An eleven-week daily season makes this the most schedule-flexible fall stop in the Chippewa Valley, and the pumpkin patch, store, bakery and singing tractor are free — but the Apple Blossom Park activities are ticketed online at prices the orchard does not publish anywhere.
There is no admission charge for the Country Store, bakery, pumpkin patch or Johnny the Singing Tractor. Paid admission is required for the activities inside Apple Blossom Park, and tickets are sold online; the park's ticket prices are not published on the orchard's own website.
Free to walk in. Your spend here is whatever you choose — pumpkins, food, and any paid activities. That makes it a low-risk stop if you are not sure how long the kids will last.
The most valuable thing about Ferguson’s is the calendar. August 15 to November 1, open every day. That is roughly eleven weeks and around eighty operating days, against the four-weekend, eight-day seasons that several other Wisconsin farms run. It removes almost every scheduling problem a fall outing normally carries. Rained off on Saturday? Go Sunday, or Tuesday, or the following Thursday. Nobody is negotiating over the one weekend that works.
That flexibility is worth more than it sounds, and it is the single strongest argument for choosing this orchard over a farm with a bigger attraction list and a narrower window.
Ferguson’s is explicit about what costs nothing: the Country Store, the bakery, the pumpkin patch and Johnny the Singing Tractor. You can drive out, walk into the patch, choose pumpkins, buy donuts and cider, and leave without an admission ticket. For a family that mainly wants a pumpkin and a photograph, that is a free afternoon plus the cost of what you carry out.
The other half is Apple Blossom Park — the cow train, duck races, gem mining, the hay pyramid — and that needs a ticket bought online. The orchard does not publish the price on its own site.
That gap is the real weakness of the listing. It is the number a family most wants before deciding whether to come, and the only way to get it is to open the booking flow and look. Do that from home rather than in the car park, because the decision it drives is whether this is a free apple-and-pumpkin errand or a ticketed day out, and those are different plans with different lengths.
There is a second, smaller ambiguity worth flagging: the corn maze is listed among the orchard’s attractions but is not named in either the free list or the Apple Blossom Park list. We cannot tell you which side of the paywall it sits on. If the maze is the reason you are driving, ask.
The address is 6470 Balsam Road. The entrance is on County Highway II. That mismatch is the single most practical thing on this page. A GPS pin dropped on the street address will route you to a point that is not the way in, and on a busy October Saturday, reversing out of a wrong turn on a rural road with a car full of children is a bad start. Look for the highway entrance and the signage rather than trusting the pin.
An eleven-week window is not eleven weeks of the same visit. Mid-August through early September is an apple and store trip — pumpkins are not the draw yet, and the point of coming is the u-pick and the bakery. Late September into October is the full experience: apples still going, pumpkins in the patch, the maze standing. Late October is peak crowd and peak colour together, and the last few days before the November 1 close carry a real frost risk. Wisconsin corn mazes come down when the weather turns, and although the patch often outlasts the maze, nothing on the orchard’s site promises the maze will still be walkable on the final weekend.
Note too what a 6:00pm close means at each end of that range. In mid-August, 6:00pm is a long way from dusk and you have a full evening. On November 1, it is dark or nearly so. The same posted hour is a completely different visit depending on when you go.
Weekend opening is 9:30am, half an hour earlier than weekdays. That is a deliberate concession to weekend demand and it is worth using — the first half hour of a Saturday at any Wisconsin orchard in October is the calmest it will be until late afternoon.
The orchard advertises itself as a repeat winner of a local family-magazine award for the region’s best fall activity. Treat that as a signal about local popularity rather than a quality guarantee: what it reliably tells you is that Chippewa Valley families come here in numbers, which is a crowd forecast more than a review.
Finally, the phone number. The orchard’s own contact page lists none. The number on this listing comes from a regional directory, not from Ferguson’s, so if it does not connect, the website is the more reliable channel.
The 2026 season runs August 15 to November 1 and the orchard is open daily — weekdays 10:00am to 6:00pm, weekends 9:30am to 6:00pm. That half-hour earlier weekend opening is the only time advantage the busiest days have, so use it. The genuine sweet spot is a weekday in the first three weeks of October: apples and pumpkins are both in, the corn maze is standing, and you are not sharing the place with the whole of Eau Claire. August and early September visits are apple-and-store trips rather than pumpkin ones. The season ends November 1, the day after Halloween.
Ninety minutes if you are picking apples and buying from the bakery. Three hours or more if you have bought Apple Blossom Park tickets, since the cow train, duck races, gem mining and hay pyramid are the kind of attractions children repeat rather than complete.
Eleven weeks of daily opening is the best crowd insurance on this list. Where a four-weekend farm forces everyone into eight days, Ferguson's spreads the same demand across roughly eighty. October Saturdays will still be busy, particularly around the bakery and the store, but you have a real alternative that most Wisconsin farms cannot offer: go on a Wednesday. The cider-and-donut queue at a Wisconsin orchard in October is frequently longer than any ride queue, and that is the line to plan around.
Not published. The important navigation detail is not the lot but the entrance: it is on County Highway II rather than on Balsam Road itself, which catches out first-time visitors who follow a GPS pin to the street address. Set your route to the highway entrance and watch for signage.
Not published. A gem-mining sluice, a hay pyramid and orchard rows all involve uneven ground, and the orchard does not describe accessible routes or facilities. Ask before you travel if this matters.
You need a fixed all-in price before you leave the house. Apple Blossom Park tickets are sold online and the orchard does not publish the figures on its own site, so the cost of the paid half of the property is unknown until you are in the booking flow. Skip it too if you want a big evening or haunted attraction — this closes at 6:00pm every day and is built around daytime family activity.
This is the Eau Claire location of a multi-site orchard, and it is the one with the corn maze — the Galesville site does not advertise one, so do not assume the locations are interchangeable. Being minutes from Eau Claire rather than deep in the countryside makes it an easy half-day that pairs with the city rather than requiring a whole Saturday. Autumn colour along the Chippewa Valley corridor peaks in the same weeks as the patch, so weekend road traffic runs heavier than the mileage suggests.
Partly. The orchard states there is no admission charge for the Country Store, bakery, pumpkin patch or Johnny the Singing Tractor. The activities inside Apple Blossom Park — the cow train, duck races, gem mining, hay pyramid and the rest — require a ticket bought online.
The orchard does not publish the price on its own website. Tickets are sold online, so the figure appears in the booking flow. We could not capture a dollar amount, and we will not guess one.
August 15 to November 1, 2026, daily. Monday to Friday 10:00am to 6:00pm, Saturday and Sunday 9:30am to 6:00pm.
The address is 6470 Balsam Road, but the entrance is on County Highway II. Following a GPS pin to Balsam Road is the most common navigation mistake here.
August 15 – November 1, 2026. Daily. Hours: Monday-Friday 10:00am-6:00pm; Saturday and Sunday 9:30am-6:00pm.
Admission is free. There is no admission charge for the Country Store, bakery, pumpkin patch or Johnny the Singing Tractor. Paid admission is required for the activities inside Apple Blossom Park, and tickets are sold online; the park's ticket prices are not published on the orchard's own website.
6470 Balsam Road, Eau Claire, WI 54701 (entrance on County Highway II), in Eau Claire County. It is one of 2 patches we track in Northern Wisconsin.
fergusonsorchard.com
Checked August 2026.