On this sunny Autumn day, I just needed to get out and enjoy autumn in New England. I was thinking 'apples, I want some Macintosh apples'. So what did I do? I went on yelp and searched 'orchards'. Which lead me to Salisbury Farm.
First of all, I know you all are thinking "Johnston?" This farm is right down the road from the Scituate art festival location. It's rural. This is not the Johnston I think of (sorry Johnston). Don't let the location dissuade you. It's lovely. A small store is located in a big old barn and sells gourds, pumpkins, soap, peppers, tomatoes, mums plus some merch, honey and more. Goats and a cow named Finlay (who I am obsessed with) are located just outside for everyone to enjoy. They also have some kid sized fun things to do right there by the barn.
They also have a corn maze which I was interested in doing, but wasn't sure about, so I asked 'how big is your corn maze' and was told '5 acres.' What? Five acres? No way. I'm not sure how they measure that (I'm not a surveyor) but that sounded like a nice stretch of the legs and I was all in. We were given maps of the maze with our purchase, which is absolutely necessary. Without the map I have no idea how we would have gotten through. Honestly, we passed two women, going the wrong way, who said they had been in there for 45 minutes and couldn't find the way out. They did not follow the map. For all I know they are still in there.
We spent about 30 minutes in the maze (I'm a good map reader) and then walked on over to the pumpkin patch. Most of the pumpkins are at the barn, but it was a nice walk and we passed fields of strawberries (out of season in October). In the Spring I'll check back for their strawberry harvest. The sunflowers are past their prime in October, but last month you could cut your own sunflowers and I bet they were gorgeous then.
The maze is not an inexpensive experience, but it is something you only get to do in the Fall and it does support a local farm, so for me it was worth it and I had fun. The corn crop this year is having some difficulty (2024). Much of the maze is tall and conceals all as you would expect. Parts of the maze however are not dense and the farm has a sign up in that section with information about their plans to amend the fields for next years crop.
There are a lot of signs throughout the maze:
Jokes
Emergency flags to wave if you are totally lost
Four emergency exits
Information about Halloween and the farm.
There is also a raffle with your purchase so ask at the store about that. Two picnic tables are near the entrance/exit. If you have a group this could be your meeting place if you are separated or if you have little ones, you can hang out here while the bigger ones go through the maze. Bring snacks. Enjoy the day!
I did get to buy myself some Macintosh apples (for those of you wondering). We were here on a week day, so it wasn't a full tilt, weekend extravaganza. I am thinking on the weekends it's a lot of family fun in the Autumn. read more