Friday afternoon, June 26th, 2009:  Today's update:  In case this is the first time you are checking in with us this year, we have almost no peaches this year due to a late spring freeze (see below for more information).  The strawberries are now finished for this year.  The blackberries are still plentiful this week, but will be dropping off in production very soon.  And, most of our vegetable crops are now producing very well (tomatoes are now starting to come in strong, and watermelons and cantaloupe will be in one to two weeks).

Look for us Thursday afternoons, 4:00 to 7:00, at the Fredericksburg Farmers Market on the Markplatz in the center of town.

A Different Summer!

Blackberries

 Blackberry season began in mid-May with our Brazos, Rosborough and Womack varieties.  They are now finished, but the Kiowa variety is now passing its peak, with an abundance of large berries, making this a great time for picking blackberries!  The blackberry season usually runs through the end of June, with a few stragglers into early July.  If you are here early in the morning, you should have little difficulty finding enough blackberries to pick.  For anyone wanting to pick quantities of 7 pounds (1 box) or more, we recommend making an 8:00 a.m. appointment for a specific date, so that we can try to avoid having too many "big" pickers show up the same morning.  We always try to insure that about half of the crop for the day is available for customers without appointments that only want to pick one or two quarts.  The price for pick-your-own blackberries is $2.75 per pound, plus a one time $.75 charge for the re-usable berry box, or $2.85 per pound in quart bags.  If you want to buy blackberries that we have picked, it is best to call ahead, and have us reserve them for you (these are $7.00 for a pound and a half package, or $4.50 per pound for five pound or more quantities).

Strawberries

  The strawberries had an incredible four months, and are now finished.

Vegetables

We planted most of our summer vegetables about the second week of April, after our late freeze, and most of them are now in great production, or will be very shortly.  I am relying on our berries and vegetables this year to provide some of the income necessary to pay my workers to keep the peach trees healthy, and prepare them for hopefully a better crop in the coming year.  Your patronage of our vegetables will help insure the availability of peaches next year!

Available now: tomatoes, peppers, black-eyed peas, cream peas, okra, onions, potatoes,  zucchini, yellow squash, salad cucumbers, and pickling cucumbers

Just beginning:  yellow watermelons

Starting in about one week:  cantaloupes

Some of the vegetables are available for pick-your-own, particularly things like black-eyed peas, cream peas, and okra, which are very time-consuming for us to pick.  The items that are more costly in labor for us to pick are the vegetables that you save the most on by picking yourself.  Since we try to pick all of our vegetables early each day, before the heat affects their freshness, it is best to let us know in advance if you are wanting to come pick vegetables, and then plan to be here early in the morning.

Peaches

 The peach crop (in all varieties) was essentially wiped out by a late freeze on April 7th.  We  have "very few to none" for sale right now.  We had a very limited quantity in some of our earlier varieties that are now finished.  For most of the rest of the summer, the availability of peaches at our orchard will be virtually none, with the possible exception of the Ouachita Gold variety in late July again having a few.

Peach Quiz

If Marburger Orchard has an average of 10 peaches per tree (instead of the usual 500), and some varieties like Regal and Gold Prince (late May), and Ouachita Gold (late July) have an average of 25, and most of the others have and average of 0 to 5, will there be any peaches of your favorite variety available this year?  Oh, and did I mention that only 25% of those peaches would be "half way decent looking"?  And also, there is no guarantee that raccoons, opossums and birds won't take the remaining 25% before they are ripe enough for us to pick!

Therefore,  we do not expect to have pick-your-own in our peaches anytime this summer.  (Ouachita Gold could be the exception, but we will not know until we see how they develop in late July.)

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Note:  Some local growers are supplementing the very limited supply of their own peaches at their roadside stands with peaches from other Texas growers who didn't experience the loss that we did here in the Hill Country  --  I have done this in past years, but we are not this year.  By the way, if you see "Hill Country", "Fredericksburg" or "Stonewall" peaches being sold out of the back of a truck by the side of the road outside of Gillespie County this year, ask the vendor whose orchard he bought them from!  This kind of "mis-labeling" goes on every year, but it is particularly ludicrous this year to think that any peach grower could not sell every peach he can find right here!

Method of Payment

Sorry, we do not accept credit or debit cards -- cash or check only.

Hours of Operation

Monday thru Saturday:   8:00 a.m. til "noonish"

Thursdays:  Closed at 12:00 noon to go to Farmers Market

Sunday:   Usually closed this summer

We strongly recommend coming early in the day to have the best selection, and to beat the heat.  We will close early any day when we feel like all the ripe fruit has been picked for that day.  There are also occasions when we may be closed entirely for the day.  (Without a peach crop, this is why we are usually closed on Sundays this year, particularly after the fields have been heavily picked the day before, and the fruit needs extra time to catch up on ripening.)  It is a good idea to check here, or call our answering machine, the night before you plan to come, and also if you cannot make it out until later in the morning, to be sure that we will be open,

Due to the very limited amount of fruit (peaches, strawberries and blackberries) that will be available each day for the rest of this season, and due to the additional labor cost involved in staying open all day (particularly with very low customer traffic in the hot afternoons), we have cut back our usual hours of operation for the rest of this season.

Looking forward to seeing you here at the orchard soon!