Most people who live in Solebury associate the farms with fall. Apple picking in September. Wagon rides in October. Cider donuts on a cold Saturday morning. That version of the township is real, and for a certain kind of weekend it is hard to improve on. But it captures only the final chapter of a calendar that opens in late June, runs straight through high summer, and belongs almost entirely to the people who live here year-round.
Solebury Orchards opens its market in late June and runs through the following April. The pick-your-own season begins even earlier, when cherries and blueberries ripen first, followed by blackberries, then peaches, pears, and plums, with apples arriving in September and October. By the time the seasonal visitors find their way to 3325 Creamery Road in New Hope, the berries have been gone for weeks. Residents who knew the schedule picked blueberries in July on 80 quiet acres with no ticketed entry windows and no line at the counter.
That is the practical value of knowing how the farm calendar actually works. The rest of this piece maps it.
What Comes Before the Apples
The pick-your-own program at Solebury Orchards runs rain or shine, priced by the pound for whatever you pick. During summer months, the farm operates Thursday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. In winter months, it shifts to Saturdays only from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The market sells fruit grown on the surrounding property, along with the orchard's own apple cider, pressed without added sugar or preservatives, and the cider donuts that have built a quiet reputation across Bucks County.
The sequence of crops is the thing worth memorizing. Cherries and blueberries come first in late June. Blackberries follow through July. Peaches, pears, and plums arrive in late summer. Apples dominate from September onward, with wagon rides through the orchards running on fall weekends. Each window is its own reason to visit. The blueberry window in late June is also the window in which you are sharing the farm with neighbors, not day-trippers.
For residents who have only ever gone in October, the rest of the season is essentially a private version of the same farm.
Manoff Market Gardens and the Cidery It Added
Manoff Market Gardens has been part of Solebury's agricultural fabric long enough that its peaches need no introduction to longtime residents. The farm's reputation for them extends well beyond the county line; reviews on the property's TripAdvisor listing from 2026 describe visitors making the trip from New York City and Philadelphia specifically during peach season, noting that the fruit has no meaningful local rival for flavor. The pick-your-own blackberries run through summer, and one reviewer described the blackberry tunnel with berries described as "the size of quarters." The farm grows apples and flowers as well, with the apple market stocked through winter.
What changed more recently is the addition of a hard cidery on the property. Tasting flights are served overlooking the orchards. The management response to a review on the farm's TripAdvisor listing states simply: "We are happy to have the hard cidery as part of our business now." For visitors who remembered the farm stand as a ten-minute stop, the cidery turns a trip into an afternoon. Manoff Cidery also appears as a vendor at the Wrightstown Farmers Market on Saturdays, which gives residents a low-commitment way to try the ciders before driving out.
The Sequence, Mapped
The farms are not interchangeable. They peak at different times, serve different purposes, and reward different schedules. This is the sequence that keeps residents in the right crop window throughout the warm months:
| When | What's Available |
|---|---|
| Late June | Cherries, blueberries open for PYO at Solebury Orchards |
| July | Blackberries at Solebury Orchards and Manoff Market Gardens |
| August | Manoff's peaches at peak; pears and plums at Solebury Orchards |
| September–October | Apple PYO, wagon rides, cider donuts at Solebury Orchards |
| April–November | Native Plant Nursery open at Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve |
| Year-round | Daily trails at Bowman's Hill; Delaware Canal towpath |
The table is a framework for avoiding the most common error: arriving in October, concluding that the farm season has just begun, and leaving before the following June without knowing what was available all summer.
The Canal Path Between Them
The Delaware Canal State Park towpath runs along the eastern edge of Solebury Township, connecting the farm properties and the preserve along a continuous walking and cycling corridor. The canal itself, a 60-mile National Historic Landmark waterway, parallels the Delaware River from Easton to Bristol, and the Solebury stretch runs through some of the flattest and most accessible terrain on the entire route. On a summer morning, the towpath between New Hope and Point Pleasant is quiet before 8 a.m. and considerably less so by 10.
The practical function of the canal path for residents is that it turns separate destinations into a single outing. Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve at 1635 River Road sits just north of New Hope along the canal corridor. Manoff Market Gardens lies within easy reach further up the river road. The path itself does not require a parking spot, a reservation, or a fee. It requires only knowing that it is there.
The Preserve That Belongs to Its Neighbors
Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve is where Solebury's outdoor calendar has its most permanent anchor. Located at 1635 River Road in New Hope, the 134-acre preserve holds more than 700 of Pennsylvania's native plant species across 4.5 miles of trails that wind through forest, meadow, and alongside streams and ponds. The preserve describes itself as the only accredited outdoor museum in the country dedicated solely to native plants — a living collection rather than a curated garden, organized around plant communities that grow in place.
Trails are open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last entry at 4 p.m. The Native Plant Nursery, which carries more than 200 species grown from locally sourced seeds including cardinal flower, Virginia bluebells, and butterfly weed, is open April through November. In March 2026, the Doylestown Observer covered the nursery's spring opening and the preserve's upcoming fundraiser, Rooted in Our Future, held April 25. The Bucks County Herald reported on the event, noting more than 200 supporters gathered for an evening featuring live jazz from the Dave Dales Trio and botanical libations from Bluestem Botanicals, led by honorary co-host Jenny Rose Carey.
The fundraiser matters to the preserve's finances. The trails on an ordinary Tuesday morning in May matter to residents. Those are two different relationships with the same property, and the second one is available to anyone who lives within a few miles of the river road.
Where All of It Converges on Saturdays
The Wrightstown Farmers Market, organized by the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance, runs every Saturday through late November. Both Solebury Orchards and Manoff Cidery are listed vendors, alongside Blooming Glen Farm, Rolling Hills Farm, Holben Valley Farm, Honey Hills Apiary, Red Brick Craft Distillery, Primordia Mushroom Farm, and others. The market also hosts cooking demonstrations, kids' activities, and live music through its season.
For residents, the market operates as a weekly checkpoint rather than a destination. It is where you pick up a jar of Solebury Orchards apple cider in mid-June before the orchard's summer market opens, or where you try a Manoff hard cider on a Saturday in July before committing to the drive out to the cidery. The vendors shift week by week as crops ripen. The table at a farm stand that held blueberries in late June holds peaches by August. Showing up in the same season but the wrong week means missing it entirely.
That rhythm is the compressed version of everything above. Solebury's farm season is not a single weekend in October. It is a sequence that opens in late June and that runs on a schedule most residents only figure out after their first full year here. The residents who know it treat the orchard, the market, the canal path, and the preserve as a single weekly rotation, not as separate occasional outings.
If you are thinking about a home in Solebury or the surrounding Bucks County area, Addison Wolfe Real Estate is a boutique brokerage based in New Hope with deep knowledge of this market. We are glad to connect.
