Orchard Notes

All signs point to our pick-your-own season to open in mid-May 2026. In 2025, we opened on May 17 and we should be able to open at least that early, if not a week or two earlier.

Our rabbiteye blueberries are loaded with green berries at the moment, and look to be much more heavily set than this time last year. It’s even possible that our first open days in May will be just for blueberry picking. In particular, the newer blueberry block is looking great, growing twice as fast as our first-planted blueberries. This is a positive development because last year our blueberries were hard to come by.

As for the blackberries, it appears the Osage and Kiowa will be the first to ripen because they’ve been setting blooms for the past few weeks. Behind them are the Arapaho, Ponca and Ouachita. The main difference from last year is that the Ponca set fruit earlier last year but this year it’s lagging behind. We think that’s more in line with their expected season. We find that newly planted blackberries can be precocious and bear earlier and heavier, but that they settle into their normal behavior in subsequent seasons. We think that means we will have a more steady but longer season for blackberries this year.

Peaches seem to be bust again this year. We won’t be able to open just for peach picking, but if you find a ripe peach during berry picking sessions, you may pick and pay the same price as the berries. We’ve yet to crack the code on peaches, and frankly they are a bit of an experiment. We planted some new peach trees this year, but it will be a few years before they bear fruit.

Plums are also a bit of an experiment. We haven’t seen too many blooms yet this year, but the trees seem fine. We’ll keep an eye out for developments.

The figs are mostly looking good, even though depending on the variety some look like they had a rough winter while others took it like a champ.  In the past, when we’ve opened for fig picking, it was in late August through October, so we’ll need to give them some time. In 2025, we did not open for fig season at all because of the previous winter’s damage.

We’ve been working hard over the off-season at improving the farm. We’ve planted about an acre of Pink Lemonade blueberry plants. They are tiny twigs in the ground right now, but hopefully in about 2-3 years they’ll start producing pink blueberries. We have two rows of mature Pink Lemonades that are really popular and get picked out quickly, so we decided to plant more of them.

We’ve also been cleaning up our weedy rows and experimenting with different types of mulching arrangements. We’re filling gaps with flowers of all sorts. We’re hoping that visitors will find not only a great fruit farm, but that the whole place feels like a big welcoming garden. We hope you come to visit us this year!