Last weekend, we decided to take a drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway and then stop by Barber Orchards Fruitstand in Waynesville, NC on the way back home. Barber Orchard is the premier place to buy fresh apples and homemade apple products in the Waynesville area. They even grow the apple trees right there on the same property.
Directly across the road from the main entrance, pictured above, is a row of apple trees. That was our first stop as we wanted to get a few pictures of the kids next to the apple trees and even hold some apples. Barber Orchards is not a pick your own apple place, but you can at least get up close and personal with the trees.
Here’s a picture of our daughter holding a huge red apple hanging low on one of the trees:
Barber Orchard – Fresh Mountain Apples
There are two entrances into the building, one is down in more of a warehouse looking area to the left, the other is through the stone building pictured above. We went into the warehouse area, which is where all of the fresh picked apples, fresh vegetables and fruits are.
Barber orchards has pre-bagged apples, and bins full of apples that you bag yourself. We elected to get an assortment of apples, so we bagged them ourselves from one of the 5 or more large bins full of apples. Plus, our kids enjoyed picking out the apples and putting them in the bag.
While the kids and Jenn were bagging apples, I noticed a cooler full of fresh apple cider and went over to investigate. I ended up grabbing 2 gallons of cider. I’m not a big apple fan when it comes to eating apples straight up, but I love cider and apple products. The cider, is just plain awesome. I’m actually drinking some right now as I write this!
Barber Orchard – Fritters and Pie Oh My!
Jenn went to buy the apples, and on the way to the register grabbed some fresh tomatoes as well. I headed up to the bakery area with my youngest son. The bakery area is in the older stone building. There was a line, but not too long, and they are good about keeping it moving. They even had cider samples to taste while you waitied. I surveyed “the goods” in the glass cabinet. They had apple fritters, apple cider donuts, apple pies, apple turnovers, and other various fruit pies. Everything in there looked SO good. But I was on a mission for the apple fritters.
Barber Orchard’s apple fritters are probably one of the best tasting things I’ve ever eaten in my life. Just wonderful. I bought everyone an apple fritter, and also grabbed an apple pie as well. We ate our apple fritters in the car on the way home, and myself and the kids ate the apple pie over the next day or so. This was my first time trying one of their pies, and I have to tell you, it was absolutely delicious!
Wrapping Up
We headed home with the car full of the smells of fresh picked apples, apple fritters, and apple pie. Our cameras were full of gorgeous pictures from the parkway, which you can find in our Photo Gallery and on our Facebook page.
Oh, and don’t forget, as this sign on a rock in the wall of Barber Orchard reminds us, “An apple a day, keeps the doctor away!”
Barber Orchard’s Fruit Stand is located at 2855 Old Balsam Rd in Waynesville NC. Highly recommend you pay them a visit if you’re in the area, and make sure you tell them, Blue Ridge Mountain Life sent you!
We visited the fruit stand on Oct. 23, 2014. Sampled the apple we ended up purchasing. We bought two bags of Rome apples that day. We had two apples that I have seen so far that were bad in one bag. Obviously I was given a bad bag. I gave the other one, plus one I had purchased at the festival in Waynesville on the Saturday before, to my son and his family. I haven’t heard from them yet whether any of theirs were bad. I guess I should have gone to the bins and picked out my own. I hate to write a bad review, but we were not pleased to have this happen. It was our first trip there.