Two Vastly Improved Fruit Pickers

You can get a fruit picker at almost any hardware store. The problem is they're heavy, bulky and require carrying extension poles. We decided to see if we could make a better fruit picker: lightweight, smaller, easier to carry on a bike and having a longer range.

In the end, we ended up with two improved fruit pickers: one is bulkier yet lighter, and easier to deal with ($26 for parts), the other packs down to 3' long, is slightly heavier, but has a huge range (parts cost approx $68).

We hope this will help you make the right fruit picker for you. For the hobbyist fruit-hunter, the less-expensive "painter's pole" style should be fine, for you regular pedal powered gleaners, we recommend the telescoping "Gaffer's Fish Pole" style.

Assemble all your materials: A can of scrap white paint, a fruit picker head, tennis racket handle tape and a 4-8' telescoping painters pole, OR (for the Cadillac of fruit pickers) a 3 - 12' Gaffer's Fish Pole.

You will need a small screwdriver and a small paintbrush.

For the Gaffer's Fish Pole style: wrap the tip with the grip tape or bike innertubes until you can slide the picker head on and screw it into place.

For the Painter's Extension Pole style: Screw the basket into place

Paint the front of the basket white or lighter than the rest of the basket. This will make it easier to see what fruit you're picking when it's twenty feet above you in a tree

Take your new fruit picker out for a spin. Notice how much easier it is to just unscrew and extend, rather than having to carry and attach an extension pole.