So in the last couple weeks, we've reached two milestones which I consider vitally important to a year in New England. The first is that fresh local strawberries have become available. The second is that fresh black figs have started arriving from Georgia or California or wherever fresh figs come from.
New England is not a place you'll find fresh figs locally, but we're known for our berries. Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries are available pretty much all summer long (though blueberries and raspberries don't come out until July. Gooseberries and currants are also available from Nourse Farm, which is better known for shipping berry plants all over the country. In the summer, our farmers also grow both sweet and tart cherries and melons, which being an annual are sold by vegetable rather than fruit farmers.
From the middle-to-end of the summer we also get ground cherries, which roughly tripled in price while I was in Turkey. I strongly suspect that some health guru advertised them as being high in anti-oxidants while I was away, and I really wish I could punch whoever it is square in his or her stupid alternative medicine-promoting face.
At the end of summer we get peaches and pears; the peaches lead into apples which outlast the pears. (I'll probably start a whole thread about heirloom apples come fall; I'm not a huge apple fan but they're such a big part of New England history and culture, and heirlooms are awesome. So no talking about apple varieties on this thread, comprendes?) And for a short season in the fall, people sell the fruit of the hardy kiwi plants ("kiwi berries") from their backyards, and those are beyond amazing.
And that's pretty much it for fruit in New England. One local farmer grows quinces in small numbers, but I'm not a fan of quinces. And we're just a teeny bit too far north for apricots. Pretty much all other fruit is either subtropical (like figs), tropical, or just not worth growing commercially. (Like mulberries. They grow here, and are delicious, but nobody sells them commercially.)
Strawberries these days are generally disappointing, because there's a saying about strawberries: "yield, size, and flavor: pick two." There used to be a few places which picked yield and flavor but now all the local farmers have picked yield and size, which means that local strawberries are only a little better than supermarket berries.
Melons are highly unpredictable in quality, and of the places where I get peaches, two are routinely excellent and one is unpredictable. And everything else is generally awesome, although cherries, "kiwiberries," and Seckel pears have much too short a season. (99% of pears grown in the US are D'anjou, Bartlett, or Bosc; Seckels can occassionally be found in the supermarket but are invariably hard as a rock and flavorless.)
On a somewhat-related note, I find it baffling that figs can be shipped across the country (not that I'm complaining, mind you), but that cherimoyas and passionfruit (both of which are picked unripe) cannot. Also, you can sometimes get lychees, rambutans, and mangosteens in Chinatown. All are delicious, but not as much as when I had then in Hong Kong. (They were also a lot cheaper in Hong Kong.)
Oh, and pineapples, mangos, and kumquats are good even after being shipped across country, but if you get them locally, they're so amazing you'd think you're eating a different kind of fruit. In Hawaii you can eat the entire thing, including the core. In Puerto Rico, I got a different variety of pineapple the size of my head and with white flesh. Also, I don't like regular guavas, but in San Diego I had a truly amazing orange fruit called a Brazilian guava courtesy of a local farmer.
I've tried all sorts of fruit in various situations, including Suriname cherries (delicious, like a marigold-accented cherry), sapodilla (quite disappointing), noni (why the hell would anyone want to eat that), loquats (quite good), and Monstera deliciosa (like a tarter cheirmoya, and with a fascinating texture). Someday I'd like to try other stuff like acai berries, schizandra berries, barbados gooseberries, and pretty much any fruit.
I just really love fruit. (Well, except for papayas. Even fresh from my aunt's yard, they resemble a half-dissolved dishcloth soaked with sugar water.)