What Fruits and Vegetables Are in Season During Spring?

Shoppers are ready to welcome spring. With warmer, sunnier days come new fruits and vegetables such as berries, melons, corn, bell peppers and peas. Farmers are eagerly picking seasonal produce and supplying these high-demand items to grocery stores.

Why Eat Seasonal Food?

Eating seasonal food has a lot of benefits that affect both your health and your wallet. Here's a quick look at why you should eat fresh, local fruits and veggies that are in season:

Save Money

Seasonal produce is cheaper. Why? Supply is high, and transporting bulk produce to local stores is cost-effective for farmers, which means the savings are passed on to you.

Prices can swing drastically when fruits and vegetables aren't in season. You'll notice during winter months that produce prices are higher because the weather keeps local growers from planting and harvesting.

Grocery stores have to source produce from farms outside of their region (or even outside of the country) to provide fruits and vegetables to customers. This is a costly process, which drives retail prices up, according to LifeHacker.

Eat Healthy

When you eat a fresh orange or apricot this spring, you're consuming it at its peak freshness. That means it's full of flavor and offers the most health benefits.

Produce that's out of season and comes from another country begins to deteriorate during its trek to the store. The nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants that are inside this long-distance produce starts to break down too.

Support Local Farmers

When you buy fresh produce, you're supporting the local farmers that live in your area. Grocery stores rely on community farmers to help fill their shelves with great-tasting seasonal fruits and vegetables, and when you buy them, you help the farmers sustain their living.

What's in Season?

Here's a list of fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables that you should buy during the spring months of March, April, and May to stay healthy and save money, according to Nourish Interactive:

Spring fruits

Apricots

Barbados cherries

Bitter melon

Cherimoya

Honeydew

Jackfruit

Limes

Lychee

Mango

Oranges 

Pineapple

Strawberries

Spring vegetables

Artichokes 

Asparagus 

Broccoli

Butter, Manoa, red leaf lettuce

Chayote squash 

Chives

Collard greens

Corn

Fava beans

Fennel

Green beans

Morel mushrooms

Mustard greens

Pea pods

Peas

Purple asparagus

Ramps

Rhubarb 

Snow peas

Sorrel

Spinach

Swiss chard

Vidalia onions

Watercress

This spring, consider adding some of these flavorful, seasonal fruits and vegetables to your cart.

For more details about what produce is in season or how you can shop local with Food Lion, head over to our Local Goodness page.