Farm Fun — Experiences for Your Family
- Visit North Central
by Carla Charter and Marcia Gaglardi
A number of farms in North Central Massachusetts offer experiences and products focusing on visitors’ lifestyles. Among them are:
With an extensive online store at boltonorchards.company.site, Bolton Orchards grows apples, peaches, plums, and pumpkins and offers cold-press cider from blended apple types. The Red Barn Coffee Café on site offers baked goods, sandwiches, doughnuts, and a range of New England products. The orchard and café are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
Carlson OrchardsFounded in 1935, the farm diversified in the thirties and forties with crops of chickens, cows, potatoes, and apples. By the late 1960s, the farm specialized in fruits with apples as the main crop. The farm grows cherries, peaches, blueberries, and pumpkins. The cider barn is open Friday through Sunday and the store is open daily.
Visitors can buy tickets on site or at a discount online for activities including Animal Showcase and rides. Children and adults can experience a variety of rides and animals including reptiles, goats, rabbits, chickens, and more. Davis Farmland opens daily, weather permitting. The Herd Rock Restaurant, open all season, features a varied menu. Open daily, weather permitting.
Hollis Hills Farm has apple picking, ice cream, flower picking, and music on weekends all summer. The retail store is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays all year. In season, Hollis Hills Farm features apples and pick-your-own options as well as a bar, restaurant, and sugar house.
Accidental farmers at In the Meadow Farm tend alpacas and invite visitors with a farm store including an array of yarns, craft items, and clothing.
Kimball farm offers over 50 flavors of delicious ice cream at their locations in Westford, Lancaster, Carlisle and Jaffrey, NH. Their grill & seafood shack serves up New England classics like fried clams, scallops, and lobster rolls all summer long. Check out their country store and café on the way out for fresh pastries, coffee, and farm merchandise!
Lanni Orchards starts off the year with its annual Easter Egg Hunt, then a Blossom Event! June brings in strawberry picking, then raspberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, pears, plums, seedless grapes as the season develops plus veggies lettuces, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, greens, melons, and flowers. The sunflower festival is at the end of August or beginning of September. Apple picking starts at the beginning of September before pumpkin picking! Open daily.
Maplebrook Farmstead
Maplebrook Farmstead features cows, goats, and chickens as Hannah Miller strives to restore the family farm. Buildings are being repainted, old machinery gets pulled out of the weeds, and a field of flowers now grows near the farm stand (thanks to my talented mother). Open daily, the retail shop Maplebrook Farmstead offers an array of clothing. Visitors may make arrangements to hike with goats.
With a gift shop and restaurant, 100-acre Meadowbrook Orchards has a disc golf course ranked 62nd of 15,000 disc golf courses worldwide.
Plainview Farm features alpacas and alpaca products, including yarn and clothing. Visitors will also find goats and chickens. Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays.
Red Apple Farm, centered on a 98-acre orchard, hosts visitors year round with a store and cidery. Monthly events include a Renaissance fair and holiday lights.
Open annually from March 1, Rota Spring Farm features an ice cream stand and restaurant open daily throughout the season. Goats roam for petting and feeding. The Rota Spring Farm Store offers a variety of food and gift products. They are known for their ice cream stand!
Sholan Farms is a historic 169-acre farm operated by Friends of Sholan Farms and owned by the city of Leominster. When in season, visitors can pick their own apples, walk the beautiful trails, and participate in their community garden program.
Smith’s Dairy Farm offers a variety of cheeses and other farm-produced products including soil, wood chips, and composted cow manure. Smith’s Farm Store offers clothing, food, and other farm-related products. Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Smith’s Country Cheese makes their cheese on-site and has a country store.
Stone Harvest Farm
Owners Maryanne Reynolds and Jana Dengler are restoring a 1700s farm to on the eastern edge of Quabbin Reservoir. Their 110 acres provide home for yaks and cashmere goats. The on-premises store sells cashmere yarn and yak fiber. The farm exhibits cashmere goats at Cashmere Goat Association shows.
Third-generation family-run Wildwood Farm hosts a unique environment for weddings, festivals, and private events. They also have a farm stand and equestrian horse stables.
Writer Carla Charter lives in Phillipston. Writer Marcia Gagliardi lives in Athol.
