The McDowells make a yearly trip to Western North Carolina from their home in Davie, Fla., just outside Miami, but Monday was Finn’s first time picking apples atop Pinnacle Mountain at Sky Top Orchard.
They hadn’t yet made it to the playground and bamboo forest, but Cameron McDowell said Finn and his younger brother, 10-month-old Rhett, loved it so far.
The McDowells are one of the hundreds of families that will make the visit to Sky Top Orchard and others around the county this year, part of the growth in agritourism that has prompted u-pick apple orchards to expand rapidly in the county in the past few years, adding extras like playgrounds, corn mazes and food sales.
“This has become popular; it’s definitely on the rise,” said Sky Top owner David Butler, who has opened up for the season.
Sky Top is one of the most well-known orchards in the area, having been featured in publications like Southern Living and Food Network Magazine. Visitors can go on hay rides, enjoy a playground, duck pond, bamboo forest, an animal area, wooden cutouts for photos, specialty apple products like house-made cider and apple cider donuts, and much more.
Changes have been made this year to handle the growing crowds. Additional fencing was installed to direct the flow of visitors, and the pathway into the orchard has been altered. Parking has been divided into short-term and long-term areas, and payment lines have been consolidated to cut down on waiting time.
First planted in 1967, Sky Top started establishing itself as a u-pick and entertainment farm in 1980, and now has about 100 acres total — 55 dedicated to tree production and the remainder to recreation areas.
They no longer provide apples for wholesale purposes — to sell to packing houses and eventually end up in grocery stores — though they do provide some apples for a local hard-cider brewer.
Henderson County Cooperative Extension Director Marvin Owings said direct markets, where growers grow directly for retail, including u-pick operations and farm stands, have been on the rise thanks to a number of factors including customers looking to experience the farms where their fruit is grown.
“When I first came to the county in ’85, we had about six or eight direct markets; today we’ve got probably over 30,” Owings said, adding that those growers have also diversified with apple products like jellies and jams and other tree fruit like peaches and pears.
The Blue Ridge Farm Direct Market Association is an organization of those roughly 30 Henderson County apple growers who sell fresh apples via farm stands and local markets, formed in 1985 to educate the public and growers about the industry.
Their website, ncapples.com, lists the direct markets a-z, including those that offer u-pick, tours, even ice cream and bakeries.
Jack Ruff, a marketing specialist with the N.C. Department of Agriculture, said direct market operations are on the rise thanks to the larger local food movement.
“I think the public just in general likes to know where food comes from and likes to know the farmer,” he said.
Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard, on Pace Drive in Hendersonville, is one of the oldest u-pick orchards in the county, starting in 1970.
Owner Mike Stepp said his mother and grandmother used to sit in a small shed on the property and hand out baskets for people to fill with apples. Eventually they ran electricity out there for a Coke machine.
Stepp’s parents started experimenting with pick-your-own in the late ’60s, he said, and eventually built the large building currently on the property in 1974, making additions up to this year, when a shed was added to provide more room, and he says more room is still needed.
This year, Stepp’s has added a number of options for tourists and visitors, including two apple cannons to fire apples or pumpkins at targets, a kitchen to cook apple cider donuts, a playground and more.
Beth Carden, executive director of the Henderson County Tourism Development Authority, said the apple orchards are “absolutely driving further tourism today,” and that while she can’t put a particular dollar figure on it, it’s “very significant.”
Many of the orchards are creating an experience with extras like hay rides, petting zoos and baked goods, and families are turning the trips into family traditions.
“We’re marking a passage in time for people and their families,” Butler said.
He didn’t used to look at it that way, he said, but it’s special when he sees a 2-year-old on his first trip, then again through his 19th and 20th birthdays, and then when the parents are there without them because they’ve started college, “and you see a little proud glimmer and a little tear in their eye.”
Rita Stepp, Mike’s wife, said she heard from a 60-year-old woman who has been coming to the orchard for apples since she was 17. The Stepps even have three generations working at the farm.
“We get a lot of families who make it a tradition to come here every fall,” said Leslie Lancaster, owner of Grandad’s Apples N’ Such on Chimney Rock Road in Hendersonville.
Grandad’s has seen its number of visitors grow as well, and has created extra parking, a playground and a jump pillow, and has gotten back to pressing its own apple cider and carrying some local hard cider. Next year, Lancaster said, the company hopes to start making its own hard cider.
Unlike Sky Top or Stepp’s, Grandad’s does usually grow for wholesale production, though due to an Easter frost this year that knocked out about 40 percent of the orchard’s crop, they won’t sell any wholesale.
Usually about 20 percent of the company’s business relies on wholesale, going to curb markets and flea markets in places like Greenville, S.C. or Charlotte, but the retail arm of the business is growing.
“I don’t think it’s just us, I think it’s this community as a whole who’s really benefiting from the agritourism,” Lancaster said.
Reach Lacey at 828-694-7860 or derek.lacey@blueridgenow.com.
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