Willowbrook Apple Farm

It’s U Pick Apple Season Here on the Farm!

This weekend we begin U-pick Apples at Willowbrook Apple Farm! We are excited to welcome you all to the Farm to enjoy the Fall Festivities. In order to help you prepare for your visit, we wanted to share the following information:

RESERVATIONS
Reservations are not required, however, we received great feedback about our reservations last year so we are going to continue with them for this first weekend of apple picking only. Reservations will become available Tuesday, 9/28/2021, at 6am PST. We only have a certain number of spots available for each timeslot, but again, if you do not get a reservation, you are still able to visit! For reservations, you will have the opportunity to choose between three entrance times on both Saturday and Sunday. You can choose 10am–12pm, 12pm–2pm, or 2pm–4pm. Once on the farm, you do not need to leave at a certain time, we are just offering your arrival window. If you have a reservation, you will meet a Farmer in front of the General store where it will say Reservation Only Entrance. The Farmer will give you instructions and a brief overview, and you will be on your way! Our walk-in guests will line up at the red archway at the Main Entrance, where a farmer will be letting folks in to pay for apple bags and begin their apple picking festivities. Reservations are live here at 6am PST 9/28.

In order to reserve your spot, your group will purchase one bag of apples. You do not need to purchase a bag for every member of your group, only one bag per group in order for your group to be admitted. Once on the farm, you will have the opportunity to partake in our other offerings such as u-press apple cider, caramel apples, meatballs in our apple cinnamon BBQ sauce, shopping in the country store, and a meet and greet with our animals. Tom’s BBQ Pitstop will be joining us again this year beginning this Sunday, 10/3/21! If you look forward to his BBQ each year (like we do!), then we recommend reserving for Sunday.

Once again, we want to remind you that reservations are not required, and we always do our best to get guests onto the farm as quickly as possible. We appreciate everybody’s understanding as we navigate the busy apple season as a small, family-operated business. As always, we highly recommend you give yourself plenty of time to find parking, as Oak Glen will be very busy this weekend.

WINE TASTING AND S’MORES
We hope you will join us for our most popular event, wine tasting and s’mores! It is the perfect way to end your day in Oak Glen. When we close our gates at 4pm, we light the bonfire and gather around to enjoy the fresh mountain air, music, wine, and s’mores. If you would like to order our charcuterie boxes, dessert boxes, or sandwich offerings for this weekend, you will need to purchase tickets by this Wednesday so that we can give the full order to the Vendor. We appreciate your understanding with this. We highly recommend reservations ahead of time for this event so that we can plan accordingly! Book your visit, all dates here.

APPLE PICKING NOTES
Our apples are Stayman-Winesaps and were planted in 1910. This makes our trees very old! We ask that you please be respectful of our trees so that they can continue to produce fruit for years to come. \When you are picking apples, you should twist them gently until they come off, do not yank. If you yank, this will actually damage the tree and the apple may not grow back the following year. Please do not climb our trees – it is not safe for you or the tree! We ask that you pick the lower apples first and then move up the tree after the lower branches are picked. We have pole props supporting our apple branches because they get too heavy with apples. Please do not remove the pole props as the trees need this support (again, they are very old!).

Stayman-Winesaps get sweeter as they ripen. The redder they are, the sweeter they are. If you pick an apple that is a little greener, it will taste a little more like a granny smith. You can pick apples with the level of redness you prefer, based on whether you like them more sweet or sourer. Stayman-Winesaps are wonderful right off the tree, but are also great for baking because they have a thick skin that will get crispy as it bakes, and the inside will get nice and soft.
Finally, Stayman-Winesaps have russeting at the top, which makes the tops of the apples look like they are scarred. This scarring, or russeting, happens when an apple gets really juicy quickly, and the skin actually breaks apart and then scars over where the skin broke open. This is completely natural and just means the apple is really juicy!

Thank you for all of your support and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Warm Regards,
The Driscolls and the Willowbrook Apple Farm Staff