This year we are offering TWO separate Bus Tour options!
Please choose only ONE per person.
Option 1: Mid-Size Farm Tour
This tour is best suited for attendees who wish to experience farms who are younger operations, with a smaller footprint, and/or showcase fewer agritainment activities than those on the Advanced Farm Tour.
These farms will see up to 5,000 people on their busiest days.
We will visit the following locations:
Surprise Distillery Stop
Option 2: Advanced Farm Tour
This tour is best suited for attendees who wish to visit more experienced operations, with larger footprints, and showcase more agritainment activities than those on the Mid-Size Farm Tour.
These farms will see upwards of 5,000 people on their busiest days.
We will visit the following locations:
Surprise Distillery Stop
Devine’s Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch
• Mid-Size Tour •
Devine’s Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch is an inspiring example of generosity & community-focused farming and agritainment while showcasing ingenuity with many of their offerings.
Glenn and Martina Devine have poured their hearts into farming for over four decades. What started as a simple passion has blossomed into a cherished tradition of family-oriented entertainment throughout the entire year!
The Fall of 2024, Devine’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch celebrated their seventeenth year of opening the farm to the community.
Devine’s specializes in farm-fresh produce, with a focus on mouthwatering sweet corn, juicy tomatoes, and crisp green beans, and during the summer months, guests can experience the essence of freshness at their farm market.
They are ever-expanding their agritainment options, as they offer a 10-acre corn maze, a petting zoo, wagon rides through the pumpkin patch, ziplines, an obstacle course and a variety of other activities.
As the seasons quickly transition from Fall to Winter, so does Devine’s with their Winter Funfest. Christmas at the Farm features a dazzling display of glittering lights accompanied by cheerful Christmas melodies filling the air. And what better way to warm up than with a steaming cup of hot chocolate during a meet-and-greet with Santa Claus himself!
They're equipped with their own snowmaking magic to create snowy slopes for guests to enjoy the thrill of their Barn Burner Tube Slide.
Each year, Devine’s strives to surpass expectations, promising an experience that's bigger, better, and more exhilarating than ever before.
Mulberry Orchard
• Mid-Size Tour •
Mulberry Orchard specializes in their produce, and provides and equal-part educational & fun experience for all of their guests. Be sure to ask about the Luke Bryant Farm Concert that they host!
Mulberry Orchard is a family farm in Shelbyville, KY that was started in 2010. From June through November —fresh, local produce is available in their on-farm market as well as unique gift items, local honey, eggs, meats, apple cider, and a wide variety of other offerings.Mulberry Orchard has 17 varieties of peaches and 23 varieties of apples among their 8,000 fruit trees. Their Farm Fresh Family Fun Play Area has over 30 activities for the whole family to enjoy and Mulberry Kitchen offers a full lunch & treat menu to make guests visit complete. In the fall, they host educational school tours along with all the other Fall Fun of pumpkins, u-pick apples, mazes, and more.
Stepping Stone Farm
• Mid-Size Tour •
· Stepping Stone Farm is now operated by a young but determined hard-working family who are an inspiring example of how to capitalize on opportunities for growth.
Nestled in the heart of central Kentucky, Stepping Stone Farm is an agritourism destination rooted in family, community, and agricultural education. As eighth-generation farmers, our family has been farming the same land since 1790!
Stepping Stone’s journey began with a single sunflower field intended to host dove hunts for family and friends. Little did we know, this small endeavor would blossom into a vibrant photography destination, attracting hundreds of people each sunflower season, eager to capture the beauty of the sunflowers in full bloom.
The story took an exciting turn when Dana and Trudie Reed of Reed Valley Orchard reached out to us, looking forward to the next chapter in their adventure. It was an opportunity that Ally (sister), Hanna (sister-in-law), and Brandon (brother) couldn't resist. With the wisdom and mentorship of the Reeds, we've transitioned into overseeing the full operation of Reed Valley Orchard as Dana and Trudie enjoy retirement.
Inspired by the Reeds, and driven by a shared vision to expand beyond the sunflower fields, we embraced the challenge to cultivate a full-on agritourism experience.
Offering everything from 'u-pick' fields to educational farm tours, the farm is a vibrant space of learning, community, and connection.
Eckert’s
• Advanced Tour •
Eckert’s owners specialize in remotely managing multiple individualistic farms across two states while maintaining their brand and image.
Eckert’s Orchards took root in 1837 after Johann Peter Eckert immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from Dietzenbach, Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, and began farming. Johann’s son Michael followed his father’s instinctive love for the land and settled on a farm that we call Drum Hill, near Fayetteville, Illinois, which is 35 miles southeast of St. Louis. Fruit trees were planted on Michael’s farm in 1862, and then Michael’s son Henry followed suit and in 1890 planted fruit trees on his Turkey Hill Farm in Belleville, Illinois. Henry’s farm is now the hub of the Eckert’s family business, where the family’s largest orchard produces apples, peaches, strawberries, blackberries and other fresh fruit and vegetables and where its Country Restaurant and Country Store operate year-round.
Eckert’s retail operations started as a humble roadside farmstand, opened by Alvin O. Eckert in 1910 on the Turkey Hill Farm in Belleville, and have transformed into state-of-the-art facilities, including the Country Restaurant—a dining destination for down-home cooking in the St. Louis metropolitan area—and the Country Store and Garden Center, which carry seasonally fresh produce and plants, home-baked bakery treats, fresh meats and deli creations, gourmet cheeses, specialty foods and unique gift items.
‘The Eckert family also operates orchards and general stores in Millstadt and Grafton, Illinois, as well as an orchard in Versailles, Kentucky. The quaint, rustic Grafton farm sits atop a Mississippi River bluff outside of Alton, Illinois, and the Millstadt Fun Farm is perfect for families seeking a day or evening of outdoor country entertainment as well as apple or pumpkin picking during the fall.
Today the sixth and seventh generations of the Eckert family oversee the daily business operations.
Evans Orchard & Cider Mill
• Advanced Tour •
Evans Orchard compliments their expansive agritainment offerings with a beautiful Event Barn, as well as an ever-expanding Retail Center & kitchen.
Evans Orchard and Cider Mill is a 5th-generation family farm located in Georgetown, Kentucky. The farm and agritourism destination is operated by Kevan and Jenny Evans, the father-daughter duo with a vision and commitment to continue writing the family farm’s story.
Produce, gifts, sweet treats, and those beloved cider slushies are available at the Evans Orchard Farm Market and Gift Store. Once a tobacco barn, the shop offers shoppers an extensive selection of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh local honey, homemade jams and jellies, and, of course, fresh pressed apple cider, along with home décor, toys, and much more.
Adjoining the Farm Market, the original produce sale shed has now been converted to the Sweet Apple Café. The certified kitchen offers guests a selection of hamburgers, hot dogs, rib-eye sandwiches, grilled chicken, homemade fried apple pies, apple cider donuts, homemade fudge, and much more!
Ten years ago Jenny and Kevan converted an old tobacco barn to a wedding venue. We are a seasonal venue booking about 35 weddings a year.
The Cider Mill-Evans currently presses about 25,000 gallons of cider every fall.
Pumpkins, all things apple, wagon rides, apple cannons, corn maze, apple cider, frozen cider mimosas, and apple picking can all be enjoyed on the farm. The play area includes a new ropes course, jumping pillows, slides, corn box, spider web, pedal karts and more. Though spring and summer have become increasingly popular times to visit for the Annual Sunflower and Zinnia Festival, farm fresh produce, and an all-around perfect play for kids to play.
Gallrein Farms
• Advanced Tour •
Gallrein Farms continues to expand its agritainment offerings alongside their large and bountiful greenhouses, produce market and bakery.
Bill Gallrein Jr., was the third-generation farmer and helped with the dairy business until the mid-70’s when they decided to expand their farming into vegetables, grain, and tobacco. They got out of the dairy industry in 1986 and switched to primarily row crops and grain farming. In 1990 Bill Jr. and his wife Randie opened the greenhouses and onsite farm market to allow people to purchase fresh veggies and flowers straight from the farm.
Every year, beginning in April, we open to the public with our greenhouses selling annuals, perennials, topicals, and bedding plants. From mid-May to early June, we offer u-pick strawberries. Starting in July our produce market is in full swing. We stock our market full of homegrown and local produce, jar goods, handcrafted art, and more.
Our café opened when we built our new market in 2010, serving panini sandwiches, cookies, fudge, and other sweet treats. The Fall Festival began in the early 2000s with one horse drawn wagon taking our visitors out to the pumpkin patch. Today, we estimate that 6,000 to 8,000 people visit the farm per day on the weekends in October. Today, Bill Jr., Randie, and Bill Sr. still own and operate our 1100-acre farm and it continues to expand each year.
