Picking blueberries, anyone?

I washed my blueberries this morning. And strawberries.

Can't remember the ends and outs of this story, but years ago a friends father became extremely ill, after many medical tests the problem was ascertained to be associated with not washing fruit and vegies before use.

The talk at the time was mainly focused around boxes of mixed lettuce leaf - basically don't trust that any of your food is sanitised before reaching the supermarket.

#12 Some fruit is impossible to wash before packaging - eg. grapes, which would split and rot if washed. Some vegies are washed - carrots for sure - others not. I always wash fruit and vegies before consumption, especially capsicums and chillies which are sprayed with horrendous chemicals and not washed (the growers I know didn't wash) before packing.

ryb, unfortunately there are many unscrupulous growers out there who take advantage of illegal workers, non-English speaking workers etc but the majority do the right thing, I believe. But yeah, wash those blueberries - no toilets or hand basins in any paddock I know of.

It's tough on both worker and grower when weather conditions are the major concern affecting harvest. I know with the grapes we cant pick when the leaves are wet, even from the dew as wet fruit equals rotten fruit at the other end. It can be very frustrating when the workers are up at ready at 6am and you have to tell them to go back to bed and we'll call them when we're ready to start. Nobody likes being messed around, least of all the grower: everybody wants to do a full day's work. On the whole though, problems are few and far between. I believe workers should know how much they will be paid before they start work - per box or per hour and what rate of pay. It's bullshit to make someone do a day's work without confirming wages. The table grape industry isn't covered by a federal award, unlike the dried fruit industry, so growers can basically pay what they like. We use the ADFA minimum wage guidelines for hourly raters but set our own price per box. i'd like to think we're pretty fair - 3 workers netted over $800 for 5 1/2 days work, 3 over $700, and two workers are on their 5th year of employment. Our pickers are on the third year so we must be doing OK.

One year we had a group of English female backpackers (ferals would be a better word) who worked in the shed. Most days we had carry-over fruit so could start at 7am every morning, except the odd occassion when we'd pack out the night before. The girls knew if we packed out then we started in the morning between 8.30 and 9.00. One day they came to the shed at 8.30 to be told to come back in half an hour (they lived on site, so no big deal) but they cracked the shits and pissed off down the river for the day, leaving us with pallets of fruit to be packed and no packers. Very frustrating, but that's life.

Happy harvesting everyone.

Great info Pompom.