Autumn is normally the time of year we gather the best of the harvest to store away for the upcoming winter. Apples, squash, pumpkins are all icons of the season.

This was not a normal growing season in Berrien County. Beginning in the spring with unusually high temperatures causing blossoms to bloom a month ahead of time, followed by a short cold spell and finally a month of draught: No, there was nothing normal about this year’s agriculture season.

“We knew early in April this was going to be bad,” Jay Jollay of Jollay Orchards and Grandpa’s Cider Mill in Coloma. “It became a matter of working to maintain the orchards. Farmers have been saying there has been nothing like this since the ‘40s.”

Well, not quite.

“People forget about 1951,” Dorothy Villwock of Villwock’s Farm Market said. “I remember we had just gotten married in February and had purchased a new tractor. Everything froze that night.”

All agree it has been a long time since farmers have had to face such a perfect storm of devastating conditions. Jollay lost 100 percent of his cherry, peach and apple crops. They had no U-Pic crops during this rough season for growers. While they are pressing apples from area growers who were not completely wiped out, the presses are only running two to three days at best, so those planning to head up to Coloma to see the process through the glass at Grandpa’s Cider Mill will want to call ahead.

Apples will be available at Jollay Orchards market during these last weeks of its Fall Celebration, with hay rides and a haunted house. But by the end of October, it’s done and it will be time to prepare and pray for next year.

At Dave Pagel’s retail outlet on East Shawnee Road, where consumers often pick up apples through February, the doors are open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays until early November due to the small crops in this season of disappointment.

Don Villwock had planned on storing apples, adding new products and staying open longer his year. However, with the scrambling to find growers with product, he, too, expects to close by mid-November.

“People come into the market looking for Fuji and Mutsu apples, and we have to tell them, there just aren’t any this year,” he said. “We are blessed with very good, long-time relationships with a lot of growers. Because of that, we have been able to offer our customers a good variety of produce throughout the summer and fall.

“Hopefully, this year will be as much an eye-opener for the consumer as it has been for me. We can’t take the abundance of this area for granted. We need to support the local growers. It is so hard on them. They have to do all the work, invest in their crops whether they materialize or not.”

In fact, the only fair report I got was from June Stover of Stover’s Farm Market and U- on Highway 139 just outside of Berrien Springs. Some U-Pic was available. Stover does brag of some wonderful fall squash, but again, not in the quantities one expects this time of year.

The best advice is to call ahead and buy fall produce now.

And don’t forget next year to remember the area’s local growers.