Where do you buy fruit?
 

I was in Virginia visiting the grand kids last week and went to the grocery store and bought fruit. And I do know how to buy good fruit. I got watermelon, pineapple, strawberries, cantaloupe, grapes, and peaches and made them a big fresh fruit platter. All fruit was excellent.

When I got home I went to Publix and bought almost the same fruits. No peaches as they didn't have any. It was all terrible, no taste, mealy, dry, worst fruit ever. I have tried all the different stores here, Publix, Aldi's, Fresh Market, Walmart, Winn Dixie and the same thing.

I can't seem to buy decent fruit in Florida. You would think it would be just the opposite, but I find the fruit here terrible. I can usually get decent grapes and apples and sometimes blueberries, but almost everything else is awful.

Why can't we get decent fruit here? What I bought in Virginia came from all over and it was all excellent. Here it was all awful. WHY?

We use Aldi for most of our salad, fruit and veg, but they don't always have what we want in stock

Found quality to be generally good, although always worth examining carefully

Suggestion
 

You need to read a book on how to pick fruit.

Contrary to most things fruit is seasonal. It is best when it is cheapest. Tomatoes for example are good now. You could buy them during our winter they were expensive and simply bad.

Cantaloupes-they are best vine ripened. When, they ripen on the vine the stem easily tears from the melon leaving a belly button type scar. The ones commonly offered are cut from the vine.
You see a small part of the vine still attached to the mellon.
At best it will not be great and you need to let it ripen for about a week. It needs to breathe or it will rot. Best done in a wooden bowl.

Apples. If, you buy them now they will not be as good as you would hope. The apples you buy now were picked last fall and have been in cold storage for about 6 months.

A good sense of smell is an asset. I can tell if a display of cantaloupes, pineapple etc is good just by walking by it.
Wife says I smell like a dog not always sure how to interpret that.

Also
 

The quality of food sometimes depends on who you are eating it with.

Hi there,
I just read your post to my husband. His response was, "See, I'm not crazy". (Not that I ever accused him of that but that's just his opinion) LOL. Ever since we moved here he has been complaining about the fruit - especially citrus since Florida is allegedly a "Citrus Capital".

I am hoping someone will respond favorably to your post and tell us that they found a farm somewhere with excellent, organic, tasty fruit. I don't want to have to drive to Brooklyn or Virginia just to get decent fruit. LOL

Reading your post
 

RE: Florida Citrus
Due to rain and soil, Florida oranges are good for juice. California o.ranges are better for eating out of hand.

As to shopping in Brooklyn. Have you added in the PARKING TICKET to your cost?

I agree with you with one exception, I do know how to select and buy fruit. And in Florida the options are very poor selection and quality. I have lived all over the US and a few foreign countries and I have always been able to buy decent fruit. Except here in Florida. And that makes no common sense to me. You would think that you should be able to buy great fruit here. But you can't. To me that is a mystery and I would like a good explanation or a good place to purchase it. And yes of course in season is best. So would you not think that right now watermelon would be in season? Are not Georgia peaches in season? Are Florida cantaloupe not just coming in season? Blueberries just finishing? Blackberries just coming on? And yet store bought further north are much better than local. WHY?

Have you tried Browns Market on 301? We've gotten some good fruit there in the past.

Brown's Country Market - Brown and Brown Farms - Grass seed supplier, producer, and harvester

There are a lot of farmers selling watermelons now from their trucks, also corn and tomatoes. There is a pretty nice outdoor fruit stand open every day on 301 about a half mile south of the turnpike with citrus fruit, etc.

Winn Dixie at LSL has some great Georgia Peaches. First time I have found peaches that didn't taste like compressed wet newspaper in a local supermarket and that includes Fresh Market, Aldi & Publix. Not sure how long they will last though.

Good luck! I miss my he$$ 2 acres, I had 3 types pear, 2 types apples, apricots, peaches, red plum, seedless pink grapes, and luscious three types of Rainer cherries. If you never tasted Rainer cherries off the tree you have not clue how good cherry can taste. Not to mention vegetable garden. Nothing down here comes close to taste.

Wow! No one mentioned the Markets at Marion. Fresh off the farm with excellent prices.

You have hit on a favorite subject of mine, namely Florida Grapefruit. We have been coming to Florida for vacations in the winter for many years and always stayed close to the beach at Reddington Shores on the Gulf. We used to shop at a privately owned Citrus Grove close to the beach, they had everything including veg. They were known for their grapefruit and they were to die for, and so cheap it was ridiculous, you could get a huge grapefruit for 25c. In those days you could get a grapefruit called Duncan, they were white flesh and very juicy, huge, smooth skinned and shiny with loads of seeds. They were one of the original grapefruits grown in Florida, but because they had seeds people did not want them, you can no longer buy them anywhere unless you find someone who still has a tree. Then came the citrus canker outbreak and many of the old reliable groves were burned to the ground. Also, growing grapefruit is hard work and the descendants of the original growers sold off the land for developments like ours! So the grapefruit business has now gone to Texas and in the summer, California.

So we basically ruined our own Florida grapefruit business!!! :icon_wink:

A good source of citrus (in season) is your local area.

You may have neighbors with citrus trees where 90% of the crop goes to waste and they would be happy for you to help yourself.

You could play baseball with the pears.


I stopped at a roadside stand on 466A over by Pine Ridge. The guy had tomatoes and strawberries. I know not to expect much from Florida tomatoes, but the strawberries looked so beautiful. He gave me a sample, however, and it was tasteless. I didn't buy. In fact, I don't buy strawberries in our grocery stores unless I'm planning on doctoring them up or adding them to a trifle or somesuch. I agree with you--blueberries are mostly good (I've had better in other places), as are Honeycrisp apples, grapes, and some melons (occasionally). There are some melons sold in netting occasionally in the summer. They are pricey but quite good. I can't remember the brand name.

Rainier cherries are divine.

Madeleine, for six years we drove from Michigan to Key West for the winter. Every rest stop on the turnpike and interstate would have tables of cut-up oranges and grapefruit to try. They were delicious, and I always bought a supply. I wonder if they still have these vendors.

I agree about the fruit and tomatoes grown in Florida. The blueberries are good and like everywhere else in the country the strawberries are good depending on the growing weather. Is it the soil, weather, water? The little cantaloupes in a bag and the flavor bomb cherry tomatoes at Sams are divine.

Sat. farmers market... he best:a040::a040::a040:

They don't have dirt here, real dirt, not enriched sand. Nice, bountiful, full of nutrients, worms and bugs of all kinds to enrich the soil with all kinds of good stuff to nourish and to encourage the fruits and vegetables to be full of flavor. We are heading back North in two weeks and can't wait to buy the produce there. Especially Wegmans that buys from local farms for their stores produce departments. Plus the farmers will be opening up their retail markets soon, when they start picking as soon as the become available.

Strawberries are not so tasty now, because the majority of them are grown hydropinically, not in the soil.
Even the Plant City strawberries are nothing like they used to be. JMO.

Re: Strawberries and most fruit
 

They grow what people buy. Strawberries, people buy large pretty looking berries. An old variety, you may be able to buy plants was
GUARDIAN. The berries are far smaller and kind of misshapen but they are far better tasting then what is currently offered for sale.

As to,"soil," most of the villages is sandy clay with a high PH.
You can either wish you had better or improve what you have.

It seems like your post is more of a statement than a question. But...

We buy our fruit at Sam's, the Farmers Market (Brownwood) and Publix. Having lived in Virginia for 50+ years, I don't notice any huge difference, or lack of quality of the fruit down here.

Yes, yes, yes. You WANT, you DEMAND strawberries all year round. Strawberries grow for one short period and then they are done until they grow and ripen again. You want to dip your strawberries in chocolate, do you have any idea what would happen to a good tasting juicy berry that is dipped in hot chocolate, it would disintegrate in no time flat, so these solid big ol' strawberries are perfect to dip in chocolate. My grandson sent me a box last Christmas, they were in the refrigerator for about two weeks and still the strawberries did not break down, all they did was sweat inside the strawberry coating.

We ALL want fruit year round and, therefore, it has to be imported into our area, and all areas, from the growers. It is picked unripe and ripened by gassing it.

So, seems to me all people missing great tasting fruit should only buy that fruit when it is in season. Right now Athena melons are in the stores, they are absolutely delicious, they are also over ripe. I opened one today that is already starting to become juice all on its own! It will not last more than a couple of days. How about bananas, I only buy two bananas at a time because by the second day they are over ripe. I love plums, nectarines and peaches, but if you buy in the store they are like rocks and probably will not ripen, but will become woody and mushy, yuk. The only fruit I really rely on are cherries, grapes and apples. The cherries are delicious, grapes are great and apples are crispy and reliable and all three are very expensive.

I happen to really like strawberries and I buy them year round, ,but I don't eat them as strawberries, I smash them down and mix them into my yogurt.

It is what it is, we are either going to buy what is in the store or we are going to go without!:icon_wink:

We used to love buying our fruit and vegetables, as well as fresh fish, at the weekly farmers market in Spanish Springs. Unfortunately, the powers that be decided to end the Spanish Springs farmers market. Brownwood is just too far of a golf cart ride for a farmers market, but it is closer to where new homes are being built, so that's where the farmers market is now.

The produce in general here was a bit of a shock coming from California. Fingers crossed for the upcoming Villages Grown project. Lady Lake also has a farmer's market.

I can't vouch for the accuracy or quality of the fruit, but here are some pick-your-own farms in the area and a list from the National Farmers Market Directory.

Strawberries are nothing like they used to be ever since I found out the GOAT, Tom Brady, does not eat them because they can cause inflammation of the joints. If TB12 says that strawberries might not be good for you, then I won't eat them. Can't argue with what works for the greatest of all time! Can't wait to see him compete for his unprecedented 7th super bowl at a record age of 42, in a game where the average career length is about 3 years.