On a warm June morning, Taylor Allen and her 2-year-old daughter, Nella, stooped between rows of strawberry plants at Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill in Armada. Dressed in matching red and white gingham dresses, the two picked strawberries with a group of friends as Nella helped herself to a few bites of the sweet fruit.

“It’s just a Michigan, special thing to do because not every state has strawberry picking,” said Allen of Warren. “A day like this is beautiful. And then we go home, we eat strawberry jam and she eats the strawberries, too.”

The summer U-pick season has begun in Michigan, with strawberries leading the way. Farms across the state are welcoming visitors back into the fields this month for the summer tradition.

“Strawberries is a special time,” said Kaley Duncan of Blake’s Orchard. “It kicks off the summer for a lot of people. … It’s one of the first crops that brings the farm to life. And we roll into cherries and raspberries and vegetables and apple picking. So it really is what brings the property to life.”

Fruit growers across the state are feeling optimistic about the season, with positive outlooks for strawberries, cherries, blueberries and apples, said Theresa Sisung, industry relations specialist with the Michigan Farm Bureau.

Even once the fruit is ripe, Sisung said farmers can’t let their guard down. For example, growers in some areas, particularly north of Grand Rapids and into the Traverse City region, experienced recent frost and hail damage and are closely monitoring incoming storms.

“They have to watch the weather constantly,” she said. “First, it’s ‘Let’s make sure we can get the crop coming and growing.’… ‘Let’s make sure we don’t have a frost event that kills the crop.’ And then it’s ‘make sure we don’t get hail, and make sure we don’t get a whole bunch of wind. And we need some sun and we need some warm weather.’ So from the start until the end, they’re worried about the weather.”

‘Relying on Mother Nature’

The U-pick season in Michigan typically begins in early to mid-June with strawberries and raspberries later in the month, followed by cherries and blueberries in July. Apples and pumpkins follow in early fall.

Despite a colder-than-average spring, growers say this year’s strawberry crop is looking good.“It all depends on the weather,” Duncan said. “With farming, you’re relying on Mother Nature to provide the right conditions. And it’s really just a waiting game sometimes, with the warmth to come and the berries to turn red. There’s plenty of blossoms and green berries, but it takes that heat to ripen them up on the vines.”

At its Armada location, Blake’s offers 35 acres of strawberry fields, with multiple varieties that ripen at different times, allowing for about a month-long period for picking.

U-pick customers are encouraged to check their local farm websites, social media pages or hotlines for updates on the latest crops.

Derrica Hamilton of Detroit said she was anxiously watching and waiting for U-pick strawberry season to start. She recently brought her three children and her mother to Blake’s to pick strawberries. Working in an area identified as a “best picking” spot, they filled a large container with bright red berries.

“As soon as we found out what day they were opening for picking, we were praying that the weather would hold up and that we could come out to do it,” she said.

Hamilton said she and her husband have made fruit-picking a family tradition for nearly a decade, starting when their oldest children were small. They visit a few U-pick farms in Michigan, she said.

“I love keeping us as close to nature as we can, and it just kind of helps us slow down the fast-paced life and keeps us close to natural food, healthy foods that grow,” she said. “And it’s a fun activity for all ages — from the baby to the senior.”

‘Fun on the farm’

Shannon Rowe of Spicer Orchards in Fenton said there might be an added benefit to the season’s slightly delayed start.

“A cool spring weather has definitely affected growing season a bit, but just like that, we still have a nice crop,” she said. “And the flavor, oh my gosh, the flavor this year is just fantastic. I actually think the cool spring allows them to flavor up a little bit more.”

Spicer Orchards is a 300-acre farm that’s retail-based and focused on the U-pick experience, Rowe said. Largely an apple grower, Spicer has 12 acres of strawberries, 15 acres of cherries, 10 acres of blueberries and about 20 acres of peaches. Raspberries, which cover around 8 scattered acres, tend to overlap with other fruits and can be “hit or miss,” depending on the week and the weather, Rowe said.

In northern Michigan, strawberry U-pick season at King Orchards is expected to be in full swing by late June, said Juliette King-McAvoy, vice president of sales and marketing for King Orchards in Antrim County.

King-McAvoy said she expects a strong crop based on a good bloom and hopes the season will last longer than usual as long as there aren’t prolonged periods of extreme heat.

The farm offers U-pick strawberries, sweet and tart cherries, raspberries, apricots, peaches and nectarines through the summer, before offering apples in early September. There’s no division between U-pick and commercial picking, and the staff typically allows customers to pick first before crews harvest the remaining fruit, King-McAvoy said. King Orchards also offers hard cider and wine tasting.

“We sure hope people come on out and have some fun on the farm,” she said.

In the heart of Michigan’s Thumb, Turner’s Blueberry Farm is preparing for blueberry season next month.

“Everything is on track for a mid-July opening,” said Daniel Stocking, owner of Turner’s Blueberry Farm. “We’ve had good pollination and the weather’s been cooperative so far. Now we just need Mother Nature to stay on our side.”

Stocking and his wife, Amy, purchased the farm in 2022 from her aunt and uncle. In recent years, the crop has been good, despite the challenges of frost and deer, he said. The farm sits on 30 acres, with about 10 acres dedicated to blueberries — roughly 8,500 bushes.

Turner’s Blueberry Farm is nearly 100% U-pick, catering to regular customers who come from across the Thumb, as well as what Stocking noticed is an increasing number of new customers from Metro Detroit. He said they keep their operations simple.

“We realized this is a staple of the community,” he said. “People have been coming here for decades, and we didn’t want to change what already worked.”

Stocking said he largely maintains the fields himself, along with his wife and children. During picking season, they receive extra help from family.

Staffing for the season

The need for labor varies from farm to farm.

Nancy Nyquist, labor policy specialist for the Michigan Farm Bureau, said many growers rely on a local domestic workforce to harvest and package crops. Farms are turning to the H-2A guest worker program to fill seasonal roles when they can’t find enough U.S. workers.

“The H-2A visa program allows U.S. agricultural employers to bring foreign workers to the U.S. for temporary or seasonal work when they cannot find enough qualified U.S. workers,” she said. “It is costly for the farmer to participate, but necessary to ensure there are fresh fruit and vegetables for consumers.”

Nyquist said she hasn’t heard of any staffing issues at U-pick farms this year.

King Orchards employs about 90 people, including 30-35 seasonal workers hired through the federal H-2A visa program. The visa is used primarily for field labor, King-McAvoy said. The farm is fully staffed for the season and has come to rely on the program, though rising costs have been a concern.

This year, the hourly wage for workers in the visa program is $18.15, down from $18.50 last year, but up from $17.34 in 2023.

“We’re very fortunate,” she said. “The H-2A program does not have a cap like the H-2B program, and so we are able to get as many workers as we need through that program.”

Back at Blake’s, Duncan said the farm is fully staffed, with about 17 H-2A workers currently on-site and up to 30 expected by fall. They arrive in waves, she said, beginning in March or April, then again in May, and a final group just ahead of the fall apple harvest.

“We really couldn’t do it without them,” she said.

In addition to farm labor, Blake’s hires as many as 800 seasonal workers across its retail operations — from cashiers and cooks to event staff.

“We have a lot of seasonal employees that come back year after year,” Duncan said. “So they’ll work now through the end of the fall or into the end of the year, through our Christmas season.”