Gardens are full of colour now as various berries are just ready for picking.  Most often you will find strawberries - jahody, raspberries - maliny, less often blackberries - ostruziny, but a lot of red currants - cerveny rybiz, and black currants - cerny rybiz.  Another traditional garden berry is the gooseberry - angrest which now seems to be losing popularity.   All of these can be eaten fresh or preserved in various forms. 

Summer is also the time of forrest berries.  Apart from raspberries and blackberries, there are boruvky - blue-berries, which get their Czech name from the pine tree - borovice.  They are abundant especiallly in higher altitudes and can be eaten fresh, sprinkled with sugar, or preserved.  And of course, there are wild strawberries - lesni jahody which translates as forest or wood strawberries).  They are a  real delicacy with sugar and fresh cream.

August is the only time when you can enjoy summer apples - letni jablka - small green apples which taste lovely and fresh, but don't keep and often go bad when they 're still on the tree.  Generally, it's impossible to buy these apples, precisely because their life is so short.  Even if they resist worms and fruit rot, they get floury soon - moucna jablka.  You can only get them from your own or other people's gardens and that's why their taste is so treasured and unique.  It conjures up memories of summers spent in the country side.  These apples are sometimes called padavky from the verb padat - to fall - because they fall from the apple tree before they are picked.

-Pavla Horakova