Plum Brook Farm

We grow apples, pears (mostly Asian pears), peaches, raspberries, blueberries, and grapes on about 5 of our 63 acres. We sell products made with our fruit, including apple cider, apple-pear cider, apple butter, apple sauce, and raspberry jam. In addition to fruit, we often grow pumpkins, garlic and tomatoes, and occasionally other products. We use the tagline “good fruit” because it conveys very simply our desire to produce fruit that is good for you, good for the land, and helps sustain and strengthen our community.

We sell through our farmstand at 416 Bay Road in Amherst, open every day during our season (generally early July – mid-November), and do PYO on weekends when the crop is good. The farmstand is self-service using the honor system. We do accept all major credit cards and digital wallets using a Square terminal, Venmo, SNAP-EBT (not HIP), or cash in a cash box (no change available).

We lease another 13 acres to our friends at Brookfield Farm and sometimes sell to their members through bulk pre-sales. We also sell Hives to Home honey produced from hives on our land and other nearby farms.

All of our products are grown with inputs and methods that could qualify us for organic certification, but we have not yet taken the step of getting certified. Organic tree fruit is rare in New England, and it is hard to grow, but we think it’s worth the effort. People sometimes ask if we are “no-spray,” and the answer is that we spray our trees regularly because the organic options for managing insect pests and diseases are less effective for shorter durations than the alternatives. If we did not use any products on our trees, it is likely that our fruit would only be suitable for processing in most years. We spray some old-school materials like elemental sulfur and some cool new biologicals like “codling moth granulosis virus,” which is a natural virus that targets the larvae of just a few species and therefore has no harmful effects on pollinators and other beneficials. We also use mating disruption pheromones to prevent specific moths from finding each other for mating purposes, and we rely on lures and traps to monitor pest populations and models that predict pest and disease development, so that we can spray only when needed and at the right time. Our raspberries are in high tunnels where they keep dry and have few disease problems, and so far we have not needed to spray them with anything.

The farmstand generally opens by 8:30am and closes around dusk.

In some years, we have PYO peaches, apples, and Asian pears, but in other years the crop does not support doing PYO. Please check our website and/or social media posts to see what’s available and when PYO is open. PYO parking is available from the farm entrance at approximately 495 Middle Street, about 100 yards north from the Bay Road intersection, not at the farmstand location on Bay Road. See you at the orchard!

Pumpkins (pie and carving) for Halloween, plus our apple butter, raspberry jam, and Hives to Home honey are great gifts in any season!