Japanese Fruit Picking Seasons

Japan is famous for all kinds of delicious fruits. Different areas boast some great local varieties. For example, some cities of Nagano prefecture have world-famous apples (Iida city, especially, where local school-children groom the trees which line a beautiful street in town).

Picking seasons for 18 popular fruits below:


So proud are such places that there will be many signs for picking times, where you can pay a flat fee for a set amount of time in which to manically pick as much fruit as possible.

Here are the peak dates for all the fruits I could find information on. They're approximate, and will vary somewhat up and down the country. Happy picking.


Spring/Summer
Cherries (cherii): June
Peaches (momo): June-August
Melon (meron): June-September
Nectarine (nekutarin): July-August
Plums (ume): July-August
Watermelon (suica): July-August
Prunes (sumomo): August-September
Grapes (budou): August-September
Apples (ringo): September-December
Pears (nashi): September-October

Figs (Ichijiku): September-October

Autumn/Winter
Persimmons (kaki): October-November
Satsuma (Mikan): October-December
Yuzu: November-February
Sudachi: November-February
Kumquat (kinkan): November-February
Strawberries (ichigo): January-May
Kiwi (kiui): January-March

More

• There seems to be a "fruit line" in virtually every prefecture - a region or road along which you can see and pick a huge variety of fruits. There one in Ibaraki (which may never be popular again thanks to the nuclear incident), and various websites like rurubu, Sunnypages and pickyourown which will list some farms for you.
• Also, a place in Kazu will let you volunteer to work on the farm. All you need to do is bear the music on their homepage!