Four separate one-and-two-day festivals rather than a continuous season, so the date you choose decides what you get - and outside those four dates this is a country store rather than a day out.
No admission or activity prices are published on the farm's own site. No source read states whether walking onto the property is free, so free_admission is set to false as a conservative default rather than as a verified fact.
Most farms in this batch run one continuous autumn. Way Fruit Farm runs four events, and they are different from each other. That is a genuinely useful structure if you know about it in advance and an annoying one if you turn up on the wrong Saturday.
October 2-3 is the Harvest Festival: apple picking, wagon rides out to the pumpkin patch, a large craft show, live music and food vendors. This is the one to pick if the craft market is the draw, and it is also the busiest.
October 9-10 is the Everything Pumpkin Festival, with live pumpkin carving demonstrations alongside the wagon rides, apple picking, craft market and music. If you have a child who has only ever seen a pumpkin carved badly at a kitchen table, watching someone competent do it is a better hour than it sounds.
October 16-17 is Apple Cider Fest, which includes tours of the working cider press and donut games. The press tour is the most distinctive thing on this farm’s whole calendar - a real piece of process, not a photo opportunity.
October 24 is Fun on the Farm, a single Saturday with a caramel apple bar and farm tours.
All four include apple picking and wagon rides to the pumpkin patch, so the core visit is consistent. What changes is the extra layer, and in 2026 every one of these dates falls on a Friday or a Saturday, which lines up with the farm’s Sunday closure.
This is the thing to be clear-eyed about. Outside those seven days, Way Fruit Farm is a country store, cafe, bakery and deli, open Monday to Friday until 6:30pm and Saturday until 5:00pm. That is a fine place to buy apples and lunch, and a poor place to bring three children who have been told they are going to a pumpkin farm.
Two-thirds of October is a non-festival day here. If your available Saturday is October 31 - the Saturday most families in Pennsylvania assume is the peak of the season - the festival programme has already finished for the year.
There are no prices. Not for admission, not for the wagon ride, not for the festivals. There are also no festival hours: you can know the date exactly and still not know whether to arrive at nine or at noon. The farm directs enquiries to its newsletter and social media rather than posting the detail on its site.
A directory listing describes free wagon rides to the fields. That is a directory claim rather than something the farm says, and directories in this region are frequently out of date, so treat it as a question to ask rather than a fact to plan on. One call to 814-692-5211 gets you the hours and the cost together.
Halfmoon Valley is about fifteen minutes west of State College, which makes this the closest substantial fall farm to a town of that size. That is why it is convenient and also why the craft-show weekends in particular get busy - October Saturdays in Centre County carry Penn State weekend traffic on top of everything else. Friday is the softer half of each two-day festival, and the first hour of any of them is the softer part of the day.
Finally, the seasonal reality: a wagon ride across open central Pennsylvania farmland in the middle of October is a cold twenty minutes, and the fields will have taken rain by then. Layers and boots, not fleece and trainers.
The four 2026 festival dates are October 2-3, October 9-10, October 16-17 and October 24. In the 2026 calendar those fall on Fridays and Saturdays, which fits the farm's Sunday closure. Regular farm and store hours are Monday to Friday 8:00am to 6:30pm and Saturday 8:00am to 5:00pm. Individual festival hours are not published, which is the main gap in an otherwise well-dated record.
Two to three hours on a festival day, with wagon rides out to the pumpkin patch, apple picking and a craft market to work through. Thirty minutes on a non-festival day, because that is a shop visit.
Two forces stack here. The festivals are single-weekend events, which concentrates the whole season's demand into seven days rather than spreading it across six weeks. And Halfmoon Valley is fifteen minutes from State College, so an October Saturday can coincide with Penn State weekend traffic - the craft-show dates in particular draw heavily. Friday is the calmer half of each festival weekend.
Not published. Assume farm parking and soft ground after rain, and assume the festival weekends fill it. Central Pennsylvania Octobers are wet enough that boots are rarely wasted.
Not published. The store, cafe and craft market will be the most manageable parts; wagon rides mean a step up and orchard rows mean uneven ground. Ring 814-692-5211 to ask about a specific festival date.
Sunday is your only free day; the store is closed Sundays and all four 2026 festival dates fall on Fridays and Saturdays. Skip a non-festival visit if you are bringing children expecting an outing, because outside those dates there is a country store, cafe, bakery and deli and not much else for them.
The farm is roughly fifteen minutes west of State College in Halfmoon Valley, which makes it the closest substantial fall farm to the town. That is also the warning: on a Penn State weekend the roads and the craft show are both busier than the farm's size suggests.
Four events: the Harvest Festival on October 2-3, the Everything Pumpkin Festival on October 9-10, Apple Cider Fest on October 16-17, and Fun on the Farm on October 24. Apple picking and wagon rides to the pumpkin patch run at all four.
The farm does not publish admission or activity prices on its own site, and it does not publish individual festival hours either. It directs enquiries to its newsletter and social media, so ring 814-692-5211 or check those before travelling.
No. Regular hours are Monday to Friday 8:00am to 6:30pm and Saturday 8:00am to 5:00pm. All four 2026 festival dates fall on Fridays and Saturdays.
As a shop, yes - there is a country store, cafe, bakery and deli. As a family outing, no. The wagon rides, craft markets, live music and demonstrations happen only on the four festival dates.
October 2 – October 24, 2026. Festival weekends on October 2-3, 9-10, 16-17 and October 24; the farm, store and cafe are open Monday-Friday and Saturday year-round. Hours: Farm and store hours Monday-Friday 8:00am-6:30pm and Saturday 8:00am-5:00pm; individual festival hours are not published.
Admission pricing was not published when we last checked. No admission or activity prices are published on the farm's own site. No source read states whether walking onto the property is free, so free_admission is set to false as a conservative default rather than as a verified fact.
2355 Halfmoon Valley Road, Port Matilda, PA 16870, in Centre County. It is one of 3 patches we track in Central PA.
We track 3 patches in Central PA. The farm has not published a gate price, so it cannot be compared on cost — call before you budget.
Its season runs about 23 days against a regional average of 23, so it is broadly in line with the rest of the region.
What sets it apart locally: it has u-pick fields, which most Central PA patches on our list do not.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
wayfruitfarm.com · pumpkinpatchesandmore.org
Checked August 2026.