Lucy makes her pick...

In our few years in Rhode Island, apple picking has become one of our fall traditions. We’ve gone to Jaswell’s Farm, which has a great farm stand and pasteurizes their own cider, and Sweet Berry Farm, which I love for their café/farm stand (their pumpkin muffins are addictive). This year, to try something new (and because we heard they still had peaches), we headed to Hill Orchards in Johnston, RI.

At most orchards, they discourage you from sampling the fruit, but at Hill they invited us to try before you buy. And sure enough, they still had peaches and plums in addition to plenty of apples — although not all of them ripe quite yet. This weekend, they recommended picking the macintosh, cortland, gala and macoun, although we also found some ripe golden delicious.

There do have a bare bones “farm stand,” which consists of a folding table where you can buy some cider and pumpkins in a variety of sizes (we got both). And they also offer horse-drawn carriage rides around the farm — we passed on the ride, although Madeline insisted on petting the horses.

As usual, we left with enough fruit to make several pies, except this time, we’ll have to add peach pie to our to do list.

Hill Orchards
86 Winsor Avenue
Johnston, RI
www.hillorchards.com

For other suggestions on where to “pick your own,” visit Farm Fresh RI.