Apple Hill Growers

A red sign bearing the Apple Hill Growers logo marks each member farm. The farms lie along Carson Road, North Canyon Road, Larsen Drive, Cable Road and High Hill Road in the Camino and Fruitridge district of El Dorado County, in the Sierra foothills above Placerville, off Highway 50 between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe. In a September 2026 post, the association wrote that the sign means the family behind that gate “has committed to caring for the land, giving back to the community, and offering you an experience worth the drive.”

The member farms include apple ranches, berry and vegetable farms, bakeshops, wineries, a farm brewery, lavender fields, olive oil producers, Christmas tree farms and one bed and breakfast, Ponderosa Ridge on Union Ridge Road. The association says Apple Hill “is not and has never been a geographical area.” The name is a brand, coined in 1964 and since trademarked, for a collaboration of small farms. “We represent the little guy,” the association writes, “the small family farms in the Camino/Fruitridge Ag District.”

Twenty-seven ranches in October

The association’s list of growers open in October 2026 names twenty-seven farms. Among them are Larsen Apple Barn & Bakeshop, High Hill Ranch, Rainbow Orchards, Delfino Farms, Boeger Winery, Pine-O-Mine Ranch and O’Halloran’s Apple Trail Ranch. The El Dorado County Visitors Authority gives the general calendar:

• Apple farms: most open Labor Day weekend and stay open through December.
• Christmas tree farms: usually open Thanksgiving weekend.
• Berry and lavender farms: open in spring and summer.
• Wineries: open year-round.

The association’s blog notes that in January many ranches close to visitors and the roads are calmer.

Not all apples ripen at once. Some varieties are ready in early September and others hold out until late October. The FAQ adds that “Mother Nature is in charge of ripening dates.” The county lists Golden Delicious, Rome Beauty, Pink Lady, Granny Smith and Fuji among the varieties, and pumpkins, plums, grapes, persimmons and cherries are also grown here. The u-pick guide shows how mixed the crops are:

• Argyres Orchard: apples and Concord grapes.
• Smokey Ridge Ranch & Winery: apples, flowers and chestnuts.
• O’Halloran’s Apple Trail Ranch: blueberries, blackberries, apples, pears, flowers, lavender and pumpkins.
• Harris Family Farm, on Blair Road in Pollock Pines: berries, flowers, apples, vegetables, pumpkins and Christmas trees.

The association describes Harris Family Farm as a seven-generation operation.

The food runs to fruit and sugar. Rainbow Orchards sells apple cider doughnuts and High Hill sells apple milkshakes. Lunch at the ranches ranges from chicken and tri-tip to tacos, sandwiches, and burgers both meat and veggie. Pine-O-Mine pours an iced coffee served in a boot. Grandpa’s Cellar serves a coffee flight under 100-year-old apple trees. The association’s blog describes fresh cider made from an apple picked in the orchard that is washed, crushed and pressed within hours.

The animals are spread across several farms:

• High Hill Ranch: a petting zoo with cows, sheep and goats, and pony rides.
• Pine-O-Mine: a petting zoo that adds pigs.
• Fudge Factory Farm: alpacas, fed through the fence.
• O’Halloran’s: sheep and goats, also fed through the fence.
• Delfino Farms: farm animals on the property.
• Smokey Ridge: baby doll sheep.

The FAQ lists a caramel apple, a pony ride, and a ladybug or bat painted on the face as the usual program for children under ten.

Dogs are welcome at nearly every farm on a leash held by the owner. The FAQ is specific: “no tying Fido to a picnic table or tree.” The roads are narrow and have no shoulder. In October 2026 the association asked visitors not to park on them or walk from one farm’s lot to another, and reported that the California Highway Patrol would be patrolling. It asked visitors to “pack your patience along with your coolers, shopping lists, and fall looks,” and suggested weekday visits to those who would rather not share.

Glass pumpkins and a haunted forest

The 2026 season has its own program. The Hard Cider Trail runs from September 12 through November 1 among member farms that pour hard cider, Delfino Farms among them.

Johnny Appleseed Day fell on September 27:

• O’Halloran’s showed visitors an apple tree grafted from one of Johnny Appleseed’s own trees.
• Rainbow Orchards invited children to “catch a worm from one of Johnny’s apples.”
• Hidden Star Camino set up apple slingshots.
• Delfino Farms held its 28th annual Kid’s Weekend the same weekend, with farm egg races, mini cooking classes and a scarecrow contest.

At Bluestone Meadow, a lavender farm on Carson Road, the 2026 season brought a pumpkin patch of more than 7,000 handblown glass autumn pieces. The gift shop there is open on weekends from October 3 through November 22. Madrone Tree Hill, a Christmas tree farm on Barkley Road, runs its Haunted Christmas Forest on October weekends from October 3. The 2026 theme is “Curse of the Dead Woods”: a 450-yard loop trail through fog-shrouded pines, with animatronics and sound effects hidden among the trees.

The wineries hold their own events:

• Wofford Acres pours barrel tastings for cancer support on October weekends.
• Docmanov Vineyards & Winery holds a Harvest Festival With a Romanian Twist on October 10 and Halloween at the Vineyard on the evening of October 23.
• Boeger Winery gives harvest tours where visitors eat ripe fruit off the vine and taste fermenting juice.

Harris Family Farm hosts a Girl Scout scarecrow contest on October 11. Nevada Days, on October 30 and 31, offers specials to visitors with proof of Nevada residence.

Pears, blight, and a trip to Oak Glen

The farms did not start with apples. The association’s history begins in 1951, when Floyd Bolster retired to Camino and bought a farm with 10 acres of producing apple trees. Six years later he died. His son Gene left a job in Southern California to take over the farm.

Pears were the main crop on the hill then. “We had an awful pear blight,” Gene Bolster recalled, “and we had to do something to survive. Our major crop was pears.” The association gives the figures: production fell from 52,000 tons in 1958 to 8,435 in 1965. The county visitors authority puts it differently: 52,000 tons annually up until the 1950s, falling to less than 9,000 tons by the mid-1960s. A few of the old pear orchards still stand. “An orchard can produce for 50 years if it is taken care of,” Bolster said.

The growers met at the end of the day at the house of Bob Tuck, a retired army officer. “There were about 16 farms back then,” Bolster said. “We usually gathered at Bob Tuck’s house at the end of the day and talked about how hard farming was.”

In 1962 Bolster and Edio Delfino, the county’s agricultural commissioner, drove to Oak Glen in Southern California. “They had a successful marketing program, so we got a copy of their bylaws and improved on them,” Delfino said. The fourth founder was Dick Bethell, the county’s pomology specialist and farm advisor. “We faced competition from Washington State apples,” Bethell said, “but the growers in Camino had to do something.”

Bolster’s answer was flavor. The Camino apples, he said, might lack the long shape of the Washington fruit. “We have an ideal growing season, with a long chilling season. In other words, the trees stay dormant longer. So while a Washington apple may look great, our apples have better flavor.”

A press picnic and fifty thousand litter bags

In 1964 the four men formed the Apple Hill Growers, and Tuck supplied the name. “We started in mid-June of 1964 and had everything ready for the first press picnic in August,” Bolster said. For the picnic, each Apple Hill family hosted individual members of the press for a meal at home. The history page says many of them became close friends. That year the growers also handed out 50,000 paper litter bags at the State Fair. Any visitor who brought one up the hill got two pounds of free apples. The history page says Bolster kept a few of the bags.

Clarice Larson suggested showing visitors what apples could do in a kitchen. She opened the first place to sample the growers’ homemade desserts, baked goods, jams, jellies and sauces. At Delfino Farms, the county visitors authority credits Joan Delfino with the idea of selling sweets there. Her Walkin’ Pie is still sold, and the next generation of the family runs the farm. That source calls the founder “Ed Delfino.” “It’s never easy to get farmers to agree on anything,” Bolster observed, “but they did agree on forming the growers association.” Delfino later claimed a first: “Apple Hill was the first ranch marketing effort in Northern California.”

From sixteen apple ranches the association has grown past fifty farms. The member farms, it says, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the decades building and advertising the name. Some of the older trees remain. According to the history page, the Bolsters gathered antique apple varieties at Hilltop Ranch. Larsen’s Ranch keeps an Apple Hill museum, according to the county visitors authority. In its orchard grows a Rhode Island Greening, believed to be the oldest apple tree in El Dorado County.