Why you should always check before you drive out
This is the single most useful thing on this site, and it is the advice most often ignored. A self-pick farm opens on the week, not the season. Every listing here carries the farm’s own contact details for exactly this reason.
What closes a farm at a day of notice
The block is picked out. This is the commonest one by far. A hot week brings a whole block on at once, three hundred people come through on a fine weekend, and by Monday there is nothing worth picking. The farm is not closed for the season, it is closed until the next block colours up, which might be four days.
Rain. Wet fruit is soft fruit. Ripe cherries split when they take on water, and a wet week can end a cherry block permanently. Berry fields close in rain because picking in mud damages the rows and the fruit does not keep.
Heat. The opposite problem. A run of very hot days can cook the fruit on the plant and a farm will close rather than sell it.
A spray withholding period. If a block has been treated, it stays shut for a set number of days. Growers take this seriously and so should you. A farm that turns you away on the day is protecting you.
The season simply ended early. Berry seasons are estimates. A cold spring or a late frost moves everything, and a crop can finish two or three weeks earlier than the farm expected.
How to check, fastest first
Phone. It takes a minute and settles everything, including which block is picking best and whether there is any point coming today. Growers would far rather answer a call than turn a family away at the gate.
Facebook. Most self-pick farms in New Zealand post their opening on Facebook, often the same morning, and it is more current than any website. Where we have the page, it is on the listing.
Their own website. Reliable where it exists, but only about one farm in five in this country has one worth checking daily.
Not us. We keep the listings as accurate as we can, but no directory anywhere is current to the morning. Treat this site as the way to find the farm, and the farm as the authority on whether it is open.
What to ask when you ring
- Are you picking today, and until what time?
- What is picking best right now?
- Do I need to book, or bring containers?
- Card or cash?
Four questions, one minute, and it is the difference between a good day and an hour of driving.
Updated 10 September 2026