Places like this are part of what makes Mississippi summers special. In a world where so much feels rushed, Cherry Creek Orchards still runs at the pace of the season.
There are some places in Mississippi that make you slow down before you even get out of the car. Cherry Creek Orchards in Pontotoc County is one of them.
The gravel crunches beneath your tires, the air smells faintly like peaches and tomato vines, and before you make it inside the farmstand, you’ll usually spot somebody carrying out cardboard flats full of fruit like they just found treasure. And honestly, during Mississippi peach season, they probably did!
Amanda and Wylie Stark bought Cherry Creek Orchards in 2011, and today the family-run farm stretches across 90 acres with more than 6,000 fruit trees. Depending on the season, the orchard grows peaches, nectarines, plums, blackberries, figs, apples, muscadines, melons, tomatoes, peas, and more — sold at the farmstand, local markets, and through farm-to-store partnerships across Mississippi.
But this time of year, peaches steal the spotlight.
Not the pale grocery store kind that sits on your counter waiting to soften. Real peaches. The kind that smell sweet before you even cut into them. The kind that drips down your wrist after the first bite and leaves sticky fingerprints on the steering wheel before you make it home.
Inside the farmstand, summer is stacked in baskets and wooden bins.
Tomatoes still smell like the garden. Blackberries stain fingertips purple. Melons line the porch floor while brown paper bags sit beside peaches in every shade of gold, coral, and deep red. Somebody is usually asking what came in fresh that morning. Somebody else is talking about cobbler.
And if you stay long enough, you’ll probably hear at least one person say, “These taste like the peaches we used to have when I was little.”
That’s the thing about Cherry Creek Orchards.
It doesn’t feel overly polished or manufactured for visitors. It feels familiar. The kind of place where people linger a little longer than they meant to and leave with more produce than they planned to buy.
Mississippi summers have always revolved around what’s ripe and ready. Around slicing tomatoes for supper, freezing peaches for later, or standing over the kitchen sink eating fruit before it can even make it to a plate. Places like Cherry Creek keep that tradition alive in a way that feels increasingly rare.
And the work behind it is no small thing.
Fruit farming in Mississippi takes patience, long days, and a willingness to work with whatever weather the season decides to hand you. One late freeze or week of storms can change everything. Yet year after year, farms like this keep planting, harvesting, and showing up for their communities.
Thankfully, the community keeps showing up too.
For many, a stop at Cherry Creek has quietly become part of summer itself. Children who once needed help carrying peach baskets now walk out balancing them on their own. Grandparents introduce grandkids to fresh figs for the first time. Coolers get packed in the trunk before the drive home because nobody wants fresh peaches rolling across the backseat on Highway 15.
Some families make the trip every single year, timing it almost instinctively once peach season rolls around in North Mississippi. They come for produce, of course, but also for the familiarity of it all. The same farmstand. The same rows of fruit trees stretching out beyond the fields. The same feeling that summer has officially started the moment you bite into that first peach.
You’ll see couples loading up boxes to take to neighbors and church friends. Parents wiping sticky peach juice off little faces with napkins pulled from the glove compartment. People standing around talking longer than they intended to, swapping recipes for cobblers, jams, and homemade ice cream while somebody nearby carries out another basket overflowing with blackberries.
It feels less like running an errand and more like stepping into a Mississippi summer memory while it’s still happening.
Fact: Places like this are part of what makes Mississippi summers special.
In a world where so much feels rushed, Cherry Creek Orchards still runs at the pace of the season.
By the time you pull back onto the highway, your car smells faintly like peaches and warm summer air. You’ll probably eat one before you even make it home.
And if you do, keep extra napkins nearby–you’re going to need them.
-- Article credit to Meredith Biesinger for the Magnolia Tribune --
