Heat, sun and picking fruit in an Australian summer

Most self-pick advice written elsewhere in the world assumes a mild day. Australian summer picking has two problems that advice does not cover: the sun on you, and the heat on the fruit.

Go at opening

This is the single change that improves everything. Fruit picked in the cool of the morning is firmer, keeps better and tastes better, because sugars are not being burned off in the heat. The rows are bearable. The car park is empty. Most farms open early precisely because growers know this.

By midday in January a berry row is a genuinely hard place to be, and the fruit you pick there will be soft before you get home.

What the rows do not have

Shade. Orchard rows are planted for light interception, which is the opposite of shelter, and berry rows are lower than head height. Assume full sun for the whole visit.

• A brimmed hat, not a cap
• Sunscreen applied before you arrive, because you will not stop to do it
• A long-sleeved light shirt, which is cooler than bare arms in direct sun and also solves the thorn problem on cane berries
• More water than you think, per person. There is often a tap, but not always in the rows.

The car is the real danger to the fruit

A closed car in an Australian summer car park reaches temperatures that will finish a punnet of strawberries in fifteen minutes and turn cherries to jam. This is where most self-pick fruit is ruined, not in the field.

Take an esky. Even an empty one with a frozen bottle in it. Put the fruit in it as you leave the field, not when you get home.

Do not put fruit in the boot. It is the hottest part of the car. Behind a seat, in the shade, in the esky.

Drive home first. Fruit does not survive an afternoon of other errands.

Storms and total fire bans

A summer storm can close a farm at an hour’s notice, and on a day of extreme fire danger many rural properties will not open at all. Both are ordinary in an Australian summer and neither is a farm being difficult. Check on the morning.

If you have picked too much for the heat

Process it the same evening rather than the next day. Berries freeze well spread on a tray; stone fruit halves and freezes; apples cook down. Nothing you picked improves by sitting overnight in a hot kitchen.

Updated 10 September 2026