Fruitpicking 101 - A day in the life of a genuine kiwifruit picker...

A day in the life of a kiwifruit - from vine to crate...and eventually in your belly.

This can only mean that YES, I am finally employed again after months of working my butt off and not getting paid, aka cycle touring, aka one big fat holiday (vacation).

Fruitpicking is a fairly common way for the working holiday visa traveler to make some extra cash on the road. It's definitely a seasonal gig. Right now is kiwifruit. March on the South Island was cherries. Mandarins are just about to finish up. And in the wine-making regions, grapes are going mad. Later on there will be pruning and trimming jobs. And there is also work in the packhouses. It's minimum wage. Different than the US, though, minimum wage is $13.50 an hour. At least that. But it's too bad tipping isn't a habitual practice here, otherwise my butt would be waiting tables in a heart beat. But table waiters make $13.50/hr as well. So I figure might as well do something new. And fun, right?! hmm.

I wouldn't by any stretch label fruitpicking as my dream job. But it's not horrid. Yet. Granted, I have only been at it two days. I must say though, that I am genuinely fascinated by the process that the kiwifruit I buy at the grocery goes through to sit on the shelf waiting so patiently for me to buy it so I can gobble it up. Yes, that fruit that you are eating may have been picked by me!!

We start the day in a team of ten people. In my group, I believe seven of us are backpackers and the remaining three are kiwis. We have these rather handy bags designed especially for fruitpicking. They are functional and surprisingly comfortable and extremely effecient. There are rows and rows of kiwifruit which grow on vines (?) that are above our heads (intentionaly done), so it's like we are walking underneath kiwifruit tunnel after kiwifruit tunnel. I'm 5'4", and on average I reach maybe 1/2 a foot above my head to pick a hanging fruit.

These are finicky fruits. They have a soft skin that can easily be damaged, so we have to pick the fruit without any of it's stalk still attached. We can't let it rub against any branches or it may scratch it open exposing it's bright green flesh. The fruit isn't quite ripe yet, so it is still rather firm.

We use our special designed fruitpicking bags to let the fruit rolls gently out the bottom of the bad - then we have to strap the bag back to itself so the bottom is hole-less...make sense?

Today it rained. Rain makes the fruit wet. Did you know that? :) Well, wet kiwifruit is even more finicky then dry kiwifruit so we have to be even more careful.

So yes, it rained. And it continues to rain. More on kiwifruit picking and how it lands on the grocery store shelves into your belly coming soon.

Now my thoughts are rolling to my tent (home for several weeks) and hoping it will hold up in the rain day in and say out (the forecast - which likely will be wrong, at least :)

Cheers from up North