Great Pickings

Local farms are making September and the fall a lot more fun. pickings Great

by Michael J. DeCicco

Want to pick your own strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, apples, and peaches? Sweet Berry Farm at 915 Mitchell's Lane in Middletown is offering its 100 acres for the public to do just that this time of year. Of course, each “pick-your-own” offering has its own season, manager Jan Eckhart said. Visitors are issued a pulp basket or a bag and simply pay for what they fill their container with. Peaches are available for picking until early October. Blackberries are in season from early August to September. Find fall Raspberries from late August to September. Apples, including Summer Golden (Pristine), Sansa, Zestar, Summer McIntosh, Gingergold, McIntosh, Gala, Golden Supreme, Honeycrisp, Macoun, Cortland, Jonagold, Empire, Golden Delicious, Fuji, and Mutsu (Crispin), are available from late August to early October. Pumpkins are available from late September to October. After Thanksgiving, its acreage is devoted to a Christmas Tree farm. Choose your own tree, and the farm staff will cut, wrap, and tie it to your car. Or you can choose one of its pre-cut trees. The farm also offers a cafe with outdoor and indoor seating that serves sandwiches, pizza, specialty cakes and pies, sodas, ice cream, and cookies. Its Farm Market sells a variety of produce, dairy products, gourmet items, prepared foods and premium ice cream, many of which are sourced from local businesses. And there's even freshly-cut flowers for sale. Eckhart said he sees locals as well as people from as far as New York. The farm's pick-your-own days are always well-attended by a mix of ages, from adults to little kids – so well attended it's hard for him to put an exact number of visitors each year. For 40 years, he said, Sweet Berry Farm's pick-your-own days have attracted very good attendance from "people who like coming out in the fresh air." Learn more by visiting sweetberryfarmri.com.

Sweet Berry Farm's pick-your-own days have attracted very good attendance.

Family outings

It's also almost picking season at Dartmouth Orchard, found at 515 Old Westport Road in Dartmouth. Owner Brian Mederios said his farm's pick-your-own-apple season starts the second week of September and lasts until mid-October. People who volunteer for the fun are asked to pay for a bag (or bags) in exchange for the experience to choose which of 40 varieties of the juicy orb they want to take home from his eight acres of trees. "The apples are free," Mederios said. "But the experience is invaluable." Dartmouth Orchards has been a farm for 92 years – three generations. Its pick-your-own offerings started 10 years ago and have continued every year since because of their popularity, Mederios said.

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