Peach and blackberry picking in full swing

Taylor’s Orchard in Gentry offers fresh-picked sweetness

GENTRY — Taylor’s Orchard in Gentry was a busy place on Saturday, with adults and numerous families with children out in the orchard picking peaches and blackberries, some for canning and freezing and others just for a family outing and the sweet taste of fresh peaches and vineripened blackberries.

The orchard still has plenty of peaches ready for picking or purchase at the orchard’s fruit stand. Customers may buy peaches by the bucket or the flat at the fruit stand, or they may go out into the orchard and pick their own.

The red haven peaches are ripe now and the topaz peaches are almost ready, according to Bill Taylor, the orchard’s owner and caretaker. Taylor, a fourth-generation grower, has 12 varieties of peaches and nectarines and expects to have ripe fruit on hand through most of the summer.

The orchard has plenty of blackberries ready for picking as well, and Taylor says he should have berries available for picking through July and into the first part of August. And, with thornless vines and the grass neatly mown between the long rows, picking ripe berries is much more pleasant than wading through the weeds and reaching through thorny vines to pick the sweet fruit.

Taylor’s Orchard is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday but is closed on Sunday. The orchard is located at 12801 Taylor Orchard Road (on the southwest edge of Gentry on Taylor Orchard Road at the corner of Marion Lee Road), and signs mark the way from Gentry and Siloam Springs.

From the intersection of Arkansas Highways 12 and 59, take Highway 12 west to Pioneer Lane or to Crowder Avenue south, to SWEPCO Road west, to Taylor Orchard Road south. Turn west on Marion Lee Road, and you’ll see the sign at the corner of Marion Lee and Taylor Orchard Roads. All the roads are paved until you reach the orchard.

Whether going out and picking your own in the well-kept and mowed orchard or buying freshpicked fruit at the stand, visitors can, as usual, expect sweet results when they visit Taylor’s Orchard. For more information, call Taylor’s Orchard at 479-7362004.

Westside Eagle Observer/RANDY MOLL Palmer Plaskas, 2, reaches high into a peach tree at Taylor’s Orchard to pick a peach on Saturday morning. Palmer and his sister were at the Gentry orchard with family members to pick peaches and berries.