North Salem, NY
SYNOPSIS: Harvest Moon is a great place to go for the ‘country-farm’ experience, especially during their Fall Festival. A day of apple picking, pumpkin patches, music, hayrides, farm animals, and various foods (especially the fresh donuts and cider) will have you thinking its time to leave the big city and move out to the country for some wholesome livin’.
APPROXMIATE TIME: One to three hours.
DIFFICULTLY: Easy. Expect a good amout of walking if you are picking apples, and those bags of apples get pretty heavy once they’re full.
DIRECTIONS: From Route 684, either direction, take exit 8. Make a right at the end of the ramp and go 1/2 mile. Harvest Moon will be on the left.
THE VISIT: The owners of Harvest Moon have done a great job of utilizing the space they have. An area that was storage just a few years ago now boasts a stage, picnic tables, and various food vendors. Off in the distance you can see the apple pickers heading up and down the hill. A tractor passes by with a load full of people. Kids excited about pumkins, farm animals and jumpy houses run and yell. The delicious smells from the food vendors fill the air. If you are lucky enough to go when the crowd isn’t too bad – and it can get pretty crowed because this is a popular activity – it is a lot of fun.
HISTORY: Harvest Moon’s is at the old Outhouse Orchards location (which is now actually across the street and up the hill). Rob and Ursula Covino bought the orchard and farm around 2007, and they and their family run it. Before that, the business was run for three generations by the family that owned it previously.
MAP & ADDITIONAL INFO: For more info visit www.harvestmoonfarmandorchard.com or call them at 914/485-1210. They are located at 130 Hardscrabble Rd in North Salem, NY.
The Covino’s vision is to offer local, farm-fresh products to the community. They offer their own free-range chicken eggs and beef from their free-ranging grass fed cows, local dairy products and local pork and chicken. In the summer of 2012 they ran their first CSA filled with mostly veggies from the farm. The store carries their own as well as local produce from June-November.
Sources:
–www.harvestmoonfarmandorchard.com. Accessed 09.24.12
-Personal visit 09.23.12.
-Email conversation with business 09.25.12.