Here are some key updates for 2026:
- Pick-your-own will be offered on a limited basis – watch for website news updates, emails, and social media posts for more info!
- Apple butter and honey are non-perishable items generally stocked in the farmstand every day. We ran out of raspberry jam but should have more by mid-October.
- Fresh cider (both apple and apple/Asian pear blend will be pressed and available from late September until we run out of apples. We may run out on occasion but do our best!
- Cider slushies will generally be available on weekends when it’s warm and we have cider available. They are incredibly refreshing and delicious and made from 100% Plum Brook Farm apples (or apple-pear blend), nothing else!
- SNAP-EBT payments are now accepted at our farmstand for all eligible food products! We hope to take HIP someday as well, but new farms are not able to sign up at present.
- Peaches were hit with very cold temps in January and a hard frost in April, doing two rounds of damage to the fruit buds. We have less than 5% of a normal crop.
- Apple buds sustained a lot of damage when it got to 22F on April 22, but we had so many buds on the trees that we still have a solid crop on most varieties Some insect pests that are tough to manage organically were worse than usual this year, so we lost some fruit and will have more imperfections this year than last year.
- Pears (mostly Asian pears) bloom about a week before apples and were hit hard on April 22, so some varieties have almost no crop while other varieties did just fine. We actually used a non-organic plant growth hormone on pears to try to convince the trees not to drop fruit with damaged ovaries. This was our first time using a product that would not qualify for organic certification, so even though there are naturally produced hormones approved for organic production and no environmental harms associated with the product we used, we wanted to disclose this and make sure you know it only applies to our pear crop.
- Raspberry plants were damaged in the April freeze and this seems to have been a factor in our slower-than-normal start to the season, but they are tough plants and we expect to have them through October.
- Blueberry buds were affected by the April freeze, but we still had a decent crop, maybe 80 percent of normal. Sorry to say, they are in the rear view mirror now!
- Grapes were in short supply and never made it to the farmstand!
- Garlic produced well, but the supply may be limited later in the fall.
- Pumpkins are looking fantastic so far and we hope to have them in the farmstand in late September.
- And yes, everything we grow is produced using only organic-approved materials and practices, but we cannot label as organic because we are not certified. Plus, please note the single exception to this in the Pear update above, a non-organic growth hormone.
