Honey Hill Orchard

It’s always a pain to get out to Honey Hill Orchard from Chicago, and an even bigger pain to get back afterwards, thanks to the perverse peculiarities of traffic. But we’ve run that traffic gauntlet twice now, and we’ll do so again next October, for three reasons:
1. The apple cider donuts.
2. The rural beauty of the trip.
3. THE HONEY.
Looking through the other reviews here, I’m amazed that nobody specifically mentions the divine ambrosia that is their honey! It’s raw. It’s golden. It’s delicious. Before I tried it, I’d spent my entire life thinking I didn’t like honey. After I tried it, I spent a year searching for honey that could match it. I never did find any — hence our now-​yearly pilgrimage, every October, to resupply our honey stores.
This time, we also picked raspberries, and it was tremendously good fun (and very reasonably priced, I thought). Never did pick apples, so I can’t comment on that.

We’ve been coming to Honey Hill for about 12 years now. Admission is free and they are very friendly — it’s like you are really part of a family run operation because it is! Sure, the apples are a bit pricey, but you aren’t paying anything to walk in the door or hang out with the awesome farm animals!
Doughnuts are killer! Love the smell of the «Feeding Trough» and barn — the aroma of fresh cider and apple pie. Truly one of THE smells of autumn. Cider is excellent, but yes, it’s pricey. Going out on the straw wagon to get pumpkins is priceless. Can’t compare big box apples at $ 0.57 a pound to apples from a small, family run operation that are fresh off a tree either folks!

I think I’ve been to Honey Hill Orchard five times already. I absolutely love this place. I’m a born-​and-​bred suburbs girl but being here makes me feel like I could kick off the shoes of corporate oppression and don some mud boots, sling some chow at the goats, and call it a day.
Honey Hill is home to dozens of apple trees (in any variety you can think of), squash, pumpkins, raspberries, peaches, and decorative gourds. You can peruse the fields and pick your own everything, then bring it back, have it weighed, and pay cash for some delicious, locally-​grown organic produce. We picked up two giant butternut squashes. I would have gotten more but I was there for the honeycrisp apples.
These are located in the barn. I’m sad every single year they aren’t available for U-​Pick. There’s something about their honeycrisp apples that stand heads and shoulders above any other honeycrisp I’ve tried. Also inside the barn are half gallon and gallon sizes of fresh apple cider, honey from their own beehives, CARAMEL APPLES (yes, they warrant all caps, they just kick that much ass). My only gripe is that the prices can get out of hand. I paid $ 15 for a half peck of HCA, but there were about 15 apples the size of a newborn’s head in there so I guess I got my money’s worth.
They also have an awesome petting zoo with some adorable farm animals with stellar personalities (seriously, the goats are a riot). They have a few farm dogs too but they’re usually just hanging out on the hayrides or generally being loafs. I envy their lives, to be honest.
It’s free to get in, so hurry up and go!

We really enjoyed the apple picking and the whole experience. The apple doughnuts are absolutely fantastic (five starts for the doughnuts). Just a couple of things could be done to improve the experience. The lines could be more efficient through the cash register process at the various points of purchase. The water is absolutely horrible and they don’t have bottled water. The lemonade taste like its made from powder and the horrible water. I spit it out after my daughter was complaining about the smell of it. Come on! Test your product.
Outside of that, the cider is great as well! So, there’s other orchards to choose from next time.

2015 was already my third year coming back to pick apples here and I still feel like I’ll be back next year. It is quite a travel from Chicago but what did you expect for real apple picking. There’s not much I can really say that other reviewers haven’t already said so I’ll just bullet point my thoughts.
–No admission fee, (I’m sold already)
–Bakery for apple donuts, (2 dozen please!)
–Shop for other goodies (authentic apple cider… MMmmmm)
–Play place for kids made out of hay (Unfortunately I’m too old for this now… or am I…)
–Farm animals to pet and feed (Love that donkey, what a silly guy)
–Tractor brings you out to the apple trees (though it’s close enough to walk still)
–Can pick a pumpkin if need be
–Can pick raspberries too (Though I’ve never done that)
They have a variety of apple trees. Usually you can pick any of the apples, but sometimes they prefer for specific apples to grow a little more, but that only happened to me last year (darn jonagolds). To be honest though, I can’t really taste the difference between the apples, so whatever I get is fine since they all taste delicious. It was like $ 15 for half a bag of apples (which is probably like 15 or so apples). A little pricey, yes, but it’s more so for the experience and the home grown feel. See you again next year

This is a simple no-​frills orchard where you can get apples, doughnuts and see a few animals. Exactly what we wanted. We went on an absolutely beautiful Tuesday afternoon. There was maybe 20 other people here, but you would never have known. We bought a full peck, were told where they were and off we went. NO lines, NO rude staff, NO one hounding us… we picked for probably 20 minutes or more and didn’t see another person picking. Perfect for photos. Very relaxing.
We wandered down and went through the maze, looked at the donkey, goats, chickens, turkeys, pigs and bunnies. Bought some doughnuts. I was worried they would run out so I bought them first and ran them back to the car, but they had a steady stream of fresh-​baked being restocked in the store.
A nice selection of pre-​picked apples, a great bee display, some gourds and indian corn to buy as well as honey and lots of Amish preserves.
Such a delightful simple location! The only charge was for the bag we used to pick, not per person. I think it was 13 for ½ peck and 26 for full peck. Doughnuts were 9 for 12 and were excellent. The staff was friendly as were the resident dogs we saw wandering. They did have a tractor and «hay ride», not running when we were there, which was fine. Perhaps they do that on weekends or when trees being picked are further out, I’m not sure.
We will definitely make this drive again next year to have a pleasant low-​key, no-​frills experience again. I hope they don’t change like some have.
Oh… one more thing, there were plenty of apples quite close to the ground making it very easy for my 2.5 year old to find and pick them on his own. He loved that! I posted a photo of one «healthy» branch, but there were plenty more not quite that abundant, but still low.