Whether you’re holding your breath for strawberries or prepping your pie crusts for peaches, everyone wants to know when spring produce will be brightening up dinner time. In working with farmers across our country for 3 years now, we’ve learned that produce seasons are far more determined by the weather than they are by the calendar, so we wanted to give you the inside scoop on what’s going to be available this spring and when. Here’s what you need to know about this spring. Be sure to download our produce storage guide so you can make the most of our seasonal bounty!
Stone Fruit Suspense
The California stone fruit season is currently delayed several weeks due to rainy weather and cold temperatures in the Central Valley. This means that we’ll have apricots in boxes starting in early May, followed by peaches and nectarines shortly after. We’ve also just started working with Georgia and South Carolina peach growers, so our Washington, D.C. and Maryland customers can expect to see peaches from them once the peach season begins in the South in the late spring and early summer.
Behold the Beautiful Berries
Our Texas customers can look forward to organic strawberries starting in late March. In California, the strawberry hub of Watsonville has seen a lot of rain and cold, delaying their harvests until late April. Blueberries will start being available out of Oxnard starting in early May.
Spicy Specialities
Fun fact: Chili pepper season is actually the hottest party to occur in the Coachella valley every year. We’ll have several exciting varieties of chili peppers available starting in mid-April including fruity Anaheims, versatile jalapeños, and spicy serranos. Keep an eye out for Fresno peppers, which have one of our favorite balances of sweet and spicy flavor, and are perfect for pickling!
Peas and Thank You
In April, we’ll have an abundance of delicious snow peas from our friends at Jacobs Del Cabo as well as sugar snap peas for snacking. Your stir fries are about to welcome an all-star new teammate.
Texas Goes Green
Texas’s leafy green season is heating up this April in the Lone Star State. We’re excited to share hydroponically grown butter lettuce plus Texas-grown kale, cabbage, romaine with our San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and Dallas customers.
The Summer Teaser
Impatient for summer treats like melons? You should know that the melon season has been off to a very slow start thanks to record cold temperatures in the melon-growing hotbed of Southern Arizona. As a reference point, this year our growers have reported the fewest number of days above 80 degrees since the 1950s. Mother Nature has certainly been giving melons the cold shoulder this year but things are starting to warm up. You can expect melons along with other fruits like cherries and plums once summer kicks off in June.
Want to make the most of your spring produce? Store it properly so it doesn’t go to waste. Be sure to get your copy of our produce storage guide for useful tips!
8 Comments
Renee Titone
March 24, 2019 at 8:29 pmI live in California where so much produce is grown yet so much of the produce you off Dr grown in Mexico. I don’t want ANY Mexican produce. I signed up to help American farmers. I want Amercan grown produce.
Imperfect
March 25, 2019 at 4:25 pmHey Renee,
Thanks so much for sharing this honest feedback with us. We hear you and will pass this on to our supply team. In full transparency, winter and early spring can be difficult times to source 100% domestic produce, especially this year when rain and cold temperatures have delayed harvests throughout California and the Southwest. It’s always a balancing act for us between following where produce is available and trying to source from nearby each of our markets. We always list where an item is from so you can pick the items that best reflect your values, but will be sure to pass along this feedback to source more California-grown produce. Thanks for reading our blog!
Renee Stepp
March 25, 2019 at 3:44 pmWhen ordering produce they tell you where it’s coming from, just select produce from the states if that’s what you prefer to do. Or just shop at your local grocer/farmers market
Imperfect
March 25, 2019 at 4:27 pmHey Renee,
Thanks for reading and for your support. We try to make it as easy as possible for folks to pick the produce that they’re most excited to eat and that fits their budget and values. We appreciate you chiming in here.
Melissa Hinton
March 26, 2019 at 4:54 pmSo excited for my boxes every time I order. Thanks Imperfect, your produce is delightful!
Love, The Hinton Family
Imperfect
March 26, 2019 at 5:12 pmWe’re so delighted to hear this. You’re very welcome. Enjoy your next box, Hintons!
Wendy Wagner
March 27, 2019 at 4:01 amDo we only get food from the state we live in?? I hope not 😟
Imperfect
March 27, 2019 at 4:06 pmHey Wendy,
This is a good question. We do source produce from all over the country and follow the seasons as we do so. For example, if you live in a cold part of the Midwest, you’ll be getting a good amount of produce from outside of your state during the winter for obvious reasons. During the summer, you’ll see close to half of it coming from your region. We hope this helps clear up your question! Thanks for reading our blog.