2021 Aronia Berry Harvest complete! We had great help for the day to make it a success. Was it all it could be? No, heavy frost and snow in our low lying fields dramatically limited yields. We had no berries in much of the lowest areas. Drought conditions limited the size of the berries, but they’re picked and out.
All total we picked about 8700 lbs of berries! We’d anticipated about 6,000 lbs. We keep thinking what if frost/snow hadn’t impacted our lower field!
By this time next week our fields will look drastically different, we will have had commercial harvesters pick our Aronia Berries. We’ll post pictures of the harvesting.
Lately we’ve been getting questions from small growers and folks at home who have berries, wondering why we haven’t picked them yet. Some people picked them when they first started turning purple because they look ripe.
We wait, sometimes impatiently, for the sugar content in the berries to rise. It helps our berries taste better than other berries which are harvested too early.
Our daughter says, “Sugar content?” (She’s not a fan of the fresh berries.) The sugar content in fruits vary from one to another. Aronia is a tart, dry, astringent berry that isn’t always a favorite of folks straight off the bush. We say it’s an acquired taste. Folks who aren’t really big sugar fans will enjoy the berries alone.
The berries begin turning purple in July. Through August the berries fill out and ripen. If you have berries at home and wonder when to pick them, wait for the stems to change from green, to reddish, to dry and brown in color.
Berries themselves have a dimpled bottom. As the berries fill out and ripen, you will notice the dimpled area become more prevalent.
If you cut a berry in half, a ripe berry will be uniformly colored all the way through.
If you harvest too early, it’s fine, your berries just will not be as tasty and nutritious as possible. Next year, be patient.