ChicagoIL

Four states sit inside a comfortable drive from Chicago: Illinois to the north west, Indiana to the south east, Wisconsin over the north line, and the western tip of the Michigan fruit belt round the bottom of the lake.

Two things shape picking here and only one of them is the fruit. The first is admission. Orchards in this region charge for entry more consistently and more heavily than anywhere else in the country, often twelve to twenty-two dollars a head before you have picked a single apple, because most of them have become fall attractions with corn mazes, carousels and camel rides attached. That is worth knowing in advance, and it is why the plain orchards stand out: Heinz at Green Oaks advertises that it has no hayrides, no food and no maze, just apples, and Prairie Sky sells a peck for nine dollars.

The second is the lake. Michigan holds its heat into autumn and releases it slowly, which keeps the frost off the eastern and southern shores well past the point where the open prairie has given up. That is the whole reason for the blueberry country strung along the Indiana line from DeMotte through Wanatah to Michigan City, and for the Berrien County farms just over the Michigan border. Blueberry season there runs from about the fourth of July for a month.

Illinois itself is apples and strawberries. McHenry County an hour north west has the greatest concentration, with a dozen orchards inside twenty miles of Woodstock. Strawberries open in the second week of June and last three or four weeks. Apples start in the third week of August, which is early by northern standards, and run to Halloween.