7 pick-your-own farms where Pittsburgh kids can harvest fruit and fun

Summer on the farm is a berry wonderful time of year.

Seeing where food comes from – beyond the plastic-wrapped produce in your local supermarket – is an excellent lesson for inquisitive kids. There’s nothing like tugging a sun-warmed, juicy strawberry or blueberry from the stem or reaching up to pluck an apple from a tree. Working to fill a basket to take home gives a sense of pride and ownership.

Adding those berries to breakfast cereal, baking into a pie, or topping shortcake along with a dollop of whipped cream gives kids nearly as much satisfaction as if they’d grown the fruit themselves. But don’t stop at berries. Return to pick peaches, tomatoes, apples, and pumpkins. There’s an entire growing season from which to choose.

Many local farms have greenhouses, markets and lots of kids activities to make a full day out of a visit. Perhaps your junior farmers will be intrigued enough by the experience to beg a berry bush or fruit tree of their own.

Here are seven area farms where your kids can play farmer and have a lot of fun, too. All suggest calling ahead to ensure availability.

Soergel Orchards

The parental attraction for pick-your-own farm visits goes deep, says Eric Voll of Soergel Orchards.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the nostalgia and the memories of themselves doing the same thing here with their parents,” says Voll, who is part of the sixth generation at the 167-year-old family farm. The pick-your-own feature started about 30 years ago.

“That is a big impacting factor,” he says. “There’s also the play areas completing the experience.”

At Soergel’s, kids can enjoy the farm area, petting zoo and Tiny Town recreation spaces, which are free of charge whenever the market is open.

The café and food market sells ice cream treats, snacks, and meals – plus lots of specialty products and baked goods to take home.

Strawberries are in the spotlight now, followed by blueberries that are expected through July and August. Pick apples and pumpkins in September and October.

Voll says the farm experience allows kids to learn where food comes from.

“There’s a lot of hard work that goes into agriculture and food,” he says. “They get to do a little hard work on their own. It helps to put things into perspective.”

And kids have fun enjoying the fruits of their labors, so to speak.

“You can see the evidence of that on their faces and hands that they’ve been sampling a little bit of everything,” Voll says with a laugh.

Soergel Orchards, 2573 Brandt School Road, Franklin Park. 724-935-1743

Triple B Farms

“All of our activities are based on children and adults playing together as family time,” says Suzanne Beinlich of Triple B Farms. “So, for example, not only can you pick strawberries and raspberries and peaches together, you can also enjoy the activities in Pop’s Farmyard.”

Pop’s Farmyard is a massive collection of fun pursuits. Visit the Bee Barn, where a Plexiglas window allows visual access to the inner workings of a beehive. The entire family acts as game pieces in a giant farm-themed board game. A spinner directs players on how many jumps to move.

You’ll find hillside tunnels and tube slides named after the Liberty and Squirrel Hill tunnels. The Rompin’ Rope Maze helps burn off energy. And everyone loves the animals — pygmy goats at the Goatfield Street Bridge, along with chickens, rabbits and a potbellied pig.

Bonus: Depending on the distance to the picking fields, you might score a hayride shuttle.

Beinlich hopes the experience teaches kids that food doesn’t come from a plastic container from the grocery store. “And that it has to ripen seasonally with sun, soil, water, and air,” she says. “And that it takes special people called farmers to raise it for them.”

She has seen a definite change over the past 15 to 20 years to the importance of the Farm to Table movement in her customers.

“People want to buy fresh, buy local,” Beinlich says. “They want to find their local farmer and support them, so they’re not paying for the carbon footprint they’re leaving by getting fruit and vegetables from California.”

Triple B Farms, 823 Berry Lane, Forward Township. 724-258-3557

Norman’s Orchard

“We’re not agri-tainers,” says Jeff Norman of Norman’s Orchard. “We don’t have petting zoos and climbing ladders and stuff like that. We’re just a farm.”

But that doesn’t stop families from flocking to Norman’s for its specialty heirloom and antique fruit.

“People know they can’t get them in the store. They can’t get them anywhere except at the farm,” he says. “The other thing is we do pick-your-own all the time for all our fruit, so people never have to figure out if this is pick-your-own Saturday or not.”

Norman’s specialty fruit include sweet cherries and tart cherries, which are very rare in this area, and available this month. Pears – seckel, Lincoln, Anjou, Bosc, among others – ripen for picking mid-August through September. The many unusual varieties of apples – more than two dozen — are available at varying times from August through October.

It’s the only local pick-your-own farm that offers grapes (from mid-August to early September). And watch for fuzzy, juicy peaches.

“We’ve seen a lot of young families with children like to come for a couple of reasons,” says Norman, who grew up on the family farm, which began producing in 1958. “One, they like the freshness and interesting varieties of the apples and the pears. And then, it’s a nice family activity.”

He finds many people growing farther away from the farm scene and losing sight of the seasonal harvest since so much produce is available in supermarkets at any time of the year. Much of his fruit needs to be eaten and cooked when fresh. The heirloom varieties do not store or ship well.

“Our goal is to sell everything we grow in that season,” Norman says. “We don’t store anything. If I have any fruit leftover of any kind, it goes to a food bank.”

Norman’s Orchard, 2318 Butler Logan Road, Tarentum. 724-224-9491

Trax Farms

The 150-year-old Trax Farms grows six strawberry varieties on seven acres. You can follow the signs and drive the kids straight to the fields for pick-your-own. Two acres of blueberry bushes, placed right behind the market, should ripen to plump picking size later in June and July. Then, pick the perfect pumpkin in the fall with a festival of fun kids activities. Watch the calendar for other events.

“I think it’s good to get them dirty,” says Bob Trax about kids and the pick-your-own activity. “To realize fruit’s coming off a plant and somebody had to raise it is a good learning experience for them. It’s coming to a farm. We’re not as much farm as we used to be, but we’re still a big farm and they get to see that. It’s a different experience than going to a grocery store for sure.”

The small playground and duck pond will catch interest, too.

The property offers lots more for grown-up shoppers with its Antique Loft, indoor and outdoor nursery, top-notch produce market, bakery, wine shop, and gift shop. Kids are not forgotten here — the children’s selection of books, decorations, and other items is outstanding.

Trax Farms, 528 Trax Road, Finleyville. 412-835-3246

Snyder’s Farm

There are no bells or whistles at Snyder’s Farm, where pick-your-own is all about the berries right now. Strawberries are currently available. Red and black raspberries are looking fat and ready for harvest by June 25. This is one farm that offers tomatoes as a pick-your-own feature. Stem-ripened tomatoes should be bursting with flavor in August. Bring containers for pick-your-own.

Snyder’s Farm, Route 68 in Chicora, six miles northeast of Butler. 724-445-3116

Simmons Farm

Many families who come for a pick-your-own outing at Simmons Farm bring along a picnic lunch and make a day of it, says Jan Simmons. The free petting zoo is an attraction, too, with a pig, sheep, goats, ducks, and a turkey.

Pick-your-own crops include strawberries, peaches, apples, and pumpkins. Kids can experience more in-depth life on the farm with the weekly Little Farmers Camp, which includes classes on farm machinery, the life of a seed, and the important role of water. Kids can sign up for one or all five sessions.

“I think they appreciate their food more when they see how long it takes to pick it,” Simmons says. “It’s really amazing how little children might think everything grows on a tree. They don’t realize potatoes come from under the ground, that some things grow on vines and some grow on plants.”

A more unusual and fun feature is pick-your-own flowers, from sunflowers to wildflowers.

“It’s very popular,” Simmons says. For a flat rate, they are given a bucket and scissors to fill with as many stems as they can fit. “It’s a nice big bundle of maybe 50 stems.”

Simmons Farm, 170 Simmons Road, McMurray. 724-941-1490

Paskorz Berry Farm

Paskorz Berry Farm is looking forward to little pickers heading to their fields of red and black raspberries. The fruit will be available for pick-your-own around June 22. Blueberries follow, along with fall red and yellow raspberries to make a complete rainbow of juicy fruit.

Return in the fall for pumpkins. Then, head back in December for pick-your-own Christmas tree harvesting.

Paskorz Berry Farm, 36 Starr Road, West Deer. 724-265-3073