Walk up to the check-in tent at Solebury Orchards this month and you'll get a bag, a set of directions, and a choice: ride the wagon out to the rows or walk. Follow the signs marking which varieties are ripe. Once you're out there, though, the apples waiting in the bins between the trees aren't all from those trees. Some of them rode down from New York.
That's not a secret. The orchard has been upfront about it since spring, when a hard freeze in late April tore through the blossoms before the fruit had a chance to set. What's worth understanding, if you're planning a Saturday around picking, is exactly how the farm decided to handle a bad year, and how much of the season survived that decision intact.
The Freeze No One Could Plan Around
Solebury Orchards has been growing fruit on Creamery Road since 1985, when Brian Smith started the farm on 24 acres. It's grown since then to roughly 80 acres of apples, peaches, blueberries, pears, and plums. A late April freeze this year hit the apple blossoms hard enough that the trees are carrying only a fraction of their usual crop.
The orchard didn't quietly scale back. It posted directly to Facebook that there are very few apples left on the trees, and that most of the time, there won't be any to pick straight from a branch. Rather than cancel the season, the farm chose to supplement it, buying apples from New York growers and setting them out in bins along the picking rows so visitors still get something close to the usual experience, even if the fruit in hand didn't grow within sight of where they're standing.
Not every Bucks County farm made that same call. Solly Farm in Warminster, dealing with the same regional freeze, skipped apple picking entirely this fall and is running its pumpkin patch instead. Solebury Orchards' choice to keep the rows open with sourced fruit was a decision about what the season is for, not just a workaround for a thin crop.
"We are sourcing apples from New York orchards to stock our market."
What Still Comes From the Farm Itself
The freeze hit the apple crop specifically. It didn't touch the cutting garden, where dahlias and zinnias have been blooming through the summer and into fall, or the cider press, or the kitchen turning out apple cider donuts, applesauce, and fruit butters. None of that depends on this year's apple harvest. The market has been stocked with cider and baked goods all season regardless of what the trees produced.
The orchard also added new programming for 2026 that has nothing to do with how many apples are on the branches: Craft Sundays with Twyl Trolley, story time sessions run with the Free Library of New Hope and Solebury, an Apple Scavenger Hunt, and a new pumpkin patch. Pumpkins and flowers weren't affected by the freeze at all, which makes them a bigger part of this year's draw than usual. A visit built around the cutting garden, the pumpkin patch, and the market counter looks close to a normal Solebury fall. A visit built entirely around filling a bag straight from the trees will look different this year, and the farm wants you to know that going in.
The Township Put Four Farms on One Afternoon
The freeze wasn't the only thing shaping how Solebury spent its weekend. On September 26, Solebury Township partnered with four local farms for a "From Solebury Soil to Community" tour, open to the public from noon to 5 p.m., followed by a "Celebrate Solebury Community Happy Hour" at Manoff's Market & Gardens from 5 to 8 p.m.
The four participating stops:
- Solebury Orchards, 3325 Creamery Road, New Hope. Pick-your-own apples and flowers, tractor rides, and market goods, with no reservation required for tour visitors that day even though weekends normally call for one.
- Roots to River, 3175 Sugan Road, New Hope. Wood-fired pizza and outdoor seating, farm-to-table lunch, pick-your-own flowers, and farm tours running every hour on the hour.
- Spring Creek Farms, 6262 Meetinghouse Road, New Hope. One of the four working farms on the route.
- Manoff's Market & Gardens, host site for the evening happy hour.
Event organizers described the day as a chance to bring neighbors together around the people, places, and farms that make Solebury what it is. It's the kind of afternoon that only works because four separate operations agreed to open their gates on the same day, something that hadn't been organized at this scale before. For a farm working through a rough growing season, that kind of shared visibility matters more than it would in an ordinary year.
If You're Building Your Weekend Around It
Solebury Orchards runs its pick-your-own apple season Thursday through Sunday. Weekend visits require a reservation booked online in advance. Thursday and Friday visits don't.
| Days | Reservations | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday and Friday | Not required | $1.50 per pound |
| Saturday and Sunday | Required, booked online | $1.50 per pound |
Apples picked in the orchard have to be purchased at that same rate whether they came off a tree or out of a bin, so it's worth deciding ahead of time whether you're there for the picking or for the walk through the rows. Either way, the market keeps selling cider, cider donuts, and applesauce made on-site, and the cutting garden is still open for anyone who wants to walk out with a bouquet instead of a bag of fruit.
The freeze changed what's on the trees this year. It didn't touch the cutting garden, the cider press, or the reason people keep driving out to Creamery Road every fall.
If Solebury's harvest season has you thinking about what it would mean to call this stretch of Bucks County home, The Walton-Winn Team is easy to reach for a conversation about it.
