When is apple picking season? On the Avery Sub of the G&D Cattle, Oil, and Apples are going to be the mainstays of the freights. Choosing a season is dependant on me finding out if the Spring, or Fall Cattle roundup coincide with apple picking season. Thanks for the help guys.
Dave
In Massachusetts, it’s in the fall. Cool, crisp air and fresh cider right from the mill that tastes like liquid apples. Yum.
Maple sugar season is in the early spring, by the way.
Apple season is fall in Michigan and Washington, too, along with most everywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. The apple harvest season funs from September to October and October is National Apple Month.
Apple and pear season both are fall in Louisiana.
Here in NE Ohio, where we have over 20+ varieties of apples available to us, it’s September and into October.
Tom
Here around St. Louis, the pick-your-own orchards do big business early September through October.
In Southern Ontario it is late September early October.
Minnesota, like the rest, September to November for the late ones.
In the mid-Hudson valley of NY it usually begins mid September and runs through first heavy frost. After that you can get great cider apples. Don’t worry if your cider starts to turn either, just fire up the still. Hudson Valley applejack aged in used oak wine casks is out of this world. [;)]
I just decided to add a still to my layout. Thanks for the inspiration.
Maple season begins here in mid Feb most years.
Thanks guys. I guess I’ll be setting my layout in the fall so that the fall roundup and apple season coincide thus giving me lots of traffic. Thank you for all the wonderful help.
Dave
I don’t really know too much about the apple-picking season - I was stationed with the Air Force in central Washington in the early 60’s and the roadside fruit stands over by Wenatchee and around Yakima used to open in early to mid-September and were usually open for the better part of a month.
Before you start running (stock) trains, however, you are going to have to make a determination about just where your G&D runs because that’s going to make a determination about how this fall “roundup” goes.
What you call the fall roundup we, who have worked stock, call the “beef cut”. Up in the Yellowstone Valley in Montana we used to begin our beef cut about the middle of August - you want to get as much as possible done before the first snow flies and I’ve seen that happen before the first of September frequently and that first storm can be a real doozy. The farther south you go the later the beef cut begins - by the time you get to southern Arizona they (often) don’t begin shipping until between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Where you are shipping from can also determine your shipping schedule - I never punched in that country but I understand that in the high valleys of Colorado and northern New Mexico they begin/began their beef cut about two weeks before we did up in the Yellowstone country. I got this info from hands who had punched in that country. Down where its warm they can - and do so I’ve been told - stretch their shipping schedule out over half a year or longer - that’s because stock can be pastured longer down south than on the far northern ranges where snow generally puts the stock not being shipped into the corrals by early November.
When I was punching in the '50s there was still a lot of stock shipped by rail but changing market conditions was very rapidly switching stock transport from steel wheels to rubber - stock trailers were getting bigger and highways were getting better and the industry was relocating to places like Omaha, Sioux City, Denver,
It appears that most, if not all, regions have a fall harvest. However, you may want to see if you can find a website for an apple packer in the region where your layout is suppost be located at. Sometimes they will have such information. Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page for an example.
http://www.sunpacific.com/Home_Page/Citrus/Citrus.htm
Also, you may try surfing about on the USDA’s website and the state’s equivalent.
Here in Kentucky I would say it would start in very late August and then into September and October depending on species. Anyone on here from Paintsville. They have an Apple Festival every year I believe in early October.
In the Midwest its the best time of the year when you can go pick apples. It doesnt matter if ya have to travel to Michigan or Ohio eather! Michigan has the best apples around! Fall is a good time for your tummie!!! 
Kevin
Here in Eastern Wisconsin, where the primary apple is the McIntosh, the season is starting to slip back a bit later. Because of our position on the western side of Lake Michigan, our seasons are a bit delayed from what they are in most of the rest of the country. As such, the hot humid summer weather doesn’t begin until June with consistancy, but also does not end until October. The lake also acts as a giant air conditioner during the summer. While it may be in the 90s in Madison, it’s only in the 70s in Milwaukee. All of this has an effect of creating a microclimate along the lake watershed, the same thing that makes the Niagra region of New York a great wine making region also makes Eastern Wisconsin a good region for apples, and a perfect place for cranberries.
Cheers!
~METRO