Peaches in Brussels, Illinois
Open July through October
Calhoun County peaches, grown on our own trees.
Two months a year, July through August, the peaches at our stand are ours. Off our trees, picked the same week, sold the same day. Bring a basket. Bring a cooler. Bring the kids.
Why grocery peaches let you down
A real peach almost never makes it to a grocery store.
If you’ve bitten into a July peach from the produce aisle and been disappointed, it wasn’t bad luck. It was math.
- Grocery peaches get picked rock-hard so they survive a 1,500-mile truck.
- Picked that early, they never finish developing sugar. The flavor stops where it stopped on the tree.
- By the time they hit a shelf, the texture is mealy and the juice is gone.
- You eat one, sigh, and go another year without a real peach.
Our peaches don’t go on a truck. They go from the tree to the stand to your basket. Same day.
Almost a century in the same dirt
We’ve been growing peaches in Brussels since 1937.
Jake Hagen planted the first peach trees the year of the Hindenburg. Today the same family still works the rows. The trees know what they’re doing. So do we.
89
Years our family has been growing peach trees on this ground.
8
Weeks the season runs. July through the end of August. Then the apples take over.
0
Days between the tree and the stand. We pick in the morning, sell in the afternoon.
How peaches work at the stand
Buy a basket. Or three.
Picked that morning. Sold by the basket, half-bushel, or bushel. Cash or card, same price either way.
Drive over.
Brussels Ferry from the Grafton side. Golden Eagle Ferry from Missouri. Either way, you’re an hour off the river.
Pick a size.
A small basket for snacking. A half-bushel for pies all week. A bushel if you’re canning. Pre-order by phone if you want a case held.
Eat one in the parking lot.
Bring napkins. We mean it. The juice goes everywhere when a peach is actually ripe. That’s the whole point.
Come back next weekend.
Different varieties ripen across the season. Last week’s peach isn’t this week’s peach. The locals come every time.
What people do with a basket
Eat them. Bake them. Can them.
A basket of peaches goes a lot of places once it gets to your kitchen.
Eat them straight
Standing over the kitchen sink, juice down your wrist. The reward for the drive.
Take home a pie
We bake fresh peach pies every weekend in season. See the bakery.
Can a winter’s worth
A bushel makes about 20 quarts. February will thank you. Pre-order a bushel by phone.
Cobbler. Crisp. Jam.
Half a bushel covers a family reunion dessert and breakfast for a week.
Come get peaches
We’ll see you at the stand.
Pre-order a bushel by phone or just show up and grab a basket. Either works.
Open daily, in season
- Monday12 PM – 5 PM
- Tue – Sat10 AM – 5 PM
- Sunday11 AM – 5 PM
Peaches: July through August. Season ends late October with apples and pumpkins.
3879 Illinois River Road
Brussels, IL 62013
Take Brussels Ferry from Grafton, or Golden Eagle Ferry from the Missouri side.
Call ahead for a bushel hold, a case for canning, or to ask which variety is at peak this week.