The parking lot on Saturday was the first indicator that Meckley’s Flavor Fruit Farm earns its reputation as a popular family destination. The apple-shaped bounce house filled with eager, buoyant children was the second.

Additional festivities for Meckley’s September festival weekends include live music, a corn maze, and several food trucks.

Glei’s Orchards and Greenhouses and Meckley’s are two nearby Michigan apple orchards that have successfully combined their love of delicious tasting apples with lasting family memories. These local institutions have managed to maintain their small business appeal while also producing fresh fall goodies that many customers have enjoyed for years.   

On Sept. 8, Glei’s opened for the first time this season. With only five of more than 30 varieties of apples available for purchase, Glei’s awaits the arrival of new varieties each week this fall. What started in 1918 as a small family farm has now grown into a lush orchard with more than one hundred acres of apple trees.

Once Glei’s apples have naturally ripened to their peak, they are picked off the trees and packaged for customers to buy from the orchard. There are several varieties of apples all ranging in different sizes, shapes, colors, and flavors; from deep, ruby red apples to apples as golden as yellow pears, some are as sweet as cinnamon sugar and others as tart as sour candies. Glei’s apples are just as tasty as they are fragrant.

Glei’s treats its customers like family and patrons have known it for more than 10 decades. Being a small business allows Glei’s to personally cater to the needs of each of its customers, and do so with a smile. Glei’s has succeeded in creating a shopping experience that is just as enjoyable as its apples.

Meckley’s has perfected nature’s most delicious convenient food, providing fresh apples along with a fantastic fall experience. 

With a total of 375 acres of land, Meckley’s is home to more than 20 varieties of apples, several miles of corn maze, sunflower fields, cherry trees, pumpkin patches, raspberry bushes, a bakery, cider mill, and farm market. This is Meckley’s 66th year in the orchard business, selling top quality apples, donuts, cider, and other specialty items. 

The sweet but overripe scent of fresh apples is as unavoidable inside Meckley’s farm market as it is outside. And it doesn’t stop there, because the atmosphere and the people at Meckley’s are just as sweet and pleasant. If Meckley’s has not thought of this already, they should consider making their slogan: “A Meckley’s apple a day keeps the doctor away,” because just a few hours at Meckley’s orchard will have you fuller and in better spirits then when you arrived. 

Make sure to come hungry, because the shop has more than a dozen specialty items to choose from like hand-dipped caramel apples, freshly baked donuts and pies, frozen apple cider, fruit cobbler mixes, milkshake stouts, peanut butter porters, assorted amish candies, all natural farm fresh meat, and of course, plenty of apples.  

If nothing more than a great opportunity to learn how to make some seasonal apple treats, visiting Glei’s and Meckley’s this fall is a must for those looking to make lasting memories with the ones they love.