You wouldn’t know it from all the parking lots and shopping centers in our immediate vicinity, but out on the fringe of suburbia, acres of peaches are growing fat and juicy in the warm spring sunshine.

Anticipating a houseful of kids home from school on Spring Break?

Take a hayride, shop in the marketplace, visit the petting zoo and warm your hands in front of a bonfire while sipping hot chocolate, roasting s’mores and listening to Christmas music at this annual Superstition Farm event. Santa, atop a vintage red tractor, will also be available for pictures.

We may daydream of autumn’s changing leaves, but here in the desert, Phoenix’s holey red Papago Buttes are where it really starts to feel like fall. Desert Botanical Garden’s Great Pumpkin Festival kicks off Oct. 25 at the base of the mountains, and it’s a good spot to grab a pumpkin and snap a few fall photos.

It’s that time of year to get out and enjoy an entire day picking your favorite pumpkin, eating caramel apples, visiting a petting zoo and ending the night with fireworks and a haunted house. Or, to just take stroll through the pumpkin patch to snap a few photos with your family. Either way, the Valley has it all, and this is your one-stop guide for fall festivities in the East Valley.

Without changing leaves and crisp air, we Valley dwellers rely on other harbingers to let us know autumn has arrived.

It’s that time of year to get out and enjoy an entire day picking your favorite pumpkin, eating caramel apples, visiting a petting zoo and ending the night with fireworks and a haunted house. Or, to just take stroll through the pumpkin patch to snap a few photos with your family. Either way, the Valley has it all, and this is your one-stop guide for fall festivities in the East Valley.

Whether you want to explore a classy art festival or cheer at the ostrich, or even Chihuahua races, the East Valley has it! Let’s take advantage of our Arizona paradise and dance outdoors to live music, indulge during a cook-off, put on our boots for the rodeo and Old West Days, or run foot races.

Do your shopping at Superstition Farm’s weekly farmers’ market, where you can purchase fresh veggies & fruits, grass-fed beef, chicken, fresh-baked breads, eggs, pasta, barbeque sauce, mustards, catsup, salsa, desserts, and of course, SuperFarm ice cream, farmers cheese, aioli, milk, and butter.

Why not try a new way to celebrate the Fourth of July this year?

Bring the family to the farm this summer without needing too much dough. On select days during June, Mesa’s Superstition Farms is offering free petting zoo admission.

Forget blowing things up or building a skyscraper.

SuperFarm Market: Shop for veggies, dairy products, grass-fed beef, chicken, fresh-baked breads, and Alaskan seafood harvested by a Gilbert family. Dinner is available and admission to the petting zoo is free during the market.

Everyone knows Schnepf Farms is the place to go for chili and pumpkins in the fall and peaches in the summer.

Everyone knows Schnepf Farms is the place to go for chili and pumpkins in the fall and peaches in the summer.

Everyone knows Schnepf Farms is the place to go for chili and pumpkins in the fall and peaches in the summer.

You know what they say about Arizona’s weather: It’s paradise, except for the three months when we languish mercilessly in the triple digits. Options for getting out and about do dwindle in the summertime, but we more than make up for it the rest of the year — when we pick peaches, race ostriches, dance at outdoor concerts, browse arts festivals, run foot races and navigate corn mazes.

You know what they say about Arizona’s weather: It’s paradise, except for the three months when we languish mercilessly in the triple digits. Options for getting out and about do dwindle in the summertime, but we more than make up for it the rest of the year — when we pick peaches, race ostriches, dance at outdoor concerts, browse arts festivals, run foot races and navigate corn mazes.

Eclectic Mesa? Sure looks like it. Monsters are coming to Main Street as a new museum. Community leaders are about to tango and rumba in their own version of Dancing with the Stars. Evermore Nevermore has made steampunk a downtown fixture.

Gather the kids and a camera: the season of autumn-themed backdrops is here. Pumpkin patches open across the Valley on Saturday. From basic, get-your-pumpkin-and-get-out places to festivals with farm animals and fireworks, here’s your guide to a month full of fall fun.

Gather the kids and a camera: the season of autumn-themed backdrops is here. Pumpkin patches open across the Valley on Saturday. From basic, get-your-pumpkin-and-get-out places to festivals with farm animals and fireworks, here’s your guide to a month full of fall fun.

Gather the kids and a camera: the season of autumn-themed backdrops is here. Pumpkin patches open across the Valley on Saturday. From basic, get-your-pumpkin-and-get-out places to festivals with farm animals and fireworks, here’s your guide to a month full of fall fun.

Gather the kids and a camera: the season of autumn-themed backdrops is here. Pumpkin patches open across the Valley on Saturday. From basic, get-your-pumpkin-and-get-out places to festivals with farm animals and fireworks, here’s your guide to a month full of fall fun.