I’ve been eating a lot of fruit lately, all of it grown in Australia and all of it in season now! I think that, as much as I love a new season Jonathan apple, I probably get most excited about fruit at this time of the year.
Now I wont try and pretend that all of this fruit is local. It’s a very long way from Melbourne to the Northern Terrritory where the Mangoes are in season at the moment. Melbourne to Darwin is over 3000km – a bit further than the distance between London & Istanbul and considerably further than the distance between Havana and New York City. Basically its a long way for a Mango to come, but they are good to eat when they get here.
Also coming a bit further than is ideal are the Blueberries. The Victorian (for those unfamiliar with Australian geography, Melbourne is in the state of Victoria) blueberry season starts next month but they are in season in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland now and the ones I have eaten lately are tasting particularly good.
The first of this seasons Victorian grown tomatoes are starting to come into the Farmers Markets. These ones were greenhouse grown in Eastern Victoria (or at least I think they were), still a good few 100kms from my house but much more local than the first two selections. There are also reasonable slicing tomatoes from South Australia (the area around Murray Bridge) coming into season. You can sometimes get them at Coburg market and they aren’t too bad for commercially grown tomatoes.
Closer still, on the outskirts of Melbourne are the Strawberry farms and November is when the fruit starts tasting pretty good. I wish I had strawberries closer – ie in my own backyard but although I get the occasional one they aren’t they greatest flavourwise due to a lack of sun, and the slugs get as many as we do.
For me though the most exciting fruit coming into season in November are the cherries. The first Tuesday in November is Melbourne Cup day – a day of note not just for being the traditional day to plant out tomatoes in Melbourne (I didn’t go with tradition – I planted mine a good month before the race was run), but it is also the day when many of the cherry growers start to harvest their crop. I haven’t seen them in the supermarkets yet (but then I haven’t been for a couple of weeks) but I bought 2kg of cherries from the Smith’s Farm stall at Collingwood Childrens Farm on Saturday. They were all gone by the end of Sunday. I did take 1 kg to a party where they were mainly eaten by the kids and me and the other kg we ate by ourselves. Messy but delicious. Best of all the Bacchus Marsh cherry season starts in a week or two and that is only about 15km from my parents place. You don’t get much more local than that without growing your own.
Thanks for the suggestions for future Top 5s! You’ll see a few of them over the coming weeks. If you have any more ideas or requests then just let me know – everything gratefully received.
Now head over to The New Good Life to check out her Top 5 for this week its also all about fruit – Top 5 Ways with Lemons.
Fruit is becoming a bit sparse for us at the moment and no doubt our mangoes travel even further than yours.
I think you’re right – Pakistan is definitely further than Istanbul.
I agree about the cherries, one of my favourites too. I have a small cherry tree in my garden, but it was a disappointing year, I didn’t get to harvest even one. I’m hoping they do better next year.
I hope so too – they are one of the loveliest fruits I know. For some reason the cherries in the UK tended to irritate my throat, I suspect they must spray them with something I was sensitive to as it doesn’t happen with cherries here.
Oh, cherries! One of my absolute favorites. I tend to gorge on them when the local season comes around. At the moment we are enjoying the last of the local plums and pluots. Incredible local strawberries are still to be found at the farmer’s market when the rain doesn’t spoil them. Fresh local apples – the Black Twig, Arkansas Black, and Crispin Mutsu have been wonderful. And my favorite fall fruit, pomegranates, are plentiful. Oh, I forgot, Asian pears and persimmons are available now. And my husband is happy that the mandarins are getting sweet now.
We eat a lot of fruit around here and I try to buy as local as possible which is easy from about June through November. I can usually buy fruit that is grown in the state, but in the dead of winter I expand my horizons to the rest of the country and when mangoes from Mexico come in season I’ll buy those. I would never be able to grow enough of my own fruit to keep us happy, other than Meyer lemons, I’ve got more than enough of those.
I too am a pomegranate fan, as is my daughter who will spend huge amounts of time sucking the red stuff off each individual seed – she doesn’t like to crunch them. Like you there is no way I could ever be self sufficient in fruit without an orchard and even then I would still want things like mangoes that you can’t grow here.
Clementines or tangerines are my non-local indulgence at the moment!
Its funny both come under the generic name “mandarin” here, but actually there are so many lovely varieties of citrus. I will always associate Clementines with Christmas in England.
Mango would be the one I would really miss if I had to eat only British grown fruit. We’re well into apple season here, so it’s nice to see what’s in season on the other side of the world!
I loved the apples in the UK – Really delicious and great range of varieties.
The best thing about going into summer is the fruits. I love all the ones you mentioned, except the blueberries. I’ve had some mango and strawberries, but my absolute favourite are the cherries. I love them so much, and I spend a lot of money on them just so I can eat them. When my children were little I used to tell them that they weren’t allowed to eat cherries, because of the stones in them, haha, really it was so I wouldn’t have to share them. I don’t get away with that now.
I think cherries are definitely money well spent – just delicious. Actually I dread to think about how much money I spend on fruit each week, the kids and i all eat a lot of fruit so it does get expensive – I try and think of it as an investment in my health though….
I have been enjoying the mangoes this week. Looking forward to the cherries also 🙂 Growing fruit myself seems scary, all those bugs, and flies and worms out to spoil everything.
I have to admit that I don’t grow much fruit, although I excitedly inspect my little blueberry plants every day for signs that the berries are changing colour. My citrus did produce a tiny bit of fruit last year – I got 5 limes, and a couple of oranges and lemons.
Nothing compares with locally grown fresh fruit in season, for me I have been enjoying lots of citrus and watching my cumquats develop with excitement!
Late November and my little Stella Cherry tree usually produces a great crop with last years enough to bottle, this years crop is doing well and tree looks healthy due to a spray of copper just at the right time. Will net today and keeping my fingers crossed ! thanks so much for the seeeds their being planted today along with beans (3 types) and some chillie seedlings. Slight frost last night got one or two of my basil seedlings!
Frost must be really annoying – my basil has been particularly slow this year, but I did eat my first leaf yesterday – delicious!
Agree, agree, agree – and can’t wait for the stone fruits too. I bought the same cherries as you did at the market and yes, all gone here too. They grow them on a farm just a few hundred metres down the road from my aunt and uncle’s place in Glen Rowan. They have their second orchard for sale at the moment – feel like a tree change?
The Smith’s farm guy was telling us how he used to put the cherry pits in his school desk and close it shooting the pits out at his teacher. The only problem was the teacher always knew who the cuplrit was – they were the only cherry farmers locally. Love that they are near your family but as for the tree change i think the stress of dealing with a crop that only comes once a year and could fail may destroy me.
We are enjoying ‘Sundowner’ apples at the moment, and of course blueberries ( some from our patch), cherries are wonderful but we hold off for a box from my husband’s uncle’s cherry farm in Tassie. I am looking forward to nectarines.
I had my first nectarine yesterday – dad had bought some but I’m not sure of their origin. Unfortunately Mr 3 saw me eating it and demanded most of it from me…
I just love summer fruits! Especially cherries. Can’t wait!
But I’m really posting with a suggestion for your ‘top 5’ posts – how about the top 5 environmentally friendly ways to get rid of bugs (whitefly are imminent!).
I’ll keep my thinking cap on.
I love the Top 5 suggestion – I just need some iccky photos of bugs now.
Fruit at this time of year just gets better. I also bought cherries at Collingwood from Smith’s on Saturday, and they didn’t last long! I can’t wait for blueberries to ripen here in Vic, as typically in late Jan/early Feb we go to a pick your own farm and stock up on fruit to freeze for the year. I would also add raspberries. Mine are just cropping now, and we are hitting December when they do hit their season and become a bit cheaper to buy.
I didn’t realise it was raspberry season – shame on me, my mum & dad’s neighbour often brings them a huge tub of raspberries and the last couple of times I’ve been fortunate enough to be at their place when the raspberries arrived, sooooo goood! Are blueberries really late Jan – we are a long way behind NSW aren’t we?