Apple Picking Near Me in Covelo
Gowan's Oak Tree
6600 Highway 128, Philo, CA
Roadside stand featuring homegrown and local produce in the Anderson Valley, along Highway 128 , 2 1/2 miles west of Philo, and 8 miles from Boonville. Mendocino and Fort Bragg are just 30-45 minutes away.
Family owned property since the early 1900's. The fruit stand first opened in the 1930's when Grandma Gowan would sit under the oak tree and sell apples. The original building, still standing and added on to, was built in 1950.
Now featuring 65 varieties of apples, plus pears, peaches, plums, berries, and a 25 acre vegetable garden.
Many customers make it a family tradition to visit Gowan's. Some stay at the nearby park, Hendy's Woods State Park. Others stop when passing through on their way to the coast. They especially enjoy the cold apple cider and dried apples that are available year-round.
The Apple Farm
18501 Greenwood Road, Philo, CA
Our Vision:
It was the cold wet winter of 1984 when we first began to tame the wild and neglected property that we call simply “The Apple Farm.” There were apple trees, but it wasn't much of a farm. Over a quarter century, we have come a long way. To our delight we now have three generations working together in ever greater harmony with the land.
Our years of working the farm led us from conventional practices, through transition, and on to many years of being certified organic. We want to continue to evolve and have chosen biodynamic farming as a framework in which we can further develop our relationship with our farm. It is an endlessly fascinating endeavor and we are all energized by the new and old ideas that we unearth.
Our trips to Slow Foods’ Terra Madre event in Italy, and our experiences at the Eco Farm Conference in Pacific Grove have made us realize again how important our role is in the movement towards finding sustainable ways to feed and nurture ourselves in our changing world.
We are proud of our buildings, which fit into the environment and provide us with delightful spaces to work, as well as our gardens, which grow more productive and more beautiful every year. The younger generation cares for our animals from which we glean milk, cheese and meats and welcome additions to our compost.
Serendipity U-Pick Ranch
6315 Parkridge Drive, Anderson, CA
Clendenen's Cider Works
96 South 12th Street, Fortuna, CA
Clendenen Cider Works has been in continuous operation since 1909 when Ernest Clifton and May Long Clendenen purchased a producing apple orchard in Fortuna, CA. With apple varieties like Minkler, Smith’s Cider and Stark, they shipped and sold boxed apples, but soon started making cider – pure, unpasteurized, and 100% natural. (Check the history page for the family story of Clendenen Cider Works.)
Today, E. C. and May’s grandson Clif Clendenen and his son Drew are making that same cider using apples from those same trees and 25 other varieties planted since then. Apples from other orchards, both locally and from Sonoma County are blended as well.
Open from mid August through January, Clendenen Cider Works has expanded to include farm fresh fruits and vegetables, honey, and other seasonal produce.
Olympia Vineyards
314 Reisling Ln, Healdsburg, CA
Mitchell Grove
4555 Mitchell Rd, Eureka, CA
Schmidt Road Ranch
5990 Guerneville Road, Sebastopol, CA
Earth Seed Farm
3175 Sullivan Road, Sebastopol, CA
EARTHseed Farm is a 14-acre solar-powered organic farm and orchard located in scenic Sonoma County, California. The farm is operated and rooted in Afro Indigenous permaculture principles and built on the long legacy of earth wisdom traditions of people of African descent. Permaculture is a relationship-based ecological design system embedded in indigenous wisdom that elevates ecosystem health while meeting human needs.
Our farm is governed by a group of like-minded practitioners, where a variety of apples, pears, persimmons, plums, pluots, guavas, and mixed berries are grown. The farm is a working & learning environment offering land stewards and volunteers opportunities to learn how to honor wild tended areas, practical instruction in regenerative agricultural techniques, and modeling resilience practices.
Walker Apples
10955 Upp Road, Sebastopol, CA
Walker Apples is a family run apple farm on the outskirts of Graton. The owner, Lee Walker, has been living on and running the ranch since 1952.
Dutton Ranch
10717 Graton Road, Sebastopol, CA
The Dutton family's farming heritage goes back to the 19th century. In 1881 Warren Dutton purchased the family's first 200 acres in Santa Rosa. Joined by his brother Reed, the Dutton’s planted their property to the best varieties of French prunes, a hot commodity at the time.
For many years the family business prospered on prunes, with forays into pears and hops. Warren Dutton Jr., great-grandson of Reed Dutton, grew up picking prunes and hops on the farm. In 1964, young Warren and his new wife Gail bought their first 35 acres west of the town of Graton. Their original family home is now the current Dutton Ranch offices.
In the early days, most people knew the Duttons for their fruit stand in Santa Rosa, on Sebastopol Road just west of Stony Point Road. Unable to sell their fruit through normal distribution channels, Gail and young sons Joe and Steve peddled pears, prunes, apples, dried fruit and gift packs to passing motorists. They created a large mailing list, a novelty at the time, to keep their customers up to date on new developments. At the same time, Warren had the foresight to plant wine grapes, just prior to the downturn in the apple industry.
Apple-A-Day Ratzlaff Ranch
13128 Occidental Road, Sebastopol, CA
Hale's Apple Farm
1526 Gravenstein Hwy North, Sebastopol, CA
Gudino Farms
8255 Kennedy Road, Sebastopol, CA
Max's Miracle Ranch
3476 Smith Avenue, Biggs, CA
About
Max's Miracles/The Max Williams Foundation is a non-profit organization (NPO), publicly funded through fundraisers and other themed activities, such as our summer Luau, the Harvest Festival and Pumpkin Patch in the Fall, and our Christmas Light Extravaganza in December.
Max's Miracles/The Max Williams Foundation has been formed to provide hope and direction to families with special children dealing with heart defects, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Our goal is to provide assistance to these families in times of need.
Chileno Valley Ranch
5105 Chileno Valley Road, Petaluma, CA
THE GARDENS
The flower garden around the house was put in in 1997 and consists of perennials and a few annuals. There are about 200 rose bushes planted around the ranch, most of which were rescued from a burn pile.
Besides the flower and vegetable gardens, Mike has planted 400 apples trees. They are new varieties and are certified organic. Some of the varieties are Arkansas Black, Enterprise, Zesta, Candy Crisp, Jonagold, Wolf River, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady, Orin, Pinova, and Senshu. The apples are available on u-pick days in late August, September, and sometimes, October.
There are over 1,000 pickets in the picket fence, all shaped from redwood boards salvaged from the old part of the house that Sally and Mike took down to create a space for the kitchen, bathrooms, family room and the master suite above. The picket fence is painted Navaho White, to match the trim on the house. It is a beautiful fence and took a good amount of time to build. It circles the front of the house like the lace on a green collar. After it was installed and all the pickets were painted one by one, a concrete curb was installed with a aggregate finish, to match the long, wide walkway to the main entrance.
THE RANCH
The ranch is 600 acres of pasture, hills and woodlands. Several streams course through the property, each with its own needs and character. Several of the creeks have been replanted in native trees and restored, mainly by fencing out the cows. Beef cattle graze on the hills and in the pastures around the house. They are of special interest to guests, a fact which amazes Sally, but which Mike finds quite natural, since he finds them quite fascinating himself.
Deer, bobcats, and other critters abound. In the spring, many kinds of wildflowers dot the hillsides.
THE OUT BUILDINGS
There are several other buildings on the ranch in addition to the house. This was a functioning dairy up until the mid 1950s. The buildings all have new uses, but are of interest to historians, as they are all in their original form. Each milking stall in the 120 feet by 60 feet milking barn still has a fancy cursive number painted above it, in a style reminiscent of the last century.
The horse barn has old wooden stalls, chewed down over the years by tethered horses. The calf barn is cleared out but stands ready for calves to stick their heads through the feeding stalls for some fragrant hay. And the old small barn hides an old horse drawn buggy on it’s upper loft.
Present and future uses for these wonderful old first growth redwood barns include a wood shop, a wood shed, a chicken house, a hay barn, and perhaps some day, a summer theater!
The grounds are available for a limited number of weddings in the spring and early summer.
CREEK RESTORATION
In 1996, Mike and Sally began restoring the part of Chileno Creek which runs through their ranch. Fences were put up to exclude the cows, two hundred native trees and numerous willow sprigs were planted, a drip system was installed to get the trees through their first three years, and alternative watering troughs were installed for the cows.
The results have been spectacular. Today, the creek is fully clothed in lush vegetation and birds and fish have found a welcoming home. Studies by the Point Reyes Bird Observatory show a dramatic growth in nesting neotropical songbirds. Steelhead have been seen swimming up the creek.
The story does not end with this project. Other gullies and tributaries on the Gale Ranch have been similarly fenced and planted. Neighboring ranchers have gotten interested in doing the same thing, and now over six miles of stream have been fenced and planted. The Marin Resource Conservation District has helped everyone plan and fund their projects.
Noble Orchards
7050 Pentz Road, Paradise, CA
Locally owned orchard and fruit stand that sells what we grow and other local products.
Arroyo Community Garden
901 Ely Boulevard South, Petaluma, CA
Mission:
The Arroyo Community Garden (ACG) was created in 2009. The ACG mission is to build community through gardening and education. ACG has created a space for people to come together to grow organic fruits and vegetables, learn to eat healthily and to share the bounty with others. ACG has land, water, design and a strong contingent of eager gardeners. ACG is unique in that it has its own apiary and apple orchard.
Troxell's Big Red Orchard
19269 Montgomery Valley Drive, Montgomery Creek, CA
Clerici Ranch
2224 Oak Knoll Ave, Napa, CA
Little Folks Produce
15109 Old Highway 99, Grenada, CA