At $10 a head with under-fives free and its own pumpkins in the ground, this is one of the cheapest genuine pick-your-own patches in the Hill Country - as long as you arrive before the fields shut at 4:30pm.
$10 admission for the fall activities, free for children 5 and under, per the Visit Fredericksburg pumpkin guide. Pumpkins are an additional purchase.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $40.00 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.
Start with the two numbers that decide whether this trip works: $10, and 4:30pm.
Ten dollars a head, with children 5 and under free, is cheap for Texas. Run it against the alternatives. A family of two adults and two preschoolers pays $20 here. The same family at a ticketed festival farm outside San Antonio pays $60 to $100 before buying anything. Even with two school-age children, this is $40 against $80 or more elsewhere. And unlike the farms that price every maze, slide and craft separately and let the total drift upward all afternoon, nothing in the record suggests a long list of paid add-ons waiting inside the gate. The pumpkins cost extra. That appears to be the shape of it.
The 4:30pm is the trap. The store stays open until 5pm; the field activities do not. So the corn maze, the wagon rides, the jump pillow and the picking all stop half an hour before the last person is bought out of the shop. Turn up at four and you have paid $10 for a very brisk look at a pumpkin field.
This matters more in Texas than it would in New England. Most patches within reach of a Texas city are display patches - pumpkins are trucked in, often from the High Plains, and arranged for photographs. That is not deception, it is agronomy; you cannot grow a decent October pumpkin crop in most of this state’s metro soil and heat.
Jenschke is confirmed by the Fredericksburg tourism office as growing its own, and it offers both a pick-your-own field and already-picked stock. If your children have the New England picture in their heads - walk into a field, find one, cut it - this is one of a small handful of Hill Country places that can deliver it.
Fall activities run Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The orchard is closed Monday and Tuesday entirely, and open Wednesday and Thursday for the store but not the fields. That is a narrower schedule than most and it is easy to misread from the store hours, which are the ones displayed most prominently.
Sunday deserves particular attention. The store opens at noon, and the fields close at 4:30. That is a four-and-a-half-hour day, the shortest of the three, and it rules out any plan that involved doing the orchard in the morning and something else afterwards.
One reassurance: when we read the orchard’s site in late August, the corn maze, pumpkins and peaches were all flagged closed while flowers and the jump pillow showed open. That is a farm whose fall season has not opened yet, not one that has been cancelled. The season begins around September 20.
The orchard sits on US 290 east of town, which is both its convenience and its complication. Fredericksburg in October is one of the busiest small-town weekends in Texas, and the 290 corridor carries all of it. The drive from Austin or San Antonio will run longer than the distance implies, and the town itself will be at capacity by late morning on a Saturday.
The answer is Friday. Same $10, same fields, same maze, and a fraction of the traffic both on the road and in the rows. Failing that, be at the orchard at nine on Saturday morning and be gone before the day gets going - which, given the heat in late September, is the right plan anyway.
Fall activities start around September 20, 2026 and run Friday, Saturday and Sunday only; no closing date is published. The store runs Wednesday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday noon to 5pm, closed Monday and Tuesday, but the field activities close at 4:30pm regardless. That makes Friday and Saturday mornings the widest windows and Sunday the tightest - a noon opening against a 4:30 field close leaves four and a half hours. In late September and early October, the 9am opening is also the coolest and by some distance the most comfortable time to be picking in an open field on US 290.
Two to three hours. A corn maze, wagon rides, a jump pillow, cornhole, u-pick flowers and the patch itself is a satisfying half-day but not a full one, and the 4:30pm field close puts a ceiling on it anyway.
Three operating days a week in a town that fills up every autumn weekend. Fredericksburg's fall tourism is the crowd factor here as much as the orchard itself - US 290 and the town's parking are both busier in October than the mileage from Austin or San Antonio suggests. Friday is the day to take if you can.
Not published. An orchard on US 290 will have field or gravel parking; the record does not describe the surface.
Not addressed. A pick-your-own field, a corn maze and wagon rides all imply uneven ground. Call 830-997-8422 to ask before relying on it.
Monday or Tuesday is your only free day - the orchard is closed entirely. Skip a late-afternoon arrival too: the fields shut at 4:30pm even though the store stays open until 5pm, so a 4pm arrival buys you half an hour in the patch and a shop.
The orchard is on US 290 east of Fredericksburg, which puts it directly on the wine-road corridor. That is the natural pairing and also the warning: autumn weekend traffic on 290 and in town is heavy, so a trip from Austin or San Antonio will take longer than the map says. If you are staying in Fredericksburg for the weekend anyway, this is a two-hour morning rather than an expedition.
$10 per person for the fall activities, with children 5 and under free, according to the Visit Fredericksburg pumpkin guide. Pumpkins are an additional purchase. That figure comes from the local tourism office rather than the orchard's own site.
Yes - it is one of the few Hill Country patches confirmed by the local tourism office as growing its own, and it offers both a pick-your-own field and already-picked stock. That distinguishes it from the metro-area display patches where pumpkins arrive by truck.
Fall activities run Friday, Saturday and Sunday only. The store runs Wednesday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday noon to 5pm, and is closed Monday and Tuesday. Field activities close at 4:30pm.
No. When we read the site in late August 2026, the corn maze, pumpkins and peaches were all flagged closed while the flowers and jump pillow showed open. That is a season that has not started yet, not one that has been cancelled - the fall run begins around September 20.
Opens September 20, 2026 (closing date not published). Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the fall pumpkin and corn maze season. Store hours are Wednesday-Saturday 9am-5pm and Sunday 12pm-5pm, closed Monday and Tuesday.. Hours: Store Wednesday-Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm, Sunday 12:00pm-5:00pm; field activities close at 4:30pm.
Admission starts at $10 per person. $10 admission for the fall activities, free for children 5 and under, per the Visit Fredericksburg pumpkin guide. Pumpkins are an additional purchase.
8381 E. US Highway 290, Fredericksburg, TX 78624, in Gillespie County. It is one of 3 patches we track in Hill Country.
We track 3 patches in Hill Country. At $10 a head this one sits right on the regional median of $10.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
bestfredericksburgpeaches.com · visitfredericksburgtx.com
Checked August 2026.