Arizona's best-known u-pick orchard, running since 1986 in the high-desert Sulphur Springs Valley, but even its own site won't commit to a 2026 opening date — plan on calling before the drive from Tucson or Phoenix.
Apple Annie’s Orchard sits at 2081 W Hardy Rd in Willcox, out in Cochise County’s Sulphur Springs Valley — a stretch of high-desert farmland roughly 80 miles east of Tucson. The record describes it as Arizona’s best-known u-pick operation, running since 1986, where visitors take a pull cart into the rows to pick apples along with peaches, pears, and plums. That’s a genuinely different model from a farm stand: you’re walking the orchard yourself with equipment the farm hands you, not buying fruit someone else picked.
Posted hours in the record are daily, 8am to 5pm, with both u-pick and pre-picked fruit available. Activities on file include a corn maze and a pumpkin patch, and cider donuts are confirmed as sold on site. The phone number is 520-384-2084 and the website is appleannies.com.
Here’s the honest gap: there’s no season_start or season_end date in the record. The research notes explain why — appleannies.com references a “2026 Season Event Calendar,” but a specific 2026 opening date couldn’t be confirmed from it, and the page itself states that dates are subject to change with the weather. That’s not the orchard being cagey; high-desert fruit ripening genuinely shifts year to year, and a farm that’s been doing this since 1986 has presumably learned not to promise a date it might have to walk back.
What the record does offer as a general pattern is that apple picking typically follows the July peach season into fall. Treat that as a seasonal signal, not a calendar you can plan a specific weekend around. If a firm date matters to your trip — say, you’re driving in from Phoenix and don’t want to gamble a few hours of road time — calling 520-384-2084 or checking the site closer to your travel date is the difference between a wasted trip and a good one.
One detail worth knowing before you go: Apple Annie’s operates a second location in town, a Country Store at 1510 N Circle I Rd, distinct from the orchard itself. According to the record, it sits on the former site of the old Stout’s Cider Mill and sells cider donuts, pies, and jams even outside the orchard’s own picking hours. If you’re passing through Willcox off-season, or the orchard itself is closed on a given day, the Country Store may still be worth a stop — though the record doesn’t give separate hours for it, so that’s another thing to confirm by phone rather than assume.
Beyond the fruit rows, the record lists a corn maze and pumpkin patch as activities, which points toward this being more of a fall-destination farm than a bare-bones picking operation — the kind of place set up for a family outing that includes more than just filling a bag of apples. No price data made it into the record for any of this, though, so there’s nothing here to tell you what a cart of apples or a maze ticket actually costs; that’s a call-ahead question.
No specific apple variety list appears in the record either. Given the orchard also grows peaches, pears, and plums across a multi-month season, it’s reasonable to assume more than one apple type is on offer, but nothing here names them, so this draft won’t guess.
Apple Annie’s has real standing as Arizona’s flagship u-pick orchard, and the pull-cart model plus the separate in-town store give it more going on than most single-purpose farms in this file. But the record can’t hand you a locked start date, a price, or a variety list — those weren’t confirmable from outside sources at the time of research, and the orchard’s own site is explicit that its calendar moves with the weather. Treat “daily, 8am-5pm” as the operating pattern once the season is running, not proof that it’s running on the day you plan to show up, and call 520-384-2084 first if the trip is a special one.
The record doesn't give confirmed season dates. Apple picking has historically followed the July peach season into fall, but the orchard shifts its calendar with that year's ripening, so check appleannies.com or call ahead rather than assuming a fixed date.
An hour or two for pull-cart picking; add time if you're also stopping at the Country Store or doing the corn maze.
you need a locked-in calendar date before committing to the drive — the orchard's own site references a 2026 season event calendar but doesn't post a specific opening day, and says dates move with the weather.
Both, per the record — it offers pull-cart u-pick as well as pre-picked fruit.
The record lists peaches, pears, and plums alongside apples, with peach season historically running ahead of apple season.
Yes — the record notes a Country Store location at 1510 N Circle I Rd in Willcox, on the former site of the old Stout's Cider Mill, selling cider donuts, pies, and jams even outside orchard hours.
The record states daily hours of 8am-5pm, with no specific season start or end date confirmed.
Yes, along with a pumpkin patch, per the activities listed in the record.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Daily. Check with the orchard before driving out.
Pricing was not published when we last checked.
Yes — it's a pick-your-own orchard, with pre-picked apples at the farm stand too.
2081 W Hardy Rd, Willcox, AZ 85643, in Cochise County. It is one of 1 orchards we track in Sulphur Springs Valley.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
appleannies.com
Checked September 2026.