By Gerard Krewer
University of Georgia
With berry and grape farming expanding in Georgia, opportunities
to harvest fresh strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and
muscadine grapes are getting easier to find.
Harvesting your own berries and grapes is one of the real
delights of a day in the Georgia countryside. And picking berries
is an art you improve the more you harvest.
Here are some tips to help make your farm forages more fruitful
with the sweetest Georgia berries and grapes.
Pick strawberries that are red or
mostly red. A berry with a green tip will ripen, but the sweetest
berries are those that are fully red at picking. Push back the
leaves of the plant to reveal the succulent berries tucked into
the canopy.
The sweetest blueberries are those
that have been on the bush four or five days after they turned
blue. To identify those, hold your hands with the palms up and
tickle the berry clusters containing a mixture of green and blue
berries. The ripest fruit will drop into your hands.
If you plan to keep the berries for a long time, pick all of the
blue ones. Some of the fruit won’t be as sweet but will keep
longer. Hand-picked rabbiteye blueberries, the type most commonly
grown in Georgia, may last for three or four weeks in the fridge.
The best blackberries are those
that have gone from a shiny black to a dull black. You can pick
dull black berries like blueberries: hold your hand under the
fruit clusters and tickle them with your fingers to make the
ripest ones fall.
The shiny black berries have a longer shelf life. To pick shiny
blackberries, gently bend the fruit over until it snaps off.
When you pick thorny blackberries, wearing latex gloves may help
reduce the number of thorns sticking in your hands. Look deep
inside the canopy to find some of the best berries. You can use a
small stick to lift the thorny canes.
Muscadine grape season will start
in August. Muscadines are usually picked as individual berries.
However, late in the season, clusters can be clipped off of some
cultivars.
Look for bronze grapes that have a bronze or greenish-bronze
color. Some cultivars such as “Fry” are good when
greenish-bronze, while others should be fully bronze before you
pick them. Black-fruited cultivars should be fully black.
The fruit of all muscadines should be slightly soft before
harvest.
You can usually find the farms
selling berries by looking in the local newspaper’s classified
ads, calling your University of Georgia Extension Service
office, reading the
Consumers Market Bulletin or contacting your local
(Gerard Krewer is an Extension Service horticulturist with the
University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences.)
