Destination Northeast USA / Apple Picking in the Northeast
Seasonal freeze disrupted the 2026 Northeast apple crop. These six orchards are picking, and each one gives you a reason to stay well past filling your basket.
Apple picking in the Northeast is a yearly tradition for many travelers that usually runs on autopilot: pick a Saturday, pick an orchard, come home with more fruit than anyone in the house can eat. This year Mother Nature stepped in so your picking plans will take a little more planning.
In April, after an unusually warm spring pulled trees into early bloom, a hard freeze settled over the region. New York State estimated losses above $30 million across apple, stone fruit, grape, and strawberry operations, and the Governor requested a USDA disaster designation for counties in the Hudson Valley, Capital Region, Central New York, Southern Tier, and Western New York. In Pennsylvania, some apple loss estimates ran as high as 70 to 90 percent. Rutgers extension specialists confirmed widespread blossom injury across New Jersey, with the worst damage in low-lying blocks that were at full bloom when the temperature dropped.
Northern New England came through in better shape and that is where you may want to plan a picking weekend if you’re in the area. University of New Hampshire extension described a comparatively normal growing year for most of the state’s orchards, and the University of Maine’s pomology program expects a good Maine harvest. Nationally, USDA forecasts the 2026-27 crop at 263 million bushels, down 7 percent from last year.
Apple picking is still a great way to get close to the community and its bounty, so call ahead, check the orchard’s website the morning you go, and buy something in the farm store while you’re there. Here are some options:
A Sample of Northeast Apple Orchards for U-Pick
Lyman Orchards — Middlefield, Connecticut
John and Hope Lyman bought 37 acres in 1741, and the family has farmed the same ground ever since. This makes the Middlefield farm one of the oldest continuously operating family businesses in the country. Lyman Orchards now covers 1,100 acres in the Connecticut River Valley, with about 100 varieties of fruit available across a season that runs mid-June through the end of October.
Apples number over 30 varieties and are eco-certified, meaning pest management leans on natural controls rather than sprays. The 2026 pick-your-own season is open daily, 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., through November 1. Call the 24-hour picking hotline at 860-349-6015 before you drive; you’ll often get John Lyman himself reading out the day’s conditions.
Afterward, the Apple Barrel Farm Market handles pies and cider, and the 1741 Pub & Grill pours the farm’s own 1741 Hard Apple Cider. USA Today’s 10Best readers voted Lyman the top apple orchard in the nation in 2025.
Applecrest Farm Orchards — Hampton Falls, New Hampshire
Walter Baldwin Farmer planted the first trees here in 1913 and shipped fruit to Boston on a weekly “Apple Train.” The Wagner family bought the farm in 1954 and still runs it, four generations in. It’s the oldest and largest apple orchard in New Hampshire, and Applecrest Farm describes itself as the oldest continuously operated apple orchard in the United States.
Picking covers apples, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, and strawberries depending on the week. The draw for many visitors isn’t the orchard rows at all: hot cider donuts come straight out of the food truck, the creamery churns out ice cream created from “happy cows” and is among New England’s oldest, and the Orchard Grille runs lunch, dinner, and a beer garden through the fall festival weekends. Admission and parking are free.
Scott Farm Orchard — Dummerston, Vermont
This is the one for people who want to taste something they can’t buy. Scott Farm has been in cultivation since 1791, sits on 571 acres listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and grows roughly 130 heirloom and uncommon apple varieties across 3,300 trees. Black Oxford, Sheep’s Nose, Roxbury Russet: names that don’t appear in supermarkets. The farm is owned by the nonprofit Landmark Trust USA and is both a certified B Corporation and an Eco Certified orchard.
Pick-your-own opens Labor Day weekend. The main heirloom collection is harvested by staff, but the dedicated picking orchards run Gala, McIntosh, Red Cortland, Macoun, and Honeycrisp through September, with Empire, Shizuka, and Grimes Golden following in October, all on dwarf rootstock so the fruit is within reach.
Pippin’s Café serves sandwiches and cider flights outdoors. A 1.25-mile loop trail passes a picking orchard, crosses a covered bridge, and runs back along the road. Rudyard Kipling’s Vermont home, Naulakha, stands next door.
Champlain Orchards — Shoreham, Vermont
Bill Suhr was 27 when he bought 60 acres here in 1998 with no fruit-growing experience. The operation now spans 350 acres above Lake Champlain, with 146 apple varieties, plus pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, medlars, and quince.
Everything at Champlain Orchards is either EcoCertified through the IPM Institute’s Eco Apple program or certified organic by Vermont Organic Farmers on eight dedicated acres, and the farm runs largely on its own solar. No reservations are required: show up, take a bag, and sample as you go. Picking happens rain or shine, and a same-day weather hotline at 802-897-2777 covers the exceptions. Shoreham is 45 minutes south of Burlington and 20 minutes from Middlebury.
Ricker Hill Orchards — Turner, Maine
John Swett cleared this hilltop in 1803. By the family’s own count, more than eight generations have farmed Ricker Hill since, and the operation has grown to more than 340 acres of apples spread across several towns in Maine’s western foothills, with McIntosh as the signature variety.
The hard cider tasting room is the reason to build a full afternoon around it. Ciders are fermented from apples grown and pressed on site, never from concentrate, and the tasting room pours flights and flagons alongside cranberry wine made from fruit off the farm’s own bogs. Add maple donuts made while you watch, a corn maze, pumpkins, and disc golf. Maine’s harvest is expected to be a strong one this year.
Fishkill Farms — Hopewell Junction, New York
Henry Morgenthau Jr. founded this Hudson Valley farm in 1913, a decade before he became Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury. His grandson Josh runs Fishkill Farms now across 270 acres of certified organic vegetables and eco-certified fruit.
The April freeze hit here, and the farm has been candid about it: most of the 2026 peach, nectarine, and pear crop was lost. The apples made it. Picking is by reservation only, and apple reservations are posted through November 1, with Honeycrisp, Gala, McIntosh, Jonamac, Cox’s Orange Pippin, and organic Pixie Crunch among the varieties coming in.
Treasury Cider, made exclusively from Fishkill fruit, pours flights at an outdoor bar that has a backdrop of the orchards and the Catskills.
Before you go
Reservation policies vary sharply and be aware that some farms may update your reservations when the pickins are slim, so watch for any updates to your reservation. Fishkill requires them; Champlain refuses them. Lyman and Ricker Hill run daily hotlines. And in a year when many growers are harvesting a fraction of a normal crop, enjoying other experiences at each farm is good for everyone.
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