When Is California Hass Season? The Best Months to Buy Hass Avocados
California Hass avocado season runs from March through October. The peak is June and July, which is when California Hass is at its most plentiful — and why, when we filmed this in July, we were selling a lot of avocados through our website.
If you want California-grown Hass, those summer months are the sweet spot. Outside the Hass window, other varieties can keep fresh avocados coming nearly year-round.
Why does the season run so long?
Avocados are unusual fruit. They mature on the tree but do not ripen until they are picked, so a grower can leave mature fruit hanging for weeks or months and pick it as needed. That is what stretches the California Hass season across most of the year rather than a few frantic weeks.
Hass is especially good at it. The University of California’s grower handbook calls Hass the variety with the longest harvest season, and describes it running from January to August in San Diego County and as late as June to October in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. Where a grove sits along the coast moves its window by months, which is why you will see California Hass described with slightly different dates depending on who is picking.
The season is also shaped by the long gap between bloom and harvest. Hass is mostly Guatemalan in its ancestry, and Guatemalan-type avocados take twelve months or more to go from flower to mature fruit. So a Hass that blooms one spring is usually picked the following year, which surprises a lot of people. We explained that in why bloom dates do not predict harvest.
Why June and July?
By early summer the fruit has had a long time on the tree and is well sized and mature, and the whole California crop is coming off at once. That is the peak of the season, and it is when we pick and ship the most.
Does Hass taste different early and late in the season?
It can. The handbook notes that early-season Hass is not as palatable as fruit picked later, and that very late fruit can turn rancid quickly once it softens. The middle of the season is the sweet spot for flavor as well as volume, which is one more reason we like June and July.
It is also a good reason to buy California fruit specifically in summer. The Hass you find in stores the rest of the year is often imported, and we have written about the difference between California and imported avocados.
What about the rest of the year?
Hass is not the only avocado. Other varieties mature at different times, and growing a mix is how you get fresh fruit across more of the calendar. The video mentions Fuerte and Lamb Hass as two that help fill the gaps.
The UC handbook gives typical California windows for both. Fuerte is a winter fruit, picked roughly November through March. Lamb Hass is not usually picked before May or June, and some growers hold it on the tree into November, so it overlaps the back half of the Hass season and carries on after it.
Some of those are already growing at our home grove, and we are planting more. Fuerte in particular is an old California favorite that comes in after Hass winds down; we covered that handover from Hass to Fuerte separately. For how the different types compare on the plate, see our guide to avocado varieties.
So when should you buy?
For California Hass, any time from March to October, with June and July the best of it. After that, look for the later varieties.
Our 4lb and 6lb Hass boxes are grown here in Southern California and ship free, picked the week they go out. Between harvests, join the waitlist on either page, or look at the 4lb Fuerte box when Fuerte season comes around. Until the trees are picking again, the avocado scoop, the Hawaiian shirt and our hats ship year-round.
This post is part of our guide to choosing, ripening and using avocados.
