Belvidere, New Jersey
October 2020
Mackey's Orchard is an eight generation family farm. Mackey's Orchard is a 96 acre farm that offers a bakery, farmstand, ice cream, greenhouse, pick your own, and seasonal activities.
My mother, sister, and I found out about Mackey's Orchards through a family friend who recommended it to us. We started our adventure off by going out to the apple trees and picking our own bag of apples. We decided to buy a large bag for $20 which held approximately 10 pounds of apples. In order to get to and from the apple trees, you must take a short hayride that costs $2 per person round trip.
Unfortunately, the farm recently experienced a frost that led to a light crop so there were not many good apples to pick from the trees directly. This season the farm also experienced a record breaking number of people participating in pick your own apples. However, there were multiple massive bins filled with apples that we could easily pick from. The apples that we were allowed to pick were Gala, Fuji, Mutsu, Cortland, Ida Red, Red Delicious, Golden Supreme, and Jonathan. We filled our bag with a variety of apples. Since the pick your own apple experience was lacking, the farm created an Easter egg hunt contest. Each visitor was allowed to turn in one egg for a prize and the prizes varied by egg color. We were able to find three eggs while picking our apples, one for each of us! I had a really fun but challenging time finding the eggs and I loved the idea of this!
After apple picking and egg hunting, we headed back to the main area by the hayride. We then went to the store to redeem our Easter eggs and do some shopping. Our eggs landed us one free apple cider donut, one free sugar cookie, and one dollar off of our total purchase. We bought fresh apple cider and a dozen apple cider donuts from the store. From the store we went out to the pumpkin patch to find our perfect pumpkins. I decided on a small yellow pumpkin, my sister decided on a small orange pumpkin, and my mom decided to get mums instead of a pumpkin.
Overall, we had a fun time visiting Mackey's Orchard. It has all of the essential fall favorites that makes autumn so special! I thought that the Orchard did a good job at finding a creative and interactive solution to their apple shortage. I would recommend Mackey's Orchard for seasonal fun for everyone!
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