No gate fee, no reservation required and 40 acres of picking - the cheapest way into Henderson County apple country, as long as you accept that pumpkins here are sold by the pound rather than at a flat patch price.
No admission fee is charged - the orchard states 'You pay for what you pick, buy or do.' Most pumpkins are sold by the pound and mini pumpkins by size; per-pound rates and individual activity prices are not published on the site.
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 pitch here is simple and it is a good one: no gate. Stepp’s charges nothing to walk in. You pay for the apples you pick, the pumpkin you carry out, and whichever attractions you decide to do. In a county where several orchards now run timed-entry u-pick reservations and ticketed fall festivals, that is a meaningful difference, and it changes the risk calculation completely.
Consider the toddler case. At a $15-a-head ticketed farm, a family of four has spent $60 before finding out whether the two-year-old is going to have a good day. Here, if the visit lasts twenty minutes, it has cost the price of whatever was in your hands when you left. That alone makes Stepp’s the sensible first choice for anyone travelling with children too young to be predictable.
Twenty-six varieties across roughly 40 acres is a serious orchard, not a token row of trees behind a bounce pillow. No reservation is required, which is increasingly unusual in Henderson County - some neighbouring operations now release timed slots and turn away walk-ups on busy days. If you have decided on Saturday morning that you want to pick apples on Saturday afternoon, this is the orchard that will let you.
Alongside apples there are grapes, u-pick sunflowers and zinnias in the fall, and tulips in spring. The five-acre corn maze, apple cannon, jump pad and wagon rides fill out the fall offer.
Pumpkins are sold by the pound, and mini pumpkins by size. The orchard does not publish its per-pound rate, so we cannot tell you what a carving pumpkin costs - only that weight-based pricing structurally favours small pumpkins and penalises big ones. A family that wants four large carvers will pay more here than at a patch selling flat-rate pumpkins from a bin. A family that wants a bag of apples, a few minis and a good afternoon will pay less than almost anywhere else in the county.
Nothing is published about the cost of the maze, the cannon, the jump pad or the wagon rides either. Ask at the counter on arrival rather than agreeing to things one at a time as you walk round.
The 2026 season opened on August 15, which is early even for the mountains, and no closing date is published. That long front end is worth understanding: apples in August and early September, but no pumpkins and no fall attractions until late September. If you turn up on Labor Day weekend expecting a pumpkin patch, you will find an apple orchard instead. That is not a complaint - it is how mountain orchards work, and elevation is why this season starts earlier than anything in the Piedmont.
October is when everything overlaps, and October is also when the Blue Ridge leaf season puts extra traffic on every road into apple country. Weekday mornings are a different experience from weekend afternoons here by a wide margin, and the 9am open on Monday through Thursday makes an early weekday visit very easy to arrange if your schedule allows.
Leashed dogs are welcome across the farm, which is worth flagging because the exceptions are specific and sensible: not in the Apple House, not on wagon rides, not in the corn maze. Bring a second adult or plan to take turns, because the corn maze is the attraction most likely to strand a dog-holder at the entrance.
The orchard opened for the 2026 season on August 15 and has not published a closing date. Hours are Monday to Thursday 9am to 5:30pm, Friday and Saturday 9am to 6pm, and Sunday 10am to 6pm. The pumpkin patch runs late September through October, so an August or early-September visit gets apples and the picking rows but no pumpkins and no fall attractions. For the full package - apples, pumpkins, the corn maze - the first three weeks of October are the window. Take a weekday if you possibly can; the daily opening at 9am means a weekday morning here is close to empty.
Two to three hours. Longer if you are working through 26 varieties across 40 acres or doing the five-acre corn maze properly.
Henderson County is North Carolina's apple country and October weekends pull traffic from Asheville, Greenville and the Upstate. The no-reservation policy is a genuine advantage for turning up on a whim and a genuine disadvantage on a peak Saturday, since nothing is holding numbers down. Weekday mornings are a different farm entirely.
Not published. Assume grass or gravel over 40 acres of orchard, and assume it is soft after rain - late September and early October is when tropical storm remnants reach western North Carolina, and farm field parking holds water for days afterwards.
Nothing published. There are picnic areas, but the picking is spread over 40 acres of orchard ground and the corn maze is five acres of field. Call 828-685-9083 before travelling if that matters.
You want a bundled fall festival where one ticket covers everything - that is not the model here, and there is no published price for the corn maze, apple cannon, jump pad or wagon rides. Skip an early-season visit too if pumpkins are the point; they do not arrive until late September.
Stepp's is one of a cluster of orchards east of Hendersonville, so it combines easily with another in the same morning or with downtown Hendersonville afterwards. Because there is no gate fee, it is also the natural low-commitment first stop of an apple-country day.
Yes. The orchard states plainly that no admission fee is charged - you pay for what you pick, buy or do. That makes it the lowest-risk option in the county if you are visiting with unpredictable toddlers, since nothing is lost if the visit lasts fifteen minutes.
The orchard sells most pumpkins by the pound and mini pumpkins by size. It does not publish the per-pound rate on its website, so we cannot give you a figure. Weight-based pricing means a big carving pumpkin costs meaningfully more than at a flat-price patch.
No. Unlike some neighbouring Henderson County orchards that release timed u-pick slots, Stepp's does not require a reservation.
Late September, running through October. The orchard's overall 2026 season opened on August 15 and it has not published a closing date, so if you are planning a November visit, call 828-685-9083 first.
Opens August 15, 2026 (closing date not published). Daily, Monday-Sunday. Hours: Monday-Thursday 9:00am-5:30pm, Friday-Saturday 9:00am-6:00pm, Sunday 10:00am-6:00pm.
Admission is free. No admission fee is charged - the orchard states 'You pay for what you pick, buy or do.' Most pumpkins are sold by the pound and mini pumpkins by size; per-pound rates and individual activity prices are not published on the site.
170 Stepp Orchard Drive, Hendersonville, NC 28792, in Henderson County. It is one of 5 patches we track in Western North Carolina.
We track 5 patches in Western North Carolina, 1 of which are free to walk into. Entry here costs nothing, which puts it in the minority even in a region with several free options.
What sets it apart locally: it has a corn or crop maze, hayrides, which most Western North Carolina patches on our list do not.
There are 3 other patches we track in Henderson County. All Western North Carolina patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
steppapples.com
Checked August 2026.