no pesticides -- apple picking

I want to take the kids apple picking at a farm within a maximum of one and a half hour drive from Evanston. Can anyone recommend a farm where they spray in a manner that tries to minimize exposure to pesticides (or don't spray at all)? I haven't begun researching this on the 'net yet and am hoping that this post will be a shortcut. Thanks!

Swiss Chard,

Type in "apple picking" to the search function - many old posts come up. None are specifically about pesticide free, but you'll get a list started & I'm sure you can call the various orchards. Also you might want to try typing "organic apple picking IL" into Google - I did and this one came up:

http://www.countylineorchard.com/

Let us know where you wound up going!

I've gone to County Line several times over the last few years, and find it to be a pretty nice place. It's pretty "touristy," but it's easy to get to and they have a lot of varieties of apples. In fact, I brought a number of fresh apples from CLO to the first LTH picnic last year.

One year we tried a place in MI (can't recall name) but it was a lot further away and we picked a lousy weekend weather-wise, so didn't have a very good time and decided to stick with what we knew on subsequent trips.

I didn't bring it up because I don't know anything about their pesticide usage.

Messycook,

thanks for the tip on the Indiana orchard. Just last night, I spent a good hour searching the 'net for an Illinois-based apple orchard "matching" my specs . . . with no luck. But this one seems to fit the bill AND will inform my questions for when I call the Illinois orchards.

I don't want to go overboard with my concern w/pesticides. If I was picking, I would thoroughly wash the apples and my hands. But there's no way that the kids will defer gratification!

FYI -- I found a website called www.pickyourown.org, which seems to have a very comprehensive listing of farms (US-wide) where you can pick all kinds of crops, including apples.

I'll definitely report after our outing.

Swiss Chard

I went apple picking today with my husband at sons at Apples on Oak in Joliet. I chose it because their goal as stated on their site is "To produce the highest Quality Apples possible, while using a 'Low Spray' philosophy for pest control".

I also chose it for the lack of anything besides apple picking there. They have nothing for sale but the apples you pick yourself, and there is really nothing to do there except pick apples. We wanted to go somewhere (relatively) nearby and we didn't want to make a whole day of it, just to get some apples and show the kids where apples come from. I figure that at 2 and 3, the boys have plenty of years of apple picking with "Family Fun" ahead of them if we want that, and right now they don't know what they're missing. We were very pleased with the low-key and uncrowded scene.

I was also attracted by the fact that they have more than 100 varieties of apples, the vast majority of which I know nothing about. That said, not all the trees are well marked, so I don't really know what all we got, though I'm sure if we asked we could have found out. As we arrived the owner (I presume) greeted us warmly, and explained that the orchard was a hobby run amok. He gave us a small piece of paper with a list of six varieties that are ripe now with descriptions of each (it seems that the ones on the list were ones that they had larger quantities of, and these were well marked). He told us where the trees were that were low enough for the kids to pick from, encouraged us to taste the apples and to have fun.

I'd highly recommend them if to anyone seeking just apples and no other attractions.

Apples on Oak
16146 Oak Ave.
Joliet, IL 60432
(815) 726-0386

BTW, I found them on http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/index.html, my go-to site for food preservation. I need to remind myself to browse around there more, because there is so much more there--gardening, nutrition, environmental stuff, etc. It's a great resource!