When is each fruit ready to pick in the UK?

Most gardens produce all their fruit in a fortnight in July and nothing else all year, and that is a planning problem rather than a growing one. Spreading the season is done by choosing varieties that ripen at different times and by including a few crops that fall outside the July crush — forced rhubarb at the start, autumn raspberries and late apples at the end.

Step by step

1. Start the season with rhubarb.Forced rhubarb from a covered crown in April, outdoor rhubarb April to June. Stop picking at the end of June so the crown rebuilds. It is the only fruit-like crop available before the main season.
2. Take June as strawberries, gooseberries and early currants.Summer strawberries from mid-June, gooseberries from late June for cooking and into July for dessert, and the first blackcurrants at the end of the month.
3. Expect July to be the peak, and plan for the glut.Summer raspberries, blackcurrants, red and white currants, sweet cherries and the last strawberries all arrive together. This is when preserving, freezing and giving away happen.
4. Move into August for plums, early apples, blackberries and figs.Plums and gages from August into September, early apples eaten straight off the tree, blackberries from mid-August, and figs in a warm summer.
5. Use September for mid-season apples and autumn raspberries.Mid-season apples for eating over the next few weeks, blackberries continuing, and autumn raspberries hitting their stride.
6. Finish in October with the keepers.Late apples and most pears picked firm for storing, outdoor grapes, and autumn raspberries carrying on until the first real frost.
7. Adjust for where you are.The north of England and Scotland run one to three weeks later than the Midlands; the far south-west and any walled or sheltered garden run one to two weeks earlier. A cold spring moves everything back a fortnight.
8. Plan the gaps deliberately when you plant.Three apple varieties ripening in August, September and October give fresh apples for three months. Perpetual strawberries, autumn raspberries and a late blackberry stretch the soft fruit season from June to November.

Tips

• Picking date and eating date are different things for late apples and pears, which are picked firm in October and eaten over the following months.
• A sheltered south-facing wall can advance ripening by a fortnight, which is what makes figs, apricots and outdoor grapes possible in Britain at all.
• Autumn raspberries are the single most useful season-extender in a small garden: they crop from late August to the frosts and are the easiest fruit there is to prune.
• If everything you grow ripens in July, add an autumn raspberry, a late apple and a rhubarb crown — that turns a two-week season into a six-month one.

Common mistakes

• Planting three apple varieties that all ripen in the same fortnight — You get a glut and then nothing. Check the season each variety is listed for and deliberately pick an early, a mid and a late.
• Treating published dates as fixed — The season moves by two or three weeks with latitude and by another fortnight with the year's weather. Use the calendar to plan and the fruit itself to decide.
• Picking rhubarb into the autumn — Picking stops at the end of June so the crown can rebuild for the following year. Later stalks are also tough and very acidic.

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