A working North Georgia apple orchard with a large activity park bolted on, open seven days a week from late August — and the single biggest saving available is going on a weekday, when admission drops from $26 to $8.
Tiered activity wristbands: Weekday General Admission $8 (Mon-Fri), Weekend General Admission $13, Super Farm Fun $18 (Sat-Sun), Mega Farm Admission $26 (Sat-Sun). U-pick apple picking included with every package. Apple bags cost extra: 1/2 peck $12, 1 peck $22, 1/2 bushel $42. Under 2 free. 3% credit-card surcharge.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $32.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
North Georgia is where fall is real. That sounds like a throwaway line but it is the whole reason this orchard works differently from most of the places in this directory. Gilmer County grows apples commercially and has done for generations; the u-pick here is not a staged activity but the actual harvest, and the season opens on August 29 because that is when the fruit is ready, not because a marketing calendar says autumn starts.
What the Reece family has built on top of that is a substantial activity park. Fifteen listed attractions: a farm slide and a mega slide, a petting zoo, a corn box, duck races, wagon rides, pig races, cow milking, a jumping pillow, a cow train, an apple cannon, pony rides, a scavenger hunt, and a bakery at the end of it. Seven days a week through September and October.
Look at the four price tiers and the picture is immediately clear. Weekday general admission is $8. Weekend general admission is $13. Super Farm Fun is $18 and Mega Farm is $26, and both of those are Saturday and Sunday only. For two adults and two children, that is $32 on a Tuesday against $104 on a Saturday at the top tier — a difference of $72 for the same orchard, the same apples and the same hills.
The catch is that the two upper tiers do not exist on weekdays. The orchard does not publish which attractions sit behind which wristband, so if your children have their hearts set on something specific, ask before you drive. What is included at every level is the u-pick apple picking, which is the thing you actually came to Ellijay for.
The apples themselves are priced separately: $12 a half peck, $22 a peck, $42 a half bushel. A family that pays $32 to get in on a Tuesday and then fills a half bushel has spent $74, and that is the realistic number to budget.
One more small thing that adds up: there is a 3% surcharge on credit cards. Bring cash.
The orchard sits on Highway 52 east of Ellijay, in the middle of the apple corridor, and October is when two enormous draws collide. Peak orchard season and peak leaf season fall in the same weeks, and the whole of metro Atlanta drives north for both. The road is two lanes for much of its length, the apple houses are strung along it, and by late morning on an October Saturday the traffic is the day rather than a part of it.
Compounding it: the orchard takes no advance reservations. Nothing is spread across timed slots, so arrival is entirely self-organised, and self-organised means everyone shows up between ten and noon. Nine in the morning is a different orchard than eleven is.
If you are travelling up from Florida or the coastal south, recalibrate. A 9am start in the Gilmer County hills in October can be in the forties, and warm enough for shirtsleeves by lunchtime. Layers, not a jacket you will be carrying by ten. The Sunday opening is 1pm rather than 9am, which is worth checking twice if a Sunday morning drive was the plan.
Finally, no closing date has been published for the 2026 season. The farm market runs year-round, but the u-pick and the activity park do not, and picking winds down when the crop does. If you are planning anything in November, confirm it first.
A weekday in September, or the first half of October. The 2026 u-pick season opens August 29 and the orchard is open seven days a week through September and October, Monday to Saturday 9am to 6pm and Sunday from 1pm. Two things push you towards weekdays. The first is price: weekday general admission is $8 against $13 at the weekend, and against $26 for the top tier. The second is Highway 52. The road this orchard sits on is the spine of the Ellijay apple corridor, and on October Saturdays — when peak leaf season and peak orchard season land on top of each other — it carries far more traffic than it was built for. A Tuesday morning in September is a different experience from a Saturday in the third week of October, and it costs a third as much.
Three to four hours on a weekend package, less on a weekday. Fifteen listed attractions, u-pick apples and a bakery is a proper half-day, and the top-tier wristband only makes sense if you use most of it.
October weekends in the North Georgia apple belt are the busiest agritourism days in the state, and this orchard is on the main road through it. The orchard takes no advance reservations, which means everyone arrives at the gate on the day — so on an October Saturday the queue and the car park are the constraint, not the attractions. Arrive at the 9am opening or come midweek.
Unconfirmed in detail. This is a working orchard on Highway 52 rather than a purpose-built venue, so expect field or gravel parking. Unlike Florida, North Georgia in October is generally dry and cool, so mud is less of a routine problem here than the sheer volume of cars on a peak weekend.
Unverified. Orchard ground is sloped and uneven in this part of Georgia — the terrain around Ellijay is hill country, not flat farmland — so a small-wheeled stroller will struggle in the picking rows even if the activity area is level.
You are coming specifically for a pumpkin patch. The orchard's published activity list is apples, farm rides and animal attractions — no pumpkin patch appears on it. Skip the weekend too if the top tiers are what you wanted but the crowds are what you feared; the two are inseparable here.
Highway 52 east of Ellijay is lined with apple houses, and Blue Ridge is a short drive north. That is the appeal and the problem in one: a leaf-season Saturday on this corridor can turn a twenty-minute hop into an hour. Plan one orchard properly rather than three badly, and do any driving between them before eleven in the morning.
Admission is tiered. Weekday general admission is $8 Monday to Friday; weekend general admission is $13; Super Farm Fun is $18 and Mega Farm Admission is $26, both Saturday and Sunday only. U-pick apple picking is included with every package. Apple bags cost extra at $12 for a half peck, $22 for a peck and $42 for a half bushel. Under twos are free and there is a 3% credit card surcharge.
No — the orchard states that no advance reservations are taken. That is convenient midweek and a problem on an October Saturday, when it means everybody turns up at once.
The u-pick season opens August 29, 2026, and the orchard is open seven days a week through September and October. No closing date has been published; the farm market operates year-round.
Not on the orchard's own published activity list, which runs to u-pick apples, farm rides, animal attractions and a bakery. If a pumpkin is specifically what you want, confirm with the orchard before driving out.
Opens August 29, 2026 (closing date not published). Seven days a week in September and October; market open year-round. Hours: Mon-Sat 9am-6pm, Sun 1pm-6pm.
Admission starts at $8 per person. Tiered activity wristbands: Weekday General Admission $8 (Mon-Fri), Weekend General Admission $13, Super Farm Fun $18 (Sat-Sun), Mega Farm Admission $26 (Sat-Sun). U-pick apple picking included with every package. Apple bags cost extra: 1/2 peck $12, 1 peck $22, 1/2 bushel $42. Under 2 free. 3% credit-card surcharge.
9131 Highway 52 East, Ellijay, GA 30536, in Gilmer County. It is one of 14 patches we track in North Georgia.
We track 14 patches in North Georgia, 6 of which are free to walk into. At $8 a head this one sits below the regional median of $15.81, undercutting 3 of the 4 paid patches we track here.
What sets it apart locally: it has u-pick fields, a market, bakery or taproom, which most North Georgia patches on our list do not.
There are 3 other patches we track in Gilmer County. All North Georgia patches →
reeceorchards.com · cornmazesandmore.org
Checked August 2026.