Southern Belle Farm

Southern Belle Farm at McDonough has the broadest picking calendar within an hour of Atlanta, and it is the closest farm to the city where the public can pick muscadines. Something is ripe here from April to Halloween, which is true of almost nowhere else in Georgia. It holds 4.7 from close to six thousand reviewers.

What You Can Pick

The year runs in waves, and they barely overlap:

• Strawberries - spring, and the first thing open
• Blackberries and blueberries - early summer
• Peaches - twenty varieties, finishing in the first week of August
• Muscadines and scuppernongs - from the middle of August
• Zinnias to cut, and pumpkins once the fall season opens

Last entry into the u-pick fields is 4pm, an hour before the gates shut. That is the detail that catches out anyone driving down after work.

What Else is Available

The Country Market and Bakery is why a great many people come even when nothing is being picked:

• The pound cake, which appears in more reviews than most of the fruit
• Homemade ice cream, cider, and cook-to-order snacks
• Jams, jellies, syrups, juices and preserves in a range reviewers describe as incredible
• A petting area, with a hand washing station beside it
• Autumn attractions from September 19: pedal carts, a train, slides and jumping pillows

Good to Know

Open Tuesday to Friday 9am to 5pm and Saturday from 10am. Closed Sunday and Monday through the late-summer gap, reopening seven days for the fall season on September 19.

Check the farm's Facebook page before you set out, not its website. The Facebook page is updated weekly with what is actually ripe; more than one reviewer has arrived to find a crop finished, including a family who drove nine hours for peaches a week after the peach picking had ended. Tickets for the autumn activities are cheaper booked online.

Pro tip: the muscadines and the zinnias open together in the middle of August, and it is the quietest good week of the year here. Everyone else is waiting for the pumpkins.