Apple Picking at Alstede Farms

Jonathan and I had the most amazing fall weekend going apple picking at Alstede Farms in Chester, NJ! We were serious homebodies last weekend, but since the weather was so beautiful, we had to get out of the house. I just had a bite of the apple pie we made from some of the apples as I write this up, and it. is. heavenly! Keep reading to see more of our weekend adventure.

I’d been apple picking once in college, but Jonathan had never been, so we thought it would be a cute newlywed activity. After looking up a couple different farms in NJ and NY, I decided we should check out Alstede Farms. Funny enough, I lived just 15 minutes away from Alstede Farms for my entire middle and high school life and didn’t even realize it! My Nigerian parents did NOT have apple picking on their radar at all back in those days lol.

To help get us to the farm, Toyota hooked us up with a 2017 Silver Sky Metallic Rav4. The interior of the car was a gorgeous cinnamon brown shade that gave me ALL the fall feels. We opened the sunroof and jammed to SiriusXM (am I the only one who gets extra excited when cars have satellite radio?!) for the hour long drive. By the time we arrived at Alstede Farms around 3pm, it was PACKED. Thankfully, the farm is incredibly organized and had plenty of staff directing cars so parking was a smooth process.

Since it was already late in the season and it seemed like everybody and their 4 kids (I love kids! But there were MANY) had already gone picking, I was worried that there wouldn’t be any apples left for us. Thankfully I was wrong! There were SO many apples to choose from! Alstede Farms conveniently had the name of each apple variety at the start of the row, so we got to try a couple that we’d never seen before.

Wearing: Nine West hat (similar), Topshop button down, Mott and Bow jeans, Aquatalia boots, and straw bag (similar)

The first interesting variety we came across were Jonagold. Considering hubby’s name, we HAD to check these out! You’re technically not supposed to eat the apples, but we sampled the smallest ones we could find just to make sure we liked the taste. We ended up picking Jonagold, Cameo, Crimson Topaz, and Crimson Crisp. Our undergrad color was crimson so that’s what influenced those picks lol. No real deep thought. Just interesting names and yummy bites.

Once we’d gathered enough apples, I dragged Jonathan and our box of apples over to the pumpkin patch. We don’t celebrate Halloween and don’t like pumpkin pie, but I wanted a few pumpkins purely for decoration. The scenery was cute so he snapped a few pics of me in the pumpkin patch. If you’ve already liked my pic on the gram, thank you for gassing me! By the way, I recently got a new lens for my camera and it’s small size makes it super portable! I like it better than the highly acclaimed nifty fifty, and it’s only a few bucks more! In case you were wondering why the heck we took so many pics on a farm.

In addition to PYO (pick your own) apples and pumpkins, Alstede Farms also has other fruits and vegetables, hayrides, a corn maze, a petting barn, a wine tasting area, a farm store, and an ice cream shop! Before we left, we grabbed a box of apple cider donuts to hold us over for the drive back. So. darn. good!

If you haven’t yet been apple or pumpkin picking, I highly suggest planning a trip for this coming weekend! It’s a really great activity for families, couples, or even friend groups. If this fresh baked, farm to table apple pie doesn’t convince you, then I don’t know what will! Hope you have an amazing week!

Special thanks to Toyota for providing the wheels for this trip! #LetsGoPlaces