Patterson Fruit Farm
Every October, northeast Ohio empties itself into apple country, and on the first Sunday of the month we found out exactly where everybody goes. Patterson Fruit Farm sits in Chesterland, about half an hour east of Cleveland, where seven generations of the Patterson family have worked the same stretch of Geauga County. The farm market is pretty, the bakery smells wonderful, and on a sunny fall weekend the whole place runs at a density I had previously associated with airports.
Start With the Orchard
The best few minutes of the visit came before we reached a single cash register. Apple trees stand in tidy rows right on the property, and in early October they were still heavy with red and yellow fruit. It was quiet back there, golden light and dropped apples in the grass, and nobody was elbowing anybody. If you want the postcard version of the farm, this is it. Patterson also runs pick your own apples in the fall at their second property on Mulberry Road.
The Fall Market
Out front, the market spills into the parking lot under white tents, with hay bales, wagonloads of gourds, and vendors selling kettle corn, funnel cakes, and fresh squeezed lemonade. It is cheerful and it smells like fried sugar. It is also shoulder to shoulder by mid afternoon, and the garden wagons the farm loans out double as ankle hazards once the crowd thickens.
Inside the Market
The market building is open year round, and inside it is part produce stand, part bakery, part gift shop. There are shelves of jams and jellies, Patterson’s own maple syrup in every size of jug, popcorn in flavors that possibly should not exist (dill pickle, anyone?), and a galvanized tub of sweet corn roughly the size of a hot tub. The bakery runs a roped queue like a bank lobby, and the pie line stayed long the entire time we were there. Pies run about $19 to $30 depending on the flavor, which is either reasonable or alarming depending on how much you like pie.
We did what everyone does and got drinks: fresh apple cider for one of us and a caramel apple slushie with whipped cream for the other. The cider tasted like October. The slushie was mostly a delivery system for caramel, and I mean that as a compliment.
Pumpkins by the Acre
Behind the tents, pumpkins stretch out in long rows on pallet walkways, hundreds of them, sorted and priced and waiting for a family to argue over the roundest one. An antique flatbed truck sits in the middle of it all, dressed up with mums and corn stalks, and a forklift kept ferrying in reinforcements the whole time we walked the rows. Pie pumpkins go by the pound. The big ones go by the armload.
Know Before You Go
The farm market at 11414 Caves Road is open daily year round and costs nothing to walk through. The Family Fun Fest, with the slides, corn maze, straw pile, and wagon rides, is at the family’s second property at 8765 Mulberry Road and charges $8 to $12 per person in season. Dogs are not allowed at the Fun Fest or in the picking orchards, so leave the pup at home.
If you live nearby, a weekday morning here is probably a lovely errand: cider, a pie, a bag of apples, home by lunch. We came on a sunny October Sunday, and what we mostly experienced was other people’s elbows. The orchard is beautiful and the cider is worth the stop. Just know that in peak pumpkin season, half of Cleveland has the same idea, and they all brought their strollers.
