Category Archives: apple picking

Touring Boston – What to Know About Apple Picking at Russell Orchards

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Let me start by saying we love the Boston tradition of Pick Your Own Fruit.  We’ve loved picking apples each fall and we have loved getting to pick a few different kinds of berries this summer.

Over the weekend my husband and I decided that we really wanted to go apple picking this year and since I had a baby due in less than a month we decided that sooner would be better.  We got everything ready in the morning and packed into the car but when I pulled up the address to Tougas Orchard (my personal favorite) we found out they were closed for the day so we decided to try out Russell Orchard since we had seen flyers around campus for an outing the rest of the school was planning there.

The drive to Russell Orchard was beautiful and the parking lot didn’t seem to busy as we pulled in,

which was what we expected going on a weekday rather than a weekend.  As I mentioned I was less than a month away from my pregnancy due date so after a long car drive I really needed to use the bathroom.  Unfortunately my very first experience with Russell Orchard was with a row of very poorly maintained port-a-potties.  Ugh.  Being unbalanced and pregnant the last thing I wanted to do was squish my roundness into the stinky cesspit.  Toilet paper and urine was everywhere, there was no clean toilet paper to be found, the toilets were super full and looking at their little service dates marked on the inside of each port-a-potty it has been weeks since they had been serviced.  Using them myself and then taking my two year old to use them was absolutely revolting, and I’m sad to say it but that initial experience may have tainted the rest of my view of Russell Orchard.

Anyway, moving on to the Orchard Summary.

1. Bathrooms
This place has been around over a 100 years (or so they claim) and they still only have a line of port a potties for bathrooms.  Gross.

2. Pricing
The price for the apples was quite low compared to some of other orchards.  You paid an admission fee $3/person and that would later be credited toward your fruit.  Apples were $1.75 a lb.

3. The Orchard
I felt like we really could have used a little more help and direction when it came to this part.  After we paid our fee and were given a bag to put our apples in we were simply sent on our way and told not to get on the tractor tailor because that was only for kids on field trips.  Great.  … but we didn’t know what to do or where to go, there were no maps and no further instructions given.  We ended up wandering down the long main road looking for any kind of signage that suggested apples ready for picking.

It was a fairly long walk and I wish we would have brought a stroller, since my toddler is pretty big and a pain to carry, but we didn’t know how far away the apples would actually be.  However the trail was fairly rough so I don’t know that a stroller that wasn’t a jogger would have done much good.

Eventually we found the apples and they had a bunch of different ones clustered together.  Each row being a different type of apples so you could get a good variety without additional walking. There were apples everywhere, mostly all over the ground, which was kind of sad, and I suspected it was because they didn’t have any people there giving directions or telling you to be careful what you picked because anything you pick should go in your bag like many of the other orchards do.

Also we went the last week of September, and I don’t know if it was the time of year or the location or something else all together, but the flies and mosquitoes were out in swarms. We all came home with multiple bug bites.

4. Other Fruit
I was pretty excited that this orchard also had raspberries that were still available to pick so after we got our fill of apples we again headed to the main desk to try to get some direction to where we could find the berries and again we were pointed in a vague direction back into the orchard.  Still poor signage and no maps.

However when we did find the berries they were great.  Tasty, delicious, ripe, and they cost a fair amount less to pick than they do at the grocery store… which does not seem to be the case for most of my apple picking experiences.

5. Other Features
They have a few animals enclosed in a fence, mostly chickens and geese and a sign warning that they are not tame and to be careful around them.  There was no playground that I could see and only handful of benches.  The general store was nice and they had some really tasty ice cream there, but other than that there wasn’t much that stood out to me.

Summary & Stars:

★★☆☆☆

Two stars. Gross bathrooms killed this place for me, and having that added to a complete lack of direction and instruction left me pretty disappointed.  I feel like there are so many great orchards in New England that I would not waste my time returning to this one.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Address:

Russell Orchards
143 Argilla Rd.
Ipswich, MA  

Phone: 978-356-5366
Website: http://www.russellorchards.com/ 

Touring Boston – What to Know About Apple Picking at Tougas Farm

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I had a friend set up a toddler playgroup date to Tougas Farm, the one she claimed was her favorite place to go apple picking and I was excited to go experience another apple picking farm (see my post on Lookout Farm for the first experience).  I was extra excited because we didn’t have a car at the time and she offered to drive us there, which was amazing.  It seems like a lot of Pick Your Own Apple farms are a good 45+ minutes away from the Cambridge/Boston area and you really can’t get to them without a car.

This orchard is set up in two parts.  You drive there and park, across the street from the parking area is a barn where you go to purchase your pass or to pick fruit and on the same side as the parking lot there is the farm store, a huge playground, and farm animals.

Things to note about Tougas Farm:

1.  How Pricing Works
Here you pay an initial admission price, I want to say it’s around $7-10/person and you get a sticker and a receipt saying you’ve paid.  Then you are given a bag for your fruit and sent into to orchard behind the barn.  You pick the fruit you want, then you take it back to the payment barn and they weigh it.  You are charged by pound, but the initial entrance fee you paid goes toward your fruit.  So if you go with two people you’ll pay $14 to get in, but that $14 gets you $14 worth of fruit.  If you pick more than $14 worth of fruit you just pay the extra per pound amount, if you pick less than you miss out on a few dollars worth of food.

2.  Travel
Their orchard seems fairly compact and it was easily walkable with a toddler without a stroller, but there is a little bit of walking involved.  There are thick patches of grass and wide walk ways between the trees so it would also be really easy to bring a stroller if you wanted or needed one.  Also different variety of apples have all be planted close to each other, so one row of apples will be Gala, the row next to it will be Cortland, the row next it will be something else, etc.  So it’s easy to get a good variety without having to do a lot of traveling.  

3. Helper Assistance
Around each area of picking they have farm workers telling you the process.  These people are great and they’ll explain to you and your kids how to pick fruit so you don’t pull a whole bunch you don’t mean to off the tree, how to find good, ripe fruit, and if you have questions about which apples taste which way these people are great for insights.  (also they have no qualms about you sampling the fruit as you go… thank goodness because I think my son ate his weight in apples while we picked.)

They had a smallish picking area, maybe 10 rows of apples open at a time (New rows open as all the apples from those rows get picked), but each row was a different kind, so I could pick some gala and some cortland and some … uh, yellow ones all kind of at the same time.  It was also great for my toddler son because he could just run wild through the different rows exploring and finding other kids.

4. Playground
The playground is by the general store.  It’s big, and there are tires to climb on, an old tractor, a couple of big wooden play structures, swings, slides, things to climb on etc.  The playground is also surrounded by picnic tables if you bring snacks.

5. Farm Animals
This is for sure my sons favorite thing about this farm. They have lots of farm animals (goats, pigs, chickens, lamas, sheep) and for $1 you can buy a small bag of food pellets to feed the animals.  The animals were surprisingly soft and good about taking the food from small children and my son loved getting to poke the food through to them and getting soggy goat lip kisses on his hand.  Thankfully they also have a nice outdoor washing station right next to the animals so you can clean up as soon as you’re done.

6. Bathrooms
With kids bathrooms are so important and not all the farms have great one.  These ones are big and attached the general store next to the playground and animal yard.

7. General Store
They have a general store and some of my most favorite apple donuts.  If you come to pick apples you really shouldn’t leave without trying one of their apple donuts.

Summary:
This is my favorite farm that I’ve been to so far.  It’s less expensive than Look Out Farm (though it has fewer activities) but it still has plenty for kids to do and it’s a great day trip.   I’m fairly confident my son would be willing to brave the drive just to feed the animals.  The farm and picking is compact which makes it nice and easy to walk and they’ve really just made it a pretty experience with green grass between the fruit trees, a great play area, fun animals and nice bathrooms.

Rating:

★★★★★

Five stars, I thought this place was great.  It was perfect for a day outing with a toddler, I loved being able to walk around and play and not drag a stroller with me.  I thought the grass everywhere was a nice touch and we could not get enough of feeding the animals.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Tougas Farm

234 Ball Street
Northboro, MA

Phone: 508-393-6406
Website: http://www.tougasfarm.com/

Touring Boston – What to Know About Apple Picking at Lookout Farms

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One of the first things my husband and I did after moving to Cambridge back in 2013 was going apple picking.  It sounded so New England and his school was planning a trip, renting a bus to haul all the students and families, and taking us out to the orchards.  How could we resist?

The place they chose, among the many Massachusetts Pick Your Own Apple Orchards was called Lookout Farm.

This was my first time apple picking so I wasn’t sure what to expect, my initial thought was that we would be climbing small ladders and throwing apples down to each other to put into burlap bags… but that’s not they way do things out here.

I soon found out that they grow dwarf/mini trees so that you can easily reach the apples from the ground and have no need for ladders. This is great (and much safer if you’re toting along tots), and it was still a lot of fun.  Not to mention that you get a pretty good view of the fruit your picking so it’s easier to get the good stuff.

Now that we’ve been in Cambridge for a few years I’ve had the chance to experience a handful of orchards and I’ve realized that they are all very different from each other, so I’d like to highlight the features you can expect at Lookout Farm.

1.  Price
I’ve found this to be one of the more expensive orchards, but with good reason because they really make it family affair that is amazing for kids, but I’ll get to that later.   You pay a person by person admission, ($9-$15/person depending on the day of the week, kids under two are free) in addition to the price of a bag that you will be filling with fruit.

2. Train Ride
This farm is huge and the different varieties are fruit are really spread out.  To make reaching the fruit easier on their guests Lookout Farms has a train that comes around and you hope on and off as you like when you reach the fruit you want to pick.  If your kid/s likes trains, count this as a total win.  It also makes it really easy to get around without having to haul or push a stroller.

3. Shade
They have planted arches of grape vines near where the train drops off and picks up so even on super hot days you can have shade.  I was pregnant when we went the first time and the day was blistering, so this was a huge blessing.

4. Play Area
This play area is amazing!  It was fun as an adult (we went before our son was born) and it looked incredible for kids.  There were lots of animals to see, you could ride ponies or camels, there was a great playground, lots of space to run around, covered picnic tables, a climbing wall, a burlap canvas maze, a mini caterpillar ride for little kids, a learning area where they could build some structures related to bees, a bounce house, and a giant hay pyramid to climb.

*In addition to this on the weekends they have face painters and performers.

5. Food
They have a snack shack located in the play area where you can buy burgers and the like and they have a country store at the entrance where you can buy fruits, canned goods, honey and the like.  We bought some pumpkin butter there and it was amazing.

Summary and Rating: ★★★★☆

This farm was a blast to spend the day at.  They had so much to do that you could easily spend multiple days there and there were tons of fun fall actives for kids.   The fruit we picked was delicious and I liked having a guide to give us some insights and tips about what we were doing and how to do it.  The farm was clean, and play area was fun and the food was delicious.  The only draw back of this farm is that it’s a bit more pricy than the others, but considering the kid play Mecca it is, I say it’s certainly worth trying out at least once. Four starts, because this place was amazing, clean and fun, but it was also expensive.

Have you been here before?  If so I’d love to know more about your experience and any tips or tricks you have in the comments section below. 

Farm Address: 

Belkin Family Lookout Farm
89 Pleasant Street South
Natick, MA 01760

Phone: 508–653–0653
Website: http://lookoutfarm.com/