We decided to head to South Carolina for the weekend in search of apples and pumpkins. We ended up in York, SC, at Windy Hill Orchards. This is the same area where I had gone peach picking a couple of months ago.
We were really excited to spend a day with the family. I love this time of the year, and this was the perfect thing to do on the day before Fall season began.
As we enter the first thing I noticed was this scarecrow..it looked a little drunk. You can make your own scarecrow and take it with you for $10.00.
They also had these beautiful creatures. I love pigs..everyone that knows me, knows that I had always wanted a pig as a pet. I was ready to bring one home..but my hubby was not going for it. Running around were the chickens and roosters too. They were so cute.
My dad used to own a farm in Puerto Rico when I was a little girl. We had a couple of cows..chickens, birds, but pigs we didn't have.
The place was packed with people enjoying the music and eating, just hanging out with their children. The lines were long..and in order to go apple picking you had to buy the bags first. We decided to buy some doughnuts and a couple of pumpkins too. These donuts were so delicious.
The doughnuts tasted similar to an Old Fashioned doughnut, but softer in texture. I bought some plain ones and some with cinnamon sugar. The cinnamon sugar just made them even better. This is a recipe that I will be making soon. I'm hooked on them.
These are fermented fruit drinks..I guess you can get a little wasted with these too.
It's really cool to see how they grow these pumpkins. The plants hang down from the planters and the vines just spread all over the ground.
Every year after Halloween when the pumpkins are starting to rot, I throw them on the side of the house. And for the last two years the vines grew all over the place. I saw the flowers growing, but the pumpkins never formed.
There were pumpkins all around the farm..but these were smaller than what I was looking for, so I only purchased a couple.
Then, out to the orchard we went. It was a rainy day, but we were having fun..so we really didn't care. On this day we were able to pick Stayman Winesap apples. These apples are great for baking and perfect for making cider.
The orchard was pretty big We started walking around the orchard looking for the biggest apples we can find. The lady at the register had told us to fill the bags until you couldn't fit anymore. So we made sure to stuff the bags pretty good.
These are the kinds of apples I love to make pies with. They are sweet, but tart at the same time. We filled up a total of four bags in no time.
The trees were full of apples, but many of them were already turning bad. I'm sure those are the ones they collect to make the apple cider.
As we were walking around, we came across these apples..but I'm not sure what they are. Very similar in taste to the Stayman Winesap, but these were green.
We had a fantastic day at the farm. This is something that I would love to do every year. There is nothing better than going to a farm and picking apples to make some delicious pies.
As we were driving around Spartanburg, SC, we came across this guy selling pumpkins. He had so many varieties of pumpkin, I was amazed. He told me about all of them and that's how I got their names.
These pumpkins are called Cotton Candy, and they stand out from the rest of the varieties in the class. I had never seen this pumpkin before. The fruit is very white with a true pumpkin shape. These pumpkins should be picked when white and put out of the sun to maintain their color. This type of pumpkin is great for painting.
This pumpkin is called Fairytale, this one like the Cinderella is also from France. It is dark green in color when immature and as it cures it turns a gorgeous deep mahogany color. This pumpkin is also great for pies and soup.
This pumpkin here is my favorite..this one is called the Knucklehead. This one is a little freaky, but really cool at the same time. As they develop their rind, it blisters up into this bumpy, warty thing. The fruit ripen from forest green to a solid deep orange color. The Knucklehead is perfect for carving..but, is ugly enough that you really don't need to carve it to scare someone.
This one here is called Gladiator. This one has a deep orange color and it shows moderate ribbing. This kind of pumpkin is also great for carving.
These were a mix of little pumpkins..I love these to decorate my table at home.
This trip was awesome, we laughed, we ate and picked apples, bought pumpkins and Apple cider doughnuts. And, got a lesson on the different kinds of pumpkins too.
Here are my fall decorations..these were all of the pumpkins I purchased in SC. My baby boy Cayman doesn't like to be photograph, that's why he is looking away.. That's my baby.
Can't wait to do this all over again next year!!!
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