Good news, everyone: We live in the future now and you don’t need to borrow someone’s kids to go to an apple-pickin’ harvest festival. You can just go. Well, you could go before, too, but looks like the farms have decided that our old-ass money folds just the same, and so more and more of them are adding adult-like activities to their punkin parties. This includes but is not limited to wine tastings, ziplines, events that don’t end at 4 pm, and evidently, gourd tunnels? Uh, maybe those were actually meant for kids, but they’re ours now. Go forth, take up space in the gourd tunnels of Washington State, and live your best adult life within them.
Check out our fall guide for more farm activities and seasonal events.
Carpinito Bros.
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in Kent
Carpinito Bros. is the O.G Kent Valley farm stand, although these days, it’s equal parts produce market and nursery/garden center. For more than 50 years, this place has been selling all categories of garden-y stuff: fresh fruit and veg, plant starts, landscaping materials, Christmas trees, and more. And now through Halloween, just a couple miles south of the farm stand, you can tour their corn maze and pick a pumpkin from their patch, after grabbing some cedar bark for the yard and some broccolini for tomorrow night’s dinner. And just around the corn-er from the corn maze, the Farm Fun Yard has pigs and cows, whom you can personally meet, as well as something called a goat walk. That’s where you’ll find us, man.
($4-$11 depending on age and attraction)
Bob’s Corn and Pumpkin Farm
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in Snohomish
It’s all right there in the name: Bob has corn to sell you, and also pumpkins. Well. And a few more things. There’s also a 12-acre corn maze,” a gem-mining sluice, hayrides, a trike track, an apple cannon, an entire building devoted to fudge and another to fresh doughnuts and squishies (aka cider slushies), and if you make it through the ma(i)ze, you can have a bonfire at the rental fire pits on the other side! The punkles are U-pick, and the country (corn-try) store sells sweet corn and squash, both roasted and non, as well as apple butter, housemade pickles, myriad types of fruit preserves, honey, apple cider, gourmet cheese, and all other manner of incredible-sounding treats. Per BCaPF’s site, “Our roasted squash is something to write home about! Both our spaghetti and acorn squash taste like they were just picked and thrown on the roaster. Guess what? They were!” Can you imagine a more beautiful thing?
($17.95 - $22.95 depending on pass level and day of the week)
Stocker Farms
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in Snoqualmie
($15.95–$26.95 admission, individual activities priced separately)
Craven Farm
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in Snohomish
Craven Farm is noteworthy for a few reasons, firstly for having a lot of different kinds of food—chili in bread bowls, funnel cakes, fried cheese curds, and homemade fresh cider doughnuts, to name a few! But if that weren’t enough, they also have one of those apple slingshot things that catapults apples that you get to aim at targets in the field. And they also have fire pits that you can rent by the hour if you wanna cook your own stuff or just have a little fiery soirée. We admit we were kinda hoping that it was a Wes Craven-themed farm, since that’d be perfect for the Halloween season, but…this is all pretty cool, too.
(Free entrance)
Schilter Family Farm
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in Olympia
Not only does Schilter have a corn maze, but it’s also a five-acre corn maze! That’s a really big corn maze, you guys. The biggest in Thurston County, to be exact. They also offer a pumpkin patch (natch), wagon rides, PONY rides, a hay pyramid, an additional smaller corn maze, zip swings, , paintball!, and some unspecified baby animals who you can meet. Hope they’re not spiders. There’s also rentable fire pits, lots of good old-fashioned fair food (including donuts!), and a beer barn. But anyway, the big-ass corn maze seems to be their main attraction here—this thing’s the size of Freeway Park. Think of all the sheer getting-lost you could do. Maybe stop by the beer barn first if you need help with this.
($12-$18 depending on day of the week)
Rockridge Orchards, Cidery, and Country Market Like List in Enumclaw
(Free entrance)
Piper’s Orchard Like List at Carkeek Park in North Seattle
(Free entrance, opening Oct 7)
