Apple Orchards Near Chicago, and When Each Apple Is Ready

Most apple guides tell you where the orchards are. The more useful question is when your apple is ready, because Honeycrisp and Granny Smith are seven weeks apart, and a drive to Harvard in late August gets you neither.

Royal Oak Farm publishes a date-by-variety calendar. It's reproduced below, because nobody else prints it, and because "apple picking season" is not one season.

Budget note before anything else: admission is per person almost everywhere now, and the bag is the unit. Plan on $12 to $15 a head before anyone picks anything.

When Each Apple Is Ready

These are Royal Oak Farm's 2026 harvest dates, straight from the orchard. They note that dates shift with the season, which is honest of them and true everywhere.

\* Pre-picked only. You can buy them, you can't pick them.

Honeycrisp is the third week of September, and its window is roughly two weeks. Showing up in mid-October and asking for it is how people end up disappointed in a parking lot.

Windfall apples — the ones on the ground, fine for sauce and cider — are sold pre-picked when there are any. Royal Oak lists them as currently unavailable, which is the usual state of things before the season starts.

Match the trip to the apple: late August is Zestar and Ginger Gold, mid-September is the broadest selection, Honeycrisp is the third week of September, and late October belongs to Granny Smith and Goldrush.

The Orchards

Royal Oak Farm, Harvard

Opens Fri Aug 21 · McHenry County · $12 per person, ages 4+

The $12 covers orchard entry and a 1/4 peck (3 lb) bag to fill. It's 160 acres, about 20,000 trees, 30-plus varieties.

Rules that catch people: no picking poles, pick only from rows flagged yellow for ripeness, and picking closes an hour before the farm does. Wagons and strollers are fine in the orchard but can't ride the tractor wagons.

Kuipers Family Farm, Maple Park

Opens Sat Aug 22 · Kane County · $14.99 weekends online, $11.99 select weekdays at the gate

More than 45 varieties. There's an early-season passport at $29.99 bundling the Sunflower Festival, u-pick, a train ride and a cider slushie.

Several roundups have Kuipers Family Farm opening "Saturday, August 23." August 23 is a Sunday in 2026. That's last year's date, reprinted by people who didn't check.

Edwards Apple Orchard, Poplar Grove

Opens Fri Aug 28 · Boone County

Edwards Apple Orchard is about 100 acres and 50,000 trees, the largest by tree count and the furthest north of the group. U-pick apples and pumpkins, a historic barn, and the cider donuts people drive for.

All Seasons Orchard, Woodstock

Aug 29 – Nov 1, closed Tuesdays · McHenry County · u-pick $12 (1/4 peck) or $17 (1/2 peck)

All Seasons Orchard splits its pricing, and it trips people up. The u-pick price is bag plus orchard entry, and everyone three and up needs their own bag to enter. The Barnyard Adventure — corn maze, ropes course, petting zoo — is a separate $9 weekday ticket. Buying one doesn't get you the other.

Hours: Mon–Fri 10–5, weekends and holiday Mondays 10–6.

Jonamac Orchard, Malta

Opens Sept 5 · DeKalb County · half-peck bag $15

Jonamac Orchard opens a week or two later than the rest of this list: more than 12,000 trees, 30-plus varieties, a corn maze, and a haunted night maze in season.

County Line Orchard, Hobart, Indiana

Late Aug – Oct · admission plus by-the-pound

County Line Orchard prices differently: general admission, then you pay for what you pick by weight. If you want two apples, that's the better deal. If you want thirty, do the arithmetic first.

Honey Hill Orchard, Waterman

2026 dates not posted · DeKalb County · cash only

As of late July Honey Hill Orchard's harvest page still reads "closed for the season" with the date fields blank, so we can't tell you when they open.

What we can tell you, because it ruins afternoons: cash only at u-pick, you must have a picking bag to enter the orchard, the bag has to tie closed, you're charged for anything that doesn't fit, and last entry is 4:30 p.m. Roughly 25 to 30 varieties.

Takeaway: a family of four is $48 to $60 at the gate before cider or donuts. Kuipers is $3 cheaper on a weekday, and mid-week in September is the same orchard with half the crowd.

Gone, and Still Being Searched For

Save yourself the trip.

• Wauconda Orchards, Wauconda — sold. It's a subdivision now.
• Garden Patch Farms, Homer Glen — closed; both domains redirect to a parking page.
• Apples on Oak, Joliet/Lockport — closed; the site is blank.

Two we couldn't settle: Prairie Sky Orchard in Union still displays "Closed for the 2025 Season," and Ziegler's Orchard in Grayslake has appeared on MLS. Call before you go.

And one correction that several roundups keep getting wrong: Tom's Farm Market in Huntley has no u-pick apples. It has u-pick pumpkins, which is a different trip — we keep a separate guide to pumpkin patches.

Checking Orchards Online

Ignore "temporarily closed" on aggregators in summer. Kuipers and Edwards both showed as temporarily closed on Yelp in July 2026, and both open in August. A listing site has no concept of a season, so a fall-only farm reads as a failed business all summer. It isn't.

Check the year on any date you're handed. The Kuipers example above is the whole problem in one line — a correct-looking date, wrong year, reprinted across several sites because nobody checked what day of the week it fell on. If a page doesn't say 2026 somewhere, treat its dates as guesses.

Dates and prices come from the orchards' own sites and announcements as of late July 2026. Where an orchard hasn't posted, we've said so rather than reprinting last year's numbers. Spot a change before we do? Tell us.

This guide is part of The New Parent's Suburban Starter Pack.