App Review: Seasonal Harvest
Eating locally grown, in-season fruits and vegetables sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? It’s better for the environment, and it generally means fresher, better-tasting produce. Yet the supermarkets have gotten so good at providing every imaginable fruit and vegetable throughout the year, sometimes it’s hard to figure out which ones are actually in season and which ones were shipped in from thousands of miles away.
Seasonal Harvest aims to help by giving you an up-to-date list of fruits and vegetables that are currently in season in your state. It can find your location using GPS, or you can select from a list of states.
Large produce database: Although I don’t know how many fruits and vegetables are in Seasonal Harvest’s full database, I can tell you that for California in February, it lists 64 items as being in season. A couple of them did appear to be duplicates, but that’s a pretty minor flaw. For comparison, I also checked Minnesota and found 23 items in season.
What’s a cherimoya? If you want more information about an item, click on the name to find out when its season starts and ends in your state, get the item’s Wikipedia entry, or get a list of recipes from Allrecipes.com. These links worked well for me. I couldn’t find any recipes for cherimoyas, but I did learn that Mark Twain loved them, and that they’re native to Bolivia and Peru. And I found plenty of recipes for more common items, like artichokes and endive. This could come in handy if you’re looking to expand your fruit and vegetable horizons, or if you’ve never figured out a good way to prepare cabbage. (And honestly, who has?)
Farmers’ markets: Seasonal Harvest can search for farmers’ markets in your immediate area, pinpoint them on a
map, inform you of their hours, and provide user reviews. I found this feature to be the weakest part of the app, since the farmers’ markets in my town weren’t listed, and some of those listed in neighboring towns weren’t really farmers’ markets, but grocery stores—or, in one case, a flea market.
My recommendation: Seasonal Harvest isn’t a perfect tool for finding in-season produce. Since it lists items by state, those of us in larger states still don’t know what’s truly local, and what might be coming from a few hundred miles away. And the listing of farmers’ markets is a weak spot. A truly committed locavore might prefer to shop through a community-supported agriculture farm, or find out what’s in season by simply dropping by the farmers’ market. But for those of us who are looking for incremental improvements, Seasonal Harvest is a nice step in the right direction. If you don’t mind a few small ads on your screen, then I recommend the free version, Seasonal Harvest Lite.
Ooh – I have to check this out!
Hi. I’m the developer of the Seasonal Harvest app. I just came across this and want to thank you for taking the time to review my app. I notice that you said there are some duplicates showing up for you, could you please let me know what those are so that I can fix them?
I agree that the farmers market search is the weakest part of the app. Unfortunately this feature relies on a Google Maps search for “farmers market” that just isn’t very accurate. I need to find a better source of farmers market locations.
As for the seasonality information being limited to state-wide, this is really the best information I’ve been able to find. I’ve been unable to find any states that post this information in something more specific. If anyone knows of a source for this information on perhaps a county level, please let me know so that I can use it to improve the app.
Thanks again for the review.