Freshly harvested pumpkins and crisp apples are true pleasures of the autumn season, and a fantastic online resource lets me support local farmers and incorporate these fall fruits and vegetables into hands-on sustainability lessons for my kids. Pick Your Own is a website that lists you-pick orchards and farms in every U.S. state and in the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan.

Unfortunately I live too far south to go apple-picking this time of year, but my daughters love to visit pumpkin patches every fall and strawberry fields every spring. Picking our own pumpkins and berries shows them how much fresher food is straight from the source than in the grocery store, and it lets them see and touch the actual land that grows our food. That’s a better conservation lesson than I could ever teach them in words.

Reading about the local food movement is good, but traveling to the orchard and picking the apples off the actual trees is even better. My third-grader has been learning about renewable resources like biodiesel fuel during classroom science time, but a trip to our local u-pick pumpkin patch actually shows her how to practice sustainability. Now she understands the difference between local farm-fresh produce and produce that relies on wasteful packaging and transportation that uses up fossil fuels.

And speaking of avoiding wasteful packaging, Pick Your Own also provides instructions on how to can, freeze, and dry all those fruits and vegetables yourself. The site includes illustrated canning instructions, tips, recipes, and even information on volume/yield conversion.

Bookmark the website, and once the fall harvest season ends you can find listings for places to cut your own Christmas tree.