The Fruits of My Labour
Some days, one’s memory is stimulated unexpectedly. It is summer here in Australia, and the seasonal fruits are in the supermarkets and fruit and vegetable stores. Some of my favourite fruits beg me to buy them, and I do. I tend to choose fruit without skin blemishes, but the fruit must be near ripe and ready to eat. Peaches, apricots, plums and more.

Peach
I take my purchase home carefully, hoping that I don’t cause any damage, and then store it in my refrigerator or if it needs further time to ripen, in my fruit bowl. When I eventually get to eat it, I am almost always disappointed. Often, even after a few days of “ripening” the fruit is still hard, and the taste of my memories long ago, comes to me but only as a memory for the fruit I buy now is not what I remember from my early years. Oh, how spoilt I was as a child. I got to eat freshly picked fruit– and the taste was exquisite. I so wish I could go and pick it off the trees now!
Growing fruit in the back yard.
I remember when we moved into our new house many years ago. My sister had just been born, and my father was working with Uncle Ken, a builder. My mother was a full-time mother. She had come from a farming family and she knew how to grow fruit and vegetables!
Initially, our backyard was a mess of weeds, and in his spare time, my father built paths and planted lawn, and my mother (with my father’s help) planted fruit trees. I remember we had peaches, apricots, plums, oranges and lemons, grapes, strawberries, rhubarb, and two almond trees and more. Surrounding the fruit trees, vegetables grew, and later, after my sister buried an apple core, an apple tree appeared.

Apricot
I grew up knowing that I could just go into the garden and pick whatever fruit was ripe, or near ripe. I know my sister and I would often be in trouble for harvesting fruit before it was really ripe and a few tummy aches were experienced too.
Creating Jams and Preserves
My sister and I often reflect on those times, especially the summer school holidays, when we were almost overwhelmed with the fruits of our labour. We would pick buckets of fruit from the trees, cart them to the kitchen, and prepare them. We always had plenty to do to prepare the fruit for jams–mainly apricot and plums were washed, stones removed, then cooked, sugar added, and then poured into glass jars. The apricots and peaches were mostly “preserved”. We’d toil as we cut the fruit in half, layered it into the jars ready for their time in the oven. We lived in Adelaide, (South Australia) which always had hot dry summers, and spending the time in the hot kitchen preparing the fruits for jams and preserves was hot and steamy work. I can’t recall complaining. It was fun, and there were great rewards – feeding on the fruit as we worked and having the larder filled to feed us until the next season. We’d often head for the beach for a swim afterwards.
Fruit in Supermarkets Now
Sadly, few people grow fruit and vegetables in their gardens these days, though I still manage to grow tomatoes, and herbs in pots and have a wild (self-sown and crazy) pumpkin plant that supplies quality products for me, my family and friends.
But I have to buy fruit in the supermarket. Grown in orchards anywhere in Australia. They pick the fruit before the flavour has developed and before it has softened, so people who have always bought their goods in supermarkets will never know the wonderful flavour of fruit freshly harvested from a tree. It is the only way to transport the fruit, for if it was really ripe, it would end up in a mess before reaching a supermarket.
It is a huge disappointment to taste this fruit – and it is not easy to get freshly picked fruit. Sometimes I feel devastated. My memories of the past click in, and I regret that I have little choice these days.
What are your thoughts on fruits from the supermarket, dear reader.