Those of us who live in Frederick, Maryland, know that one of the great perks is being surrounded by beautiful farmland that makes for lots of great excursions into the countryside. This includes wineries, breweries, and farmers markets.
One of our favorites, where you can do a little of just about everything in a farm outing, is Rock Hill Orchards near Mount Airy.
A Mount Airy Orchard to Experience All Kinds of Great Farming Fun
Farm stores and farmers markets usually offer a variety of fun experiences for everyone in a family. Some have ‘pick your own’ fields for apple picking or other fruit u-pick. Some are simply places to buy fresh produce directly from the source. Some offer meat or dairy, like beef or chicken direct from their farm, or ice cream and milk from their dairy cows.
Rock Hill Orchards, which includes the Woodbourne Creamer, allows you to do just about all these things depending on the time of year you visit. We recently visited to do some peach picking and blackberry picking, which was as fun as ever. But what really blew us away was the pick-your-own flower experience they offer, which was an Instagram dream.
Rock Hill Orchard and Woodbourne Creamery Basics
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Location: Ridge Road ~4.5 miles south of Mt Airy (see below)
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Distance from Frederick: 21 Miles, ~21 Minutes
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Hours: Wednesday to Saturday 10 am to 6 pm, Sunday 10 am to 5 pm
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Web: rockhillorchard.com
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Activities: Pick Your Own (variety of fruits depending on season), Farm Store, Creamery w/ Ice Cream, Pick You Own Flowers, Pumpkin Patch, Corn Maze. Read on for more.
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The Pick Your Own Experience at Rock Hill Orchard
If picking your own fresh produce is what you’re looking for, Rock Hill Orchard gives you plenty of options. Depending on the season, you can pick strawberries, pick apples, pick blackberries, pick peaches, or pick pumpkins in the fall.
Our recent trip in the middle of July allowed us to pick both peaches and blackberries, and we came home with plenty of each. The peaches were abundant in the orchard. In fact, the most difficult part of the process is 1) deciding how big a bag you want to fill and 2) choosing which of the dozens of peach trees you want to select your peaches.
We wandered blissfully through the orchard (with guidance from the friendly staff) looking for the biggest, ripest, most perfect peaches for us to take home. In fact, I started tasted the fruit on the ground as a way to test how sweet a particular tree’s peaches were.
Picking blackberries was just as ‘fruitful’. The Rock Hill Orchard blackberry farm is filled with large, sweet, succulent blackberries, so much so that you have to pace yourself, or your bags will fill up quickly.
Being 6 feet tall, my strategy quickly turned to focusing only on the top of the bushes, where I knew all the kids streaming from school programs were likely not reaching.
The Instagram-Worthy Flower Picking Experience at Rock Hill
Picking fresh fruits in the orchards is loads of fun, especially with kids and dogs.
But if you want to take your Mount Airy Farm Market experience to another level, take advantage of Rock Hill’s U-Pick Flowers opportunity. They brand it as a ‘fill a jar’ offering and trust me, it’s next level.
The U-Pick flowers is not complicated, pay for your jar (which literally is $25 for a Mason Jar they give you), plus a pair of gardening scissors.
Then, you are set free in an expansive flower garden with rows of bright, beautiful flowers, including endless bouquets of lavender, hibiscus, sunflowers, zinnias, and various other wildflowers.
The picture opportunities are continuous, and the dilemmas are similar to those in the peach and blackberry orchards: choosing which flowers to cut and not filling your jar too quickly.
Really, this is a beautiful area, and I could not help thinking that with a little more marketing, curating and social media blasts, this ‘Fill Your Jar with Fresh Cut Flowers’ experience at Rock Hill could be something that people pay $95 for.
The Cow-to-Cone Ice Cream Shop
The first thing I ever noticed about this place was a portion of the sign that said Ice Cream: Cow-to-Cone. It’s a funny play on the more common ‘Farm-to-Table’ description that describes what so many citygoers are looking for in restaurants.
Rock Hill Orchards is also home to Woodbourne Creamery, and let me assure you the ice cream is fresh, delicious, and popular. Woodbourne claims to be the only and last dairy farm in Montgomery County.
The cows are part of a herd of Golden Guernsey cows that produce 100% A2A2 Guernsey Milk.
Guernsey cows are known for being the most efficient at turning grass into milk. The resulting milk is golden in color due to the beta carotene and is higher in vitamins and protein than regular milk.
At Woodbourne, you can buy this milk, but the patrons mostly come for the ice cream, whose flavors change regularly and keep the families, kids, and Frederick residents coming back.
I can attest that this ice cream hits different. You notice the creamy, silky feel that is just different from store-bought ice cream. Reading up on the Woodbourne Creamery, you learn why.
This ice cream is not only made on the farm but it is also made from their own Guernsey milk, which is not homogenized. This keeps the fat unevenly distributed throughout the ice cream, giving it a different sensation in your mouth than store-bought ice cream.
During our recent visit, I tried the Chocolate Chip, and Nicole had Maple Vanilla. Both were divine and made me want to try the 4-5 other flavors on the menu. Woodbourne rotates a whole series of flavors throughout the year.
Other Ways Rock Hill Allows You to Experience Great Farming Fun
While our particular visit was focused on u pick peaches, blackberries, and flowers, with ice cream as a reward, there’s many other ways to enjoy this fabulous Mt Airy Orchard. They have a standard product farm market with all kinds of items, such as
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Pre-Picked Fruits and Veggies
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A2A2 Guernsey Milk
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Ice Cream
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Honey
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Pies
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Jams and Jellies
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Cider (in season)
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Swing by just like you would any other farmers market and get your produce and other homemade items.
More Fall Fun at the Mt Airy Rock Hill Orchard
Fall brings more fall fun at Rock Hill, usually starting in September. Apple Picking is one of the highlights, and there are upwards of 25 apple varietals at Rock Hill. Some are ripe and ready as early as September.
There’s a Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch that open late September as well. Since this is a busy time of year and is a popular activity, it’s well worth going to their reservations page to book these activities in advance.
You can also visit the dairy and the cows for live milking demonstrations. Be aware in the Fall Rock Hill is open only on weekends.
A Splendid Farm Outing from Frederick with Lots of Options
Rock Hill caters a lot to Montgomery County’s population, which is traveling north to find authentic farm fun. We are lucky in Frederick to have more options for day trips, but Rock Hill Orchards and Woodbourne Creamery definitely need to be on your list of outs for farmers markets, U Pick Patches, fresh Ice Cream, and other Farm Fun.
