Hinegardner's Orchard
Our orchard has been a family run business since the early 1960 Many things have changed but, our goal for the orchard has stayed the same.Producing quality products at fair prices! Everything that we sell at local Fareway and Hy-Vee stores, and the Grinnell and Des Moines farmers markets are all grown and produced right at the Hinegardner's Orchard. The orchard season is really a year round enterprise. Preparation begins the year before. In the winter time we prune and trim our approximately 3,000 apple trees. We usually finish pruning and removing the brush by the middle of April. During the Iowa winters we do not work in the orchard when the temperature is below 15 degrees.
We start our year getting ready for berry season and end with apple harvest and pumpkins and cider day.
We hope you come and enjoy the Hinegardner's Orchard experience!
Sincerely,
Dave & Julie Hinegardner and the Orchard Crew
Strawberries
We have 3 acres of delicious strawberries. We encourage people to pick their own but, we also pick them for our customers, grocery stores and farmers markets. The strawberries are covered with corn stalks in December. We try to apply 10 to 15 ton per acre. The corn stalks do several functions in the berry patch.
Apples
We have 22 varieties of apples available starting with Harvest Apples called Lodi through Winesap. The varieties ripen at different times with the Lodi apples beginning to ripen around the 1st of September to the Winesap that ripens around the 1st week of October.
Raspberries
Raspberries start around the middle of July. We have 2 acres of red raspberries available for pick your own, pre-picked, and also available at the Grinnell and Des Moines farmers markets.
Pick Your Own!
We open the orchard for pick your own around the middle of September. Our hours are from noon until 6pm daily. On the last two weekends of September and the first weekend of October we are open from 7am to 6pm.
Pumpkins & Melons
Pumpkins of all sizes and shapes can be found at Hinegardner's Orchard and Fareway stores in Marshalltown, Tama-Toledo and Grinnell. We also have pick your own pumpkins and tractor rides to the field. Fun for kids of all ages!
Cantaloupe begins to ripen around the 5th of August. We grow Classic Hybrid brand melons. This melon has a great flavor and is in the 4 to 5lbs. range for size. The melons are grown on plastic for weed control and watered with a trickle tape under the plastic to conserve water.
Cider Day
USUALLY... Cider day is the 2nd Sunday in October between the hours of 1:00PM and 5:00 PM.
This year's event has been cancelled due to July's storm. The number and quality of downed apples used for our cider is not up to our standards.
Please make sure to join us next year - Mother Nature permitting...
Cider Day is the second Sunday in October from 1pm to 5pm rain or shine! We invite customers, friends and family to harvest apples with us. These apples are collected in wagons and made into fresh apple cider while you watch!
