A few months ago I learned about a farm in the town of Julian appropriately named Julian Farm and Orchard. A cute 25-acre farm that has u-pick flowers and fruits throughout the year, with a pumpkin patch in the fall and Christmas tree lot in the winter. While learning about this cute farm, I saw that they have apple picking events. My toddler, bear, loves picking, then immediately eating (or throwing) the fruit from the trees in our yard. So apple picking seemed up on her list of favorite things. JFO, offers limited amount of tickets for their apple picking so I saved the date and snagged some tickets as soon as they were available. The girls, Gigi (my mama) and Poppy were in town (yahoo!) so we all pilled into the car to go grab us some apples. Yip!

(Ya’ gal third row’d it baby. Nice break for this mama. Drank my coffee and either stared out the window or the back of the headrest in front of me. Ahh joy!)

JFO, is super cute. Apparently the tickets got us into an apple tour as well as an opportunity to get our paws on their apples. I was surprised that we got a tour along with the apple picking – it’s probably described well on their website but I guess I skipped over that and went straight for all the juice on the apple picking. I missed a good chunk of the tour while I nursed Tiny but learned a few things I can share here. So their tickets are limited because their orchards are limited – yep, makes sense. The window for apple picking on their farm spans 4 weeks. And all their trees are dwarf trees.

My brain went here ^ so I’m taking you all with me! love me some Hobbit!

Our guides were informative, kind and handed out a bunch of sliced apple samples, yum! They showed us the correct way to check if an apple is ready to be picked – grab onto the apple turn your wrist a bit if it comes off, its ready! If not, step away from the apple, it needs some more time.

The dwarf trees made picking a lot easier for everyone, and my toddler got to pick and sample some apples all by herself. Stoked!

Even tiny got in on the action. She carried this little apple around for most of the day 🙂

Their honey crisp apples were just picked out the wknd before we toured (wah! my fav). The apples we picked (I don’t remember the names there were about 12 different kinds) were very tasty and most were tart. Just being on a farm with perfect cool weather, laughing with some of my favorite people was joyful!

JFO, is a super cute farm. It’s full of flowers (their sunflowers are having a moment for sure), a petting zoo, swings for the kids, hammocks (because hammocks are always a yes), berries for picking, tractor rides, a sand box, beer truck and meats cooking on the grill. Highly recommend. We’ll probably be back this fall to check out their pumpkin patch. 

Now what should I make with all these apples? Let me know in the comments below. Cheers 🙂