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British Berries - A guide to the Seasons
Our British Berries - The Importance of Seasonality
 The conditions needed to grow soft fruit are the same wherever you are in the world. The fruit needs water and heat which can vary by a few degrees in the different countries however, what all berry growing countries have in common is the seasonality of their fruit and that fruit tastes best in season. That’s in season wherever the conditions are right for growing berries at that particular time of the year. There was a time when our whole world was governed by the seasons, and all our food was seasonal. Winter was a time of hardship and privation, to be endured rather than enjoyed; spring brought the first fresh salads, followed by a wealth of summer fruit and vegetables that reached its climax in early autumn, when fruit hung heavy from the trees.
Even today there’s still something special about seasonal fruit and veg. There’s that small thrill of excitement when the first strawberries or raspberries appear on the shelves, of course, but buying food in its proper season is good for you too: it’s almost certainly bound to be fresher, for a start, and often contains much higher levels of health-giving vitamins and nutrients. That’s not to say that we should only eat seasonal food: if that was the case we’d still spend most of the winter eating nothing but potatoes, dried beans and cabbages.
Britain, along with Continental Europe and South, Central and North America have ideal climates for growing some of the finest fresh soft fruit in the world, but how much do most of us know about them?
GROWING BERRIES
Different berries, of course, require widely different conditions in order to thrive, but Britain is lucky in having a mild, temperate climate and a wide range of soils that make it ideal for growing a wider range of crops than almost anywhere else on earth. That said, most fruit ripens earlier – and continues to produce crops for longer – in countries that have longer hot summers than ours, which enables us to extend the season of crops such as blackberries and strawberries by importing fruit from warmer climates.
By contrast, to grow blueberries on a commercial scale requires large areas of damp, acidic soil, of the kind that is relatively rare in Britain but that can be found in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Poland and the USA, whose cold winters and damp pine forests provide the ideal conditions for their cultivation. Soft fruit in the UK is often grown in greenhouses, while most is still grown outdoors protected by polytunnels. All use irrigated supplies of water and work to optimise water use and reduce wastage.
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