With apple season off to a fruitful start for Franklin County farmers, Gov. Maura Healey has declared September “Massachusetts Apple Month.”
“September really is prime apple-picking season,” said Ben Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farms in Deerfield, adding that between September and Indigenous People’s Day is the best time to bring a basket to an orchard. “We’re right in the peak of it now.”
According to Clark, the cool September nights helped brighten the colors of the apples. The dry weather earlier in the month concentrated the sugars before the recent rain helped the trees spread their branches, he added.
“The flavor’s really good,” Clark continued. “They’re still juicy, but they have plenty of sugars and are tasting great.”
From cortland to the macintosh and honeycrisp apples that are the first to bloom at Clarkdale Fruit Farms, Clark said “we have plenty of apples to pick” with “plenty to come.”
For Ryan Voiland of Red Fire Farm in Montague, his favorite varieties, like the “exceptionally tasty” gold rush with a “flavor you just keep coming back for more [of],” bloom later in the season.
At Pine Hill Orchards in Colrain, Brady Shearer described the Honeycrisp, Cortland, Macintosh, Evercrisp, McLellan, and Pink Lady apples on the farm’s trees so far as “juicy and sweet.”
“It’s fantastic, it’s one of the better years we’ve had,” echoed Ervin Meluleni, who tends to the apple trees at Coyote Hill Farms in Bernardston, a small farm where they have “30 trees and 30 different varieties.”
“I have a lot of favorites,” he said of his favorite kind of apple to eat.
As far as his favorite way to prepare the fall fruit, Meluleni prefers apple cider.
“We’re organic, so our apples are not cosmetically very nice,” he said with a chuckle. “Cider is the solution.”
Clark and Voiland said their apple trees dodged lasting damage from the April frost. According to Voiland, apple orchards tend to thrive on hills, where they can avoid the frost that settles in the valleys.
“It was early enough that the apple blossoms were still tight and they hadn’t opened yet, so they were more hearty,” Voiland explained. “They weren’t vulnerable yet.”
He added that the recent rainfall has not been “excessive” enough to cause concern, with wind being the real danger for apple trees. According to Voiland, modern apple trees trend toward smaller statures and are “precocious,” channeling energy into growing fh543ruit at a young age instead of a robust trunk and root system, leaving the trees susceptible to breaking and falling in intense wind.
Without any rough winds yet, Voiland called this season “one of the bigger years” for the farm’s apple crop. According to the farmer, apple crops tend to swing back in forth with their success. Although 2023, another frost year, marked a “total bust” for the apple trees, he said the Liberty, Crimson Crisps and Freedom apples this September indicate a similar strong season to 2024.
“We’re pretty lucky. I’d say this season has been pretty reasonable weather for growing conditions in general. I can’t say that about a lot of the other recent years… But I think that we need to be prepared as farmers and as a society for more and more erratic weather and that is really going to impact the success of some of these crops and the viability and the economics of our food system,” Voiland said. “Climate change is a real thing and farmers see it firsthand.”
Approximately 550 farms grow apples on 3,786 acres in the state, according to the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture, which Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) highlighted in its announcement of Massachusetts Apple Month. These apple orchards averaged 202 42-pound bushels per harvested acre, with growers receiving an average of approximately $55 per bushel, based on the USDA’s 2025 New England Fruit Report. Following these statistics, Massachusetts farmers harvest more than 32 million pounds of apples and potentially accrue over $42 million from the fall fruit each season.
“Pick-your-own apple orchards connect families directly to our farmers against the beautiful backdrop of a Massachusetts autumn,” MDAR Commissioner Ashley Randle said in the statement. “As crisp air and vibrant foliage arrive, Massachusetts Apple Month celebrates our growers and their exceptional fruit. These farms preserve our working landscapes while educating the next generation about agriculture and how food is grown.”
“Massachusetts Apple Month celebrates a season that brings people together,” Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism Executive Director Kate Fox said.
Clark pushed for Healey’s declaration as a director of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers Association. He called apple orchards in the area “economic drivers” that help boost tourism by catching “leaf-peepers” and Yankee Candle Village visitors.
“Fruit orchards are an important part [of] Franklin County’s agricultural history and heritage,” Voiland said, “and hopefully future.”
Cark, Shearer and Meluleni hope Massachusetts Apple Month will encourage folks in Franklin County and beyond to plan an apple-picking trip in September and support the apple farmers at the core of the autumn tradition.
“It’s great to have recognition and hopefully get more people aware and out to orchards,” Clark said, “because apples are healthy and it’s a great activity to go pick your own.”
“It’s a huge draw here in the fall,” Shearer said.
Shearer hopes the pattern of weekend rain will dry up and more locals and tourists will stop by Pine Hill Orchards for its “agritourism.” Besides picking apples, visitors at the farm can pick out pumpkins for Halloween, hop on a wagon ride through the apple trees, order lunch and dinner, roast marshmallows at the fire pit “and don’t forget our cider donuts, our famous cider donuts,” Shearer said.
Her own favorite apple snack is a little simpler than cider donuts.
“Right off the tree,” she said. “There’s nothing better than a fresh-picked apple right off the tree.”
