Extended Season for Thornless Blackberries & Peaches this Year

    Many 'Apache' thornless blackberries are still ripening now, and there will be many for customers to pick over the next 2 weeks, until about Aug. 4.  We also have an extended picking season on 'Natchez' thornless blackberries this year.  New fruiting shoots grew after the early-fruiting shoots were killed by an April frost, and these berries will keep ripening until early Aug.

Some 'Natchez' thornless blackberries are still ripening, now until early Aug.

   Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are great days to come pick thornless blackberries, as the fewest customers come to pick on those days.  Many come on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, so we sometimes get picked out by late morning on those days.  Temperatures are quite pleasant from 7:30 a.m. (when we open) until 9:30 a.m.  We're also open every evening 7 to 9 p.m. for blackberry picking, but for the next week it will stay very hot until 8 p.m.

   These are nice large berries, with NO thorns or chiggers.  Thornless blackberries are sold pick-your-own only, for $4.93 per quart + sales tax.  We provide quart containers, and have customers fill them level-full.  You'll bring the berries home in the quarts, set on cardboard trays, and we appreciate it if you bring us back the empty quarts and cardboard trays on your next visit to Reid Orchards.

   Some customers bring plastic or cardboard trays, or metal cookie sheets with sides, to set their quarts on, which we also appreciate.  Do NOT bring bowls to dump the berries into, as that could bruise them, and we want the berries to stay in the quarts they're picked into until you get them home and use them.

   We're now in the peak harvest season for 'Intrepid' peaches, my favorite variety for flavor.  As of right now, Mon. July 21 at 3:30 p.m., we have 12 boxes of #1 'Intrepid' peaches and 12 boxes of #2 'Intrepid' peaches in our cooler, ready for sale.  These were all harvested in the last couple of days, Sat. July 19 and this morning.

We now have 12 boxes of #1 'Intrepid' peaches like this one, weighed to 10 pounds per box, plus 12 boxes of #2 'Intrepid' peaches, ready for sale. We harvest more peaches each morning.

   All our peach varieties have yellow flesh and are freestone, so the flesh easily comes free from the pit or stone.  Later-ripening peach varieties are better for cooking or canning.  'Intrepid' is very juicy, and is great for fresh eating, freezing and jam-making, but not for cooking or canning.  More peach varieties will ripen until about Aug. 20.  Each variety ripens over a 10 to 14 day period, so we have a succession of peach varieties ripening over a total of 8 weeks. 

   We harvest all the ripe peaches each morning, and mainly sell them in 10-pound boxes.  Harvested peaches sell for $1.58 per pound + sales tax for #1 fruit with no damage.  We also pick some nice #2 fruit, with some surface scarring but no internal damage, that sells for $1.28 per pound + sales tax.

   We still have many cracked pecans for sale now too.  We sell cracked pecans in 4-pound bags, which are over 75% pecan kernels and under 25% shell fragments.  Each bag has the equivalent of 6 pounds of in-shell pecans, and when you pick out the kernels, you get 3 pounds or more of nutmeats.  Each bag costs $19.70 + sales tax.

   In summer, as shown in the sidebar at left, we're open Mon. to Sat. 7:30 a.m.to 12 noon and 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. only.  We're closed Sun. mornings for church services (as we are year-round), and closed from 12 noon to 7 p.m. each day in summer due to high heat.

   Updated projected sales dates for all our crops are shown in the sidebar at left under Crop Sales Seasons.  That also tells which crops we sell harvested, and which crops we sell pick-your-own.

   As always, we take cash or checks for payment, but NO credit cards or debit cards, and no "apps".  We don't use a smart phone, and have no phone line to the sales building.  So please bring your checkbook or enough cash to cover the amount of produce you want to buy.  Thanks.