High Hill Orchard — Local services in Meriden

Delighted to see a Mom and Pop sign near my home for apple picking, I enthusiastically drove up the steep, endlessly long, winding, one-car narrow dirt road, worrying what I would do if a car came down from the other end. As a teacher and an artist, when I saw two beautiful apples clinging opposite of each other, I wanted to paint them. I broke a short branch to keep the apples together. However, the owner was displeased. She berated me on how she needed to keep things under control (there was no one there except me) and proceeded to lecture me, repeating THREE times what an awful thing I did for breaking a thin branch from the apple tree, which measured about a foot, and how hard her husband worked to keep the farm going. I had to stop her from being further disrespectful to me as a human being, much less a customer! They charged $11 for a five pound bag and only accepted cash or checks. When I came home and Googled the Orchard, I found their submission of a request to the town of Meriden for over $900,000 in aid to help with the farm. One of the chief reasons for needing assistance is not having enough customers to generate the revenue to update and repair their farm. Well, she has managed to alienate one...

This is a very pleasant apple orchard. It's peaceful, and you can wander around and pick what you want. They offer "ecologically grown" fruit, which means minimal spraying, only when necessary, and "organically grown" vegetables. It is difficult to find orchards that hold back on the spraying, so this was a nice find. The price per pound was very reasonable. They had fresh, unpasteurized apple cider for sale and also lots of different vegetables and fruits. We were really impressed with their selection of pumpkins - they were beautiful! Most intriguing were the paw-paws. We bought one to try. The woman at the farm stand said they taste like a combo of mango and banana. Our kids had fun here. And the people who rang up our purchases, who I believe are the owners, were super nice. Update: the apples were excellent and the paw-paws were amazing. I wish I had bought a dozen of them. ...

We had a great time this afternoon at Farmer Wayne’s beautiful orchard picking McIntosh, Calhoun, Liberty, and Cortland apples! We brought our five children along- they were delighted by the easy to reach apples and by the chestnuts scattering the ground. We filled a 20 pound bag with apples, and also went home with organic potatoes (that Wayne had dug up moments before), eggplant, garlic and seed garlic, onions and apple cider. He also had pear cider that he had pressed yesterday, but we were out of money at that point! We are truly thankful to find an organic farm like this one in Connecticut that cares about the health of its customers and of the soil, rather than just making a buck. They have great prices and we are so happy to buy as much as we can from them! God bless High...