An apple orchard first and a pumpkin farm second, with the longest season in this part of Lorain County — but the farm publishes no price and no days-of-week schedule, so a two-month window does not mean it is open when you turn up.
Admission price not published on the farm's site; tickets sold through the farm's online ticketing system, with a 2026 pre-sale advertised.
The framing matters here. Hillcrest is an orchard that also runs a fall festival, not a fall festival that has planted a few apple trees. The attraction list — apple picking, an apple cannon, a corn maze, hayrides, a pumpkin patch and a farm market — puts the fruit first, and in Northern Ohio that is a meaningfully different day out from a pumpkin-and-jump-pad operation. You come away carrying something.
That also explains the season length. September 5 to November 1 is roughly eight and a half weeks, far longer than the four-weekend runs typical of pumpkin-only farms, because apples start well before pumpkins do. Early September is apple season with pumpkins as a sideline; late October has reversed that.
The website gives dates, hours, an address, a phone number and a claim of more than twenty attractions. It does not give a price, and it does not give days of the week.
The price gap is manageable — tickets go through the farm’s own online system, and a 2026 pre-sale was advertised, so a figure will exist before the season starts. Check the store rather than the homepage.
The schedule gap is the one that will actually cost someone a wasted Tuesday. A family orchard advertising a two-month season is very unlikely to be open every single day of it, and the site never says otherwise. One call to 440-965-8884 settles it. Do not skip that call because the season looks generous.
Northern Ohio grows apples and pumpkins properly, which means what is in the field changes week to week rather than staying static behind a fixed ticket price. Varieties come ripe in sequence across September and October, and blocks get picked out. If you have a specific apple in mind, ask before you go; if you just want a bag of something good, any date in the season will deliver.
Pumpkins follow the same logic in reverse — the field is at its best from late September through October and thinning by the end.
Two practical notes. Mud is the constant: orchard rows and grass parking do not drain, and a wet week turns the whole visit into a boots-only proposition. And the light collapses across this season more dramatically than the fixed 10am-to-6pm hours suggest. In early September, 6pm is still bright afternoon. On the season’s closing weekend at the start of November, it is dusk. Plan a late-October visit for the middle of the day rather than the end of it.
The farm advertises a 2026 season of September 5 to November 1 with 10am to 6pm hours, but it does not publish which days of the week it operates. That is the gap to close before you drive. Assuming weekends are the core, early October is the balance point: apples and pumpkins both available, the weather still reliable, and the Halloween-weekend crush still two or three weeks away. September visits skew toward apples; the last week of October skews toward pumpkins and cold.
Two to three hours. Apple picking, a corn maze, a hayride and the apple cannon is a solid morning, and the farm market at the end is where the visit naturally stops.
Amherst sits within easy reach of both Cleveland and Lorain, so October weekends carry the load. The long season is the release valve: with roughly eight weekends available rather than four, picking a shoulder date genuinely thins the crowd in a way it cannot at a farm running three weekends.
Not described by the farm. Orchards of this size in Northern Ohio generally park visitors on grass between rows or in an adjacent field, which turns soft quickly after autumn rain. Boots rather than trainers if the week has been wet.
You need to know the cost before committing. The farm sells through an online ticketing system and advertised a 2026 pre-sale, but no price was published when we looked, so you are buying blind until the store opens. Skip it too if you cannot verify the operating days first — a September-to-November season almost certainly does not mean seven days a week.
The farm did not publish an admission price when we checked. It sells tickets through its own online system and advertised a 2026 pre-sale, so the price is likely to appear there before the season opens. Until it does, we cannot give you a figure and would rather say so than guess.
The farm states a 2026 season of September 5 to November 1 and hours of 10am to 6pm, but it does not publish which days of the week it opens. Call 440-965-8884 and confirm before you plan around it.
Both are on the farm's attraction list, so in principle yes. What is available on any given date is a different question — apple varieties ripen in sequence through the autumn and u-pick fields close as they are picked out, so what you can actually pick in early September and late October will not be the same.
September 5 – November 1, 2026. Hours: 10am-6pm.
Admission pricing was not published when we last checked. Admission price not published on the farm's site; tickets sold through the farm's online ticketing system, with a 2026 pre-sale advertised.
50336 Telegraph Road, Amherst, OH 44001, in Lorain County. It is one of 10 patches we track in Northeast Ohio.
We track 10 patches in Northeast Ohio. The farm has not published a gate price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
Its season runs about 58 days against a regional average of 45, so it is a notably longer window than most of its neighbours, which takes the pressure off picking a weekend.
What sets it apart locally: it has a market, bakery or taproom, which most Northeast Ohio patches on our list do not.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
hillcrestfunfarm.com
Checked August 2026.