Grocery Stores
Fruit Stand
About Fruit Stand
Peaches, cherries and apples come off these slopes in a strict order, and the calendar of a Summerland summer can be read from what is stacked out front along the roadsides. Fruit Stand keeps an address at 1720 Wharf St, within the district that has been growing tree fruit on this bench for well over a century.
Fruit sold near where it grew behaves differently from fruit trucked to a warehouse. It is picked riper, it does not travel or wait as well, and the window for any given variety can be a fortnight rather than a season. Cherries come first, apricots and peaches carry the hottest weeks, and pears, plums and apples run the season into autumn. Buyers who want fruit for canning or freezing usually ask about seconds, meaning fruit that is perfectly good to eat but marked or oddly sized, sold by the box for less than the display grade.
A few habits make the errand easier. Bring a cooler if the car is going to sit in the sun, bring cash, which smaller operations sometimes prefer, and go early in the day during hot spells, before the heat has worked on what is out on the table. Summerland has a federal research station on the bench that has studied tree fruit and vines here for more than a hundred years, and the orchards around town still shape the rhythm of the place. The buying habits of local households follow the harvest far more closely than they follow the calendar.
Visiting Fruit Stand
Getting there
In the Giant's Head neighbourhood of Summerland.
Get directions (opens in a new tab)Keep exploring
More places near Giant's Head
Other grocery stores and nearby businesses in the Summerland directory.
From the blog
Summerland guides and stories
Longer reads from the editor, with the places worth a detour linked inside them.
Halloween Ideas and Events in Summerland
Downtown Summerland's trick-or-treat, and Monsters at the Museum's family and scarier evening sessions at the Summerland Museum.
Read the guide
Summerland this Labour Day: show up, book the patio, help finish a hard summer strong
The Bald Range fire took a chunk of this season. The benefit concert Saturday, Bottleneck Drive's tasting rooms and Powell Beach mornings are how visitors give back.
Read the guide
The best time for stand-up paddleboarding in Summerland: Powell Beach and the Sun-Oka stretch
Two beaches carry Summerland's paddling: Powell Beach at Trout Creek and the long provincial park sand to the north. Why mornings here stay flat longer than most of the valley.
Read the guide
Keep the directory honest
Own Fruit Stand?
Claim the listing to confirm your details, add your hours and photographs, and keep what people find accurate.