healthy: according to the University of Alabama, the daily consumption of blueberries even helps to prevent cancer! Below you will find more surprising information about the positive effects of different berries on health.

Your Fruit Season Calendar to Pick Yourself

Summertime is berry time! Strawberries, currants, raspberries or gooseberries may only be ripe for picking for a short time – but there are many more delicious types of fruit. In our fruit season calendar we have also listed our favourite varieties of raw edible “wild fruit”. This is fruit that grows wild at the edge of the forest or by the wayside and has not been cultivated and grafted. So you don’t need to go to the farm to pick this fruit, just keep your eyes open! 🙂

Surprising Facts You Should Know

Strawberries

Sweet German strawberries

She is the queen of berries, after all, she is the Germans’ favourite berry. Isn’t it? But actually the strawberry is not a berry at all; botanically speaking, it belongs to the family of the common nut fruits. Every German eats an average of 3.5 kilograms of strawberries every year.

The sweet strawberry is anything but a fattener: 100 g contain only 37 kcal (155 kJ). They are full of minerals and vitamins. Due to their high calcium content, they protect against bone diseases (osteoporosis) and against rheumatism and gout due to the salicylic acid they contain. There are about 20 different types of strawberries. The delicious little wild strawberries are a particularly aromatic species that can be found in every German forest!

Kitchen Tips: Always wash even self-picked organic strawberries well! Since strawberries contain 90% water, they are very sensitive to pressure and spoil easily. You should not store unharmed strawberries for longer than 2 days and process them immediately after picking!

Raspberries

Tasty and healthy: raspberries

Raspberries are real vitamin C bombs! Just 150g of raspberries cover 38% of our daily requirement and strengthen our immune system.  Besides iron and vitamin E, the fruit also contains magnesium, potassium and folic acid: these plant substances ward off free radicals and are said to help prevent cancer. They even contain a natural painkiller! No one gets fat from raspberries either: 100 g of the small red fruits contain only 34 kcal. Raspberries and blackberries also belong to the group of aggregate fruits and are actually not berries at all.

Kitchen Tips: Raspberries are soft fruits and spoil quickly – best to process or eat on the day of harvest! Since raspberries lose flavour when watered, you should only pick or buy organic raspberries that are unsprayed!

Blackberries

Blackberries owe their dark colour to plant pigments.

Blackberries were considered a valuable medicinal planteven in ancient Greece. But not only its tasty leaves, also its tasty fruits are very healthy. The blue-black blackberry contains many plant pigments: these are good for blood pressure, relieve inflammation and are antibacterial. The blackberry also contains many vitamins. 100 g have only 44 kcal!

Kitchen Tips: Blackberries are only ready for harvesting when they easily detach from the flower base! Blackberries grow in late summer and spoil just as quickly as raspberries. The soft fruits should be processed immediately, eaten or frozen.

Currants

Red currants are ripe from June

Ribisel, Träuble or redcurrant? The berries have different names in different regions of Germany, but they belong to summer everywhere. The white, red or black berries grow as grapes on panicles or stalks and taste very different: so there are also very different recipes and preparation methods for the different types of currant.

The healthiest is the black currant, which has the most plant pigments. The small black berries are good for lowering blood pressure because of their high potassium content: 100 g contain 341 mg of potassium, twice as much as apples or strawberries. The red and white healthy berries contain only 33 kcal per 100 g, blackcurrants 39 kcal.
Kitchen Tip: Ripe currants burst open quickly after a summer rain – make sure you do not pick berries directly after a downpour. Ideal for picking are plump berries of strong colour with unbroken skin. They will keep cooled for up to 3 days.

Huckleberries

Blueberries are even said to help against cancer.

Helps against wrinkles and prevents cancer: Studies now show that blueberries can do more than just taste good. The plant compounds of the black-blue berry provide its colour and are said to scavenge free radicals and thus, according to the University of Alabama, preventcancer. They also counteract skin ageing and wrinkles. These berries are also rich in vitamin C and E and 100 g have only 36 kcal. Wild blueberries have a darker flesh, are smaller and healthier than cultivated blueberries – they contain more of the valuable nutrients!

Kitchen tip: Blueberries do not keep long and quickly go mouldy. Therefore, you should be very careful when transporting the soft berries and eat them immediately or process them. However, they can also be frozen without any problems!

Wildkräuter, Beeren und Pilze: Erkennen und sammeln Extra: über 100 Rezepte

Dreyer, Eva-Maria (Author)

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Have fun picking berries and enjoy!

While you’re here, have a browse through our other excursion tips. Plus, browse activities to do with friends, partner and family!

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