.svg)
Halloween Express
FEATURED: All aboard the Conway Scenic Railroad’s Halloween Express!
Discover
There’s a moment every year when you know summer is ending. The mornings turn crisp, the afternoon sun softens, and the scent of ripe apples drifts through the air. In New England, apple picking isn’t just an activity — it’s a seasonal rite of passage. And in Vermont, perhaps more than anywhere else in the region, apple orchards are not just farms. They’re living links to history, places where land and memory intersect.
For centuries, apples have been at the heart of Vermont life. Early settlers carried seeds into the Green Mountains and planted them in rocky soils cleared by hand. By the early 1800s, Vermont was a leading producer of cider — safer than water, easier to make than beer, and consumed daily by farmers and townsfolk alike. Every hillside orchard was a pantry, a gathering place, and, in many cases, a lifeline.
Today, Vermont’s orchards carry that history forward. Families come to pick Honeycrisps and Cortlands, to sip cider, to taste donuts dusted with cinnamon sugar. But beyond the seasonal ritual lies a deeper story: the preservation of heirloom varieties, the endurance of multi-generational farms, and the way a simple apple can carry centuries of tradition.
Here are three orchards that embody Vermont’s apple heritage — each one different, each one essential.
📍 707 Kipling Road, Dummerston, VT
If there is one orchard that best tells the story of Vermont’s apple legacy, it’s Scott Farm. Founded in 1791, the farm sits on land that has seen more than two centuries of agricultural history. But it wasn’t until 1911 that the current orchards were planted, creating a living collection that today includes more than 130 heirloom apple varieties.
Walking Scott Farm feels like entering a museum you can taste. The names of the apples alone carry history:
Each bite is a step back in time. Unlike the uniform Honeycrisps that dominate supermarket shelves, Scott’s heirlooms come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors: tart, floral, spicy, winey, sometimes startling, always memorable.
The farm is managed today by The Landmark Trust USA, which also oversees historic properties on the site, including the farmhouse where Rudyard Kipling once lived while writing The Jungle Book. From the hillside, with the Green Mountains rising in the distance, you can almost hear the echoes of centuries — farmers pressing cider, families filling baskets, writers drawing inspiration from the land.
In autumn, the air here is a blend of woodsmoke and ripening fruit, the crunch of leaves underfoot, the laughter of children sampling cider. It’s hard to think of a place that feels more like Vermont distilled.
📍216 Orchard Rd, Shelburne, VT
If there is one orchard that best tells the story of Vermont’s apple legacy, it’s Scott Farm. Founded in 1791, the farm sits on land that has seen more than two centuries of agricultural history. But it wasn’t until 1911 that the current orchards were planted, creating a living collection that today includes more than 130 heirloom apple varieties.
Walking Scott Farm feels like entering a museum you can taste. The names of the apples alone carry history:
If Scott Farm is about history, Shelburne Orchards is about celebration. Overlooking Lake Champlain, this orchard is as much a gathering place as a farm. Families return year after year not only for the apples, but for the cider donuts, apple brandy, and the sense of festivity that fills the air each fall.
Shelburne’s land has been tied to fruit for generations. In the 1800s, the Champlain Valley was lined with orchards, its fertile soils nourished by the moderating influence of the lake. Farmers shipped barrels of apples south by canal boat, feeding towns across New England. That legacy endures at Shelburne, where every October the lake reflects the flaming foliage of the surrounding hills and the Adirondacks rise blue in the distance.
What sets Shelburne apart is the atmosphere. On a Saturday in October, the orchard feels like a festival — kids running through rows of Cortlands and McIntoshes, musicians strumming guitars, the smell of hot cider wafting from the farm stand. There’s a brandy still on-site, too, a nod to Vermont’s cider tradition, when apple brandy warmed long winters.
And here’s something unique: you can actually buy apple trees at Shelburne Orchards and plant them at home. For many visitors, that means the experience doesn’t end when they leave the farm — they carry it into their own backyards, planting trees that will bear fruit for years to come. It’s a way of taking part in Vermont’s orchard tradition directly, of weaving your own story into a much older one.
If you want to understand how apple picking became more than agriculture in Vermont — how it became an experience, a ritual, a memory — spend an afternoon at Shelburne Orchards, and maybe bring home a tree to keep the tradition growing.
📍3597 VT-74, Shoreham, VT
Champlain Orchards may not have the centuries-old pedigree of Scott Farm, but it represents the future of Vermont farming. Founded in the late 1990s, it has quickly become one of the state’s most respected orchards, combining tradition with innovation.
The farm spans 220 acres overlooking Lake Champlain, and it grows more than 100 apple varieties alongside pears, cherries, plums, and berries. But what makes Champlain truly distinctive is its commitment to ecological practices. The orchards are managed with an eye toward sustainability — careful soil stewardship, integrated pest management, and renewable energy initiatives that ensure the land will remain productive for generations.
Walking the rows here, you can see that balance of old and new. There are classic New England apples like McIntosh and Empire, but also unusual cultivars prized by cider makers, varieties that broaden the palate and reintroduce diversity to orcharding. In the farm market, you’ll find pies, preserves, and ciders that reflect that abundance. Each product feels like autumn distilled into a jar or a bottle.
In many ways, Champlain Orchards represents the best of Vermont today: a respect for history, a commitment to sustainability, and a creativity that looks forward while keeping roots firmly in the soil.
To understand why Vermont apple orchards matter, you have to look beyond the farm stand. Apples are woven into the state’s identity. In the 18th and 19th centuries, nearly every Vermont farm had an orchard. Apples provided fresh fruit, dried fruit for winter, cider for drinking, and vinegar for preserving. They were as essential to survival as firewood or clean water.
Hard cider was the everyday drink of early Vermont. Safer than water, cheap to make, and nutritious, it was consumed at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By some estimates, the average New Englander drank more than 30 gallons of cider a year in the early 1800s. That tradition faded with the temperance movement and Prohibition, but today it’s enjoying a revival — and Vermont is leading the way with some of the best craft cideries in the country.
The heirloom varieties preserved at places like Scott Farm are a crucial part of that story. Many of these apples were bred not for fresh eating, but for cider-making — sharp, tannic, and complex. Reviving them isn’t just about nostalgia; it’s about flavor, about rediscovering the diversity that industrial agriculture nearly erased.
Even the lore of Vermont apples carries weight. Old-timers tell stories of “Johnny Appleseed” — John Chapman — wandering through New England, planting seeds that would grow into sour, hardy cider apples. Others recall apple-bees, community gatherings where neighbors came together to peel, core, and preserve apples by the bushel. The orchards weren’t just food sources; they were social centers, places where work and celebration intertwined.
Apple orchards in Vermont are more than rows of trees — they are bridges between past and present, between necessity and celebration. Standing in Scott Farm, you taste centuries of history. At Shelburne, you join in a seasonal festival that has become part of the state’s cultural rhythm. At Champlain, you glimpse the future, where sustainability and innovation ensure the orchards will outlast us all.
For me, Vermont orchards are a reminder that change can be gentle. The transition from summer’s warmth to autumn’s blaze is marked not on a calendar, but in the taste of that first crisp bite. Sweet, tart, fleeting — just like the season itself.
Whether you’re standing on a hillside overlooking Lake Champlain, wandering an orchard framed by the Green Mountains, or sipping cider pressed from apples with names older than the Republic itself, you’ll find the same truth: the first crunch of a Vermont apple isn’t just the taste of fall. It’s the flavor of endurance, memory, and connection — to the land, to the past, and to the rhythm of New England life.
