What Is Ready to Pick at Mercier, and Roughly When

The most common wasted drive in Fannin County is a family arriving at Mercier Orchards for a crop that is not there. The fields are not a facility with opening hours. They are a farm, and a row is available when the fruit on it is ready and closed when it has been picked over.

The rough order of the year: strawberries in late spring, usually from late April into early June. Blueberries through early summer, which is the easiest picking of the lot with small children. Blackberries in mid summer, which need long sleeves. Peaches in high summer, which bruise in a bag and want a box. Apples from late summer through autumn into early November, which is the long season and the one people plan around. Cutting flowers across the warm months.

Every one of those windows moves by a week or more in either direction with the weather, and a warm March can pull the strawberries forward by a fortnight. The orchard publishes its own current picking report, and that is the only source worth trusting in the days before you drive up.

The orchard has been in the same family since 1943, is now fourth generation, and grows over forty varieties of apple. The farm store, bakery and cider house are open year round even when no field is picking, and Mercier describes itself as the only apple orchard in Georgia that grows, presses, ferments and cans its own hard cider.

Published hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday to Sunday, with the orchard closed for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day and Easter. Check before a late run, because seasonal hours shift.

The timing advice is simple and it matters more than anything else on this page. In apple season, arrive when it opens. Nine in the morning is a pleasant farm store with parking. Half past twelve on an October Saturday is a full car park and a long wait to get back out onto GA-5. A weekday in October gives you the same fruit and a fraction of the people.