Harvesting Avocados

 

Different varieties of avocado have different harvest dates. The most popular variety – Hass – has a long harvest season and may be picked any time between January and October. The fruit will hang on the tree for over a year. Zutano, another variety, is best harvested in the winter – November through February. Bacon should mature from November to March; Fuerte from November to June; Rincon is a summer avocado and matures from April to June. To test whether the fruit on your tree is ready to eat, use the following test. As some varieties of avocado reach maturity, the skin changes color – Hass: green to black; Dickinson: green to dark purple. All the others stay green. Pick one or two fruits that appear to be mature. By the way, all avocados stay hard on the tree. They must be picked before they will soften and become ready to eat. Place the fruit in your fruit bowl. They should become uniformly soft, i.e., soft from stem to blossom end within a few days to two weeks at most. If they do not soften uniformly, i.e., the flesh is lumpy or has hard and soft areas or the fruit just shrivels, it is not mature, and harvest should be delayed a while longer.