Farms let students enjoy the fruits of their labor

When the pressure of exams becomes too much to handle, an afternoon spent picking apples at an orchard is an unexpected escape. It can be surprisingly relaxing to wander among rows of apple trees, abandoning the fast pace of the city for a taste of country life. And if the saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is at all true, there’s also no better way to fend off mid-semester stress-induced colds.

Demarest Farms

Bergen County, located across the George Washington Bridge, is rife with greenery and plentiful fauna and flora—a drastic departure from the wasteland stereotype conjured up in most Manhattanites’ minds at the mention of New Jersey.

Indicative of Bergen County’s suburban quaintness and green splendor is the family-owned and operated Demarest Farms in Hillsdale, NJ. Atop approximately 40 acres, Demarest Farms is home to a multitude of fruits and vegetables, hayrides, and pumpkin stalks. It also hosts a charming farm store home to a litany of baked goods sure to immediately bring students back to childhood Thanksgiving dinners. The scent of apple cider sends shivers down the spine and memories of cold winters abound.

Apple picking is therapeutic and enjoyably solemn as visitors are taken out into the vast apple orchards in a tractor. There seems to be no sense of limitation—the selection of apples appears endless and extends as far as the eye can see. The apple picking area is encircled by grand pine trees of immeasurable height and stature. The variety of apples is generous in variety and ripeness, giving each individual full control of his or her selection. There is a general sense that time stands still inside the orchards, as if all the minutes in the day still wouldn’t suffice to scope the full spread of the farm.

—Rhonda Shafei

Hardeman Orchards

For students lucky enough to have access to a car, it’s hard to beat a day spent picking apples at Hardeman Orchards, located about two hours north of the city in the tiny Hudson shore town of Red Hook. Fresh apples aside, the trip is worth it solely to temporarily abandon Manhattan for a town where the only restaurant in sight is a family-owned diner and there’s not a yellow taxi for miles.

Even though the Hardeman farm stand boasts buckets upon buckets of apples ready for the taking, the pick-your-own system is the way to go here. Eighteen dollars buys a logo-emblazoned plastic bag and all the apples customers can squeeze into it. All told, the bag is big enough to fit about 40 apples, and customers are free to mix and match all the different varieties, from Fujis and Galas to Macouns and Empires.

After handing over the bag, an unassuming, endearingly disheveled cashier tells eager apple-pickers to follow a winding dirt path, past a dingy greenhouse and a slightly overgrown vegetable garden, to the orchard.

One of the benefits of picking apples in what is essentially the middle of nowhere is that students can usually have the entire orchard to themselves. On one Saturday afternoon, the place was entirely deserted except for the farm’s owner, who stopped for a smoke break in his pickup truck and offered advice on where to locate the Honeycrisp trees.

Once visitors fill up their bags and work up a sweat from lugging around 40-some apples, nothing hits the spot better than one of Hardeman’s dirt-cheap bottles of cold cider. Take the drink to a shady spot under an apple tree, and the word “midterms” will never have seemed so foreign.

—Maddy Kloss

Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm

For those from the Midwest, Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm churns up autumnal nostalgia by the apple barrel.

Treescapes tinged with burnt reds and oranges surround this little orchard haven in Yorktown Heights, Westchester. The pick-your-own half-bushel option for $28 gets a sizeable group of five people about 10 apples each. For an extra $3, rent an extended broom-like “apple-picker” that has a plastic contraption on one end with a bag hanging from it. Then, hop on the rustic hay cart for all of a 100-yard ride up to the orchards.

At Wilkens there are three fields—McIntosh, the largest; Red Delicious, the smallest; and Golden Delicious. The fact that the Golden Delicious trees were still overflowing with apples should have been sufficient warning. They taste like vaguely sweet water and have an equally unappetizing dry, leathery skin—not nearly as satisfying as biting with audible crispness into a sugary-sour McIntosh. At an apple orchard, a dribble of juice out the corner of the mouth is more than acceptable—it’s ideal.

The Red Delicious section is elusively hard to find, but these dark-skinned beauties merit the trek to the end of the Golden Delicious field. For those who don’t have the apple-picking perseverance to finagle a half-bushel worth of goods, there are wooden crates at the pick-up area filled with apples to “top off” any bag. The crates feature apples currently not in the orchards, too. Stock up here on Honeycrisps and Fujis. Lastly, be sure to save time for the apple-cinnamon-sugar donut line—while fresh they literally melt, but brought home they just end up soggy in the plastic bag ($4 for 1/2 dozen).

—Allison Malecha

How to get there

Wilkens Fruit and Fir Farm
Yorktown Heights, Westchester, NY

Take the hudson line of Metro North train from Grand Central to Croton Harmon for $11.25 peak and $8.25 off-peak one way when purchased at the station.

Demarest Farms
Hillsdale, Bergen County, NJ

Take New Jersey Transit train to the Hillsdale station for $8.75 one way.

Hardeman Orchards
Red Hook, Dutchess County, NY

Getting here by public transportation is no easy feat and is not recommended. Fortunately, borrowing a friend’s car or bumming a ride is recommended (as just about anything short of hitchhiking).

What to pick

For those who aren’t quite ready to ditch this town, the best of farm fresh apples are also available at the Samascott Orchards, which has a stand at the Columbia Greenmarket. Here are Spec A&E’s recommendations for the best of this apple season:

Honeycrisp: Generally a delicate pattern of yellow and red, the honeycrisp lives up to its name—it’s sweet but always has a satisfying crunch.

Fuji: Fuji apples are known for giving buyers the most bang for their buck: they’re one of the larger breeds, with individual fruits boasting the roundness and size of baseballs.

Granny Smith: For those who like their apples with a little punch, the ubiquitous Granny Smith, with its trademark vibrant green hard skin, is notoriously sour.

Macoun: These McIntosh-Jersey Black hybrids have all the sweetness of a McIntosh but a firmer flesh.