Ferguson’s Minnesota Harvest — Local services in Saint Lawrence Township

No surprise seeing ppl posting similar experience today. And here is mine (got chance to chat with the manager at the end) - waited over 1.5 hours at the ticket booth and spend 10min there.

We've been visiting this place several times before last year. And the experience was good, not as fancy as now, always crowd but still ok since it was more like free style.

We visited there last week with several families and surprised to see additional charge of $15 per person, but lots of kids friendly upgrades. And the $15 covers multi entrance for the season. I think it is a win-win idea for the owner and customers (at least $15 for me is ok, might not for others).

So we came back this afternoon around 2pm and ended up waiting in the line for over 1.5 hours to get in (all we are waiting for is to show them the season ticket code). We started the line in a booth labeled as "season ticket" which is the 2nd last from the far end (the last one is closed). This line was the slowest at the end because they had some Wi-Fi issue for all booths, and the last one had a different device (an pad). The poor teenage boy went into the main building to get some help several times (leaving the ppl in the line waiting) and came back with nothing. About 1 hour in the line (moved about half mainly because ppl leaving) I also went into the main building (where they sale the food and drink) 2 times and ask workers in the their where to find their mangers, and they have no idea.

It is almost 4pm when we finally have chance to chat with the teenage boy in the booth, and find out he is not able to check in due to the device issue, and I helped him to ask everyone in that line to switch to other lines (where they were way shorter by then). They should've close that line much earlier but no one seems in the field want to call it and communicate it to customers.

We only spent 10 min there because the 3y old wanted to ride the mow-mow and it was raining harder. So we tried to return the apple picking bag on the way out. We were told only the manager can do it and she was busy handling a wedding party. Waited another 15min and finally talked to the manager.

She explained the internet issue and mentioned there is nothing they can do about it. DISAGREE: your workers need your support when they have issue with the system, the poor boy in the booth needed you to make the call to close that line or bring him a device works. when you have an internet issue (this place is not near the city so it must be expect and may already happened before), you should have a contingency plan called. You can at least have the customs divided by groups who may or may not need the internet to check in, instead of leaving both your teams and customs being frustrated in the field. At the end, she didn't have time to hear a feed back from a "$10 local customer" and have to get back to the bigger group.

To the new owner, if you know your manager has to work on a special event, find some one can lead and help your team and customers in the field. If this place only value the bigger customers instead of the "$10 local customer", how you would expect local ppl support this business. Having minimum wage workers collecting cash might work short team but leaving local customers experience out of the equation...

We are so very sad at the direction this orchard has taken. The property was absolutely gorgeous and the apples were delicious. Unfortunately, under new ownership the orchard has become a huge money grab, commercialized beyond belief, and no long has the personal family feel. The cost of admission is $15 each. They do have many activities for children, but many of us that loved this orchard don’t have children or have children that are not the correct age for these activities. If $15 was the only charge that would be absolutely fine. However, there is an additional cost to pick apples. So you now have this gorgeous orchard but you have two paywalls to get through in order to enjoy it. A “season pass” is not really an incentive for people who don’t participate in the extra activities. You have to pay for the apples each time, so this is really a “one time” fall treat each year. Our total came to $65 for two adults and a free infant. This included one bag of special apples and one bag of regular apples. This is a pretty steep price for a Saturday outing. It just really hurt our hearts to see where this has gone. Even from first year of ownership change to now, there seems to be a “money spot” everywhere you look. Every possible building, nook, cranny, and pop-up stand is rebranded into an opportunity to purchase something. It’s very “theme park” feel to a place that once felt like a sweet family get together. Hopefully, with all of these reviews, the family will take action and scale back. Sometimes less is more. Just some things to consider: Scale back on the stands/stations/money grab spots. Bring it back to the inside of the main building. Pick a few things that you do really well, and make those your center of attention (kind of like when a restaurant has a small menu, usually the food is GOOD because they focus on making a few things amazing rather than a TON of things average. Restaurants that have massive menus are usually not that great). Bring the “family” feel back, the cozy fall vibes. Every single little building/space doesn’t have to be filled. an admission price is perfectly fine! You have to make money somehow. However, it should be separated by your plans for the day. $15 for general admission to the orchard to include one bag of apples (you pick). Of course, an additional charge for additional bags. Other additional charges for hay rides, pumpkins, corn pit should be added for families this is appropriate for. Wrist band in one color for JUST the orchard, wrist band of another for the additional activities (or a hand stamp, whatever works). Fall activities are nice, but there are fall festivals for that. This is an orchard. It would be awesome to bring the focus back to the apples. Small humble fall activities would be great! A pumpkin patch (charge for the pumpkins, of course), hay rides, corn pit. That’s all you really need. Nurture the property back to a beautiful, natural looking state.

I say all of this with the kindest intentions. Please, please, consider bringing the orchard back to the way it was! We would love to bring family and friends here for years to come. Unfortunately, at this time, it’s no longer the gem in Jordan that we used...

What a disappointment. We have been bringing our family here for over 25 years. Missed the last couple of years. Did not realize there was new ownership. Our adult child came to visit with a spouse who had never been to MN. We made the 1-hr drive down so they could experience what had been a family tradition.

Wow, new ownership, $18.00 per person for the privilege of walking get past the parking lot onto the property. $12.50 for a tiny paper sack to collect apples. They have activities for small kids but as adults we just wanted to pick apples and have some baked goods.

We just wanted to pick apples!!!

• The staff were rude and slow. • Tiny and defective paper sack for apple collecting • There was a tiny selection of baked goods. No hot food. No place to sit. • Bathrooms were disgusting and reeked. • The hand-crafted cider tastes terrible. We sampled four different varieties and none of them were purchasing. • We had to wait almost 25 minutes for a wagon ride. • Once dropped off and wagon departed we realized that the rude staff had given us a faulty paper sack. The glue was not holding the seem together and the bag literally started to separate. • The orchard is in bad shape. The new owners cut down large portions and are letting multiple area’s die. Either they don’t know how to farm an orchard, or they truly do want it to milk this for all it’s worth, letting the orchard die and then sell the land to a developer. • “Season Pass” is worthless. We would only make the 1-hour drive, once. This pass is totally pointless. • How do you expect to be a cashless operation in an area with poor cell phone coverage?

Maybe you want to drop close to $100 for a family of four with small kids who would enjoy the child focused activities. For a family of four with older kids this cost us more than the renaissance festival a couple of weeks ago.

So sad to see what has happened to what was a quaint and local gem where you could wander the orchard with a large and effective bag to collect apples, then enjoy baked goods and regular cider. We used to spend more than we did this trip by buying all the kids bags for collecting apples and stuffing the kids with hot baked goods. Purchasing some of the other items in the store and making lasting memories. The gem is no more. With the $18.00 fee and $12.00 for a tiny, defective bag, $22.00 if you want to pick Honeycrisp and the lack of food options, we ended up spending less than we wood of and leaving with a bad taste in our mouths of an overpriced commercial venue.

We won’t be returning and will no longer recommend to anyone.

Oh, and no comment from the Owner about “It looks like you didn’t end up entering, blah, blah, blah.” Yes, we did, and I have the receipts to prove it. We would have turned around when first encountering the first of the threatening signs telling visitors you must pay before entering. The only reason we continued was due to our visiting family and the commitment of driving an hour to get...