23 Farms & Attractions for Classic Fall Fun in Greater Philadelphia in 2023

September 8 – October 29, 2023 (select dates)

Bucks County’s Shady Brook Farm gets into the Halloween season with the family-friendly FallFest, featuring wagon rides, barnyard animals and festive walkthrough attractions. Pick out a perfect sunflower (while supplies last), head to the pumpkin patch to pick your own or explore the five-acre corn maze before relaxing in by the fire pit with live music and food and spirited drinks available. After dark, hop on the special wagon ride for the not-so-spooky Eerie Illuminations Halloween light show with friendly fiends and dancing characters (requires a separate ticket).

It’s slightly-spooky season at Bucks County’s Peddler’s Village (just 45-minutes north of Center City Philadelphia) for the annual Scarecrows in the Village display. Over 100 scarecrows — all handmade by local Philly crafters — line the charming getaway’s brick pathways. In between your shopping and dining, check out the scarecrow creations, and vote for your favorite (via paper ballot or the village’s mobile app). Kick off the festivities with the Scarecrow Festival on September 16 and 17, 2023, or join up for scarecrow-making workshops (September 16, 17, 23 and 30, 2023) and take home your own scarecrow.

Hellerick’s Family Farm brings agricultural ingenuity when they repurpose farm equipment for family fun as the centerpiece of the annual Fall Festival. Before (or after) heading out to pick one of thousands of pumpkins and gourds, enjoy 18 acres of fun at Adventure Farm with over 40 activities, including a five-acre corn maze, 100-foot corn chute slide, a corn box (loose corn instead of sand!), wagon ride, Amish scooter track, human foosball, echo tubes and plenty of goats, sheep and chickens. Don’t miss the fresh baked goods and cider.

September 16 – October 29, 2023 (weekends only)

Fresh produce from raspberries to peaches fill 200 acres at Highland Orchards, a working farm in West Chester that’s been family-owned since 1941. During Fall Festival Weekends, the farm comes alive with pick-your-own pumpkins and apples (featuring free shuttles to the fields) and country hayrides. Finish your day at the on-site farmers market overflowing with fruits and veggies right off the farm and grab a stack of the famous apple-cider donuts. Better yet: Stick around a bit at the Levante Brewing beer garden.

The name says it all when Linvilla Orchards’ annual Pumpkinland opens its doors for the season. The gourd gala features a slew of daytime ticketed activities like harvest hayrides around the farm, corn and (slightly harder) straw bale mazes, apple blaster target shooting, pick-your-own crops, fishing in Orchard Lake, and pony and train rides. Things get slightly spookier after dark with moonlight hayrides around the farm or to the nearby Witch’s House that end at a campfire with cider and marshmallows. Don’t miss the season kickoff Arts & Craft Festival, September 23 and 24, 2023.

September 23 – October 29, 2023 (weekends only)

Home to the super-spooky Bates Motel, Arasapha Farm also serves up family-friendly fun during the annual Harvest Hayride. Hop on the wagon and head out to the four-acre pumpkin garden to pick your own from hundreds of choices, then get yourself lost in the brand-new five-acre corn maze (featuring a virtual scavenger hunt). The fun also includes a bevy of other farm fun activities like an oversized bounce pillow, tractor-themed playground, mini-golf, pedal cars, a tire tower and a chance to hit the target with barrel-mounted corn cannons.

With two-hour timed admissions, Milky Way Farms’ Pumpkin Harvest offers a stroll through eight acres of pumpkins (up to 25,000 a year!), visits with the farm’s beloved animals and a wander through the cornfield maze (for an additional charge). Pumpkins, gourds, Indian corn, squash, cornstalk bundles and more fall décor are available for purchase. After your visit, stop by the on-site Chester Springs Creamery for a scoop (or three) of homemade ice cream where the shop’s 48 flavors are each named after a cow from the farm’s herd.

September 23 – October 29, 2023 (weekends only)

You’re never too young to get into the fall spirit, and Fall Harvest Weekends at Bucks County’s Charlann Farms are tailor-made for the little ones. Every ticketed child receives a sugar pumpkin to decorate at the pumpkin-painting table before taking a free hayride to the pick-your-own pumpkin patch (priced per pound). Kids two and up can also enjoy activities like a jump pad, autumn obstacle course, straw maze, corn toss, a corn pit, pumpkin tic-tac-toe and more. Pony rides and a corn maze are available for an additional fee.

September 30 – October 29, 2023 (weekends only)

For the 12th season, Froehlich’s Farm in Bucks County holds its Fall Festival, offering the quintessential pumpkin patch experience along with a plethora of kid-friendly activities like hayrides around the farm (with unique hay bale scenes), a pumpkin shootout, a monster slide, and plenty of games and snacks (try the fried Oreos!). While the little ones play, adults can enjoy time around the bonfire (complete with s’mores kits) alongside live local music, craft vendors, and adult beverages from The Proper Brewing Company and Sand Castle Winery.

October 1-29, 2023 (weekends only)

The mission at Morrisville’s Snipes Farm and Education Center is getting kids excited about animals and nature. During Fall Festival weekends in October, kids can meet gentle farm animals up close, take a Belgian horse-drawn wagon ride or tractor-drawn hayride, pick their own in the pumpkin patch or flower field, visit the land of scarecrows, walk the path to the bird blind or the nature trail, climb a giant hay pyramid, solve the straw bale maze and explore the Ol’ Time Farm Museum. Don’t miss cider and donuts in the Cider Barn before you leave.

When the clock strikes midnight, Philly Mini Golf transforms into Spooky Mini Golf, featuring 18 holes of fog, lights, music and other spooky surprises! Tickets are required — and you can ramp up the frights with the Spooky Twosome Package, which includes discounted admission to Spooky Twilight Tours at the Betsy Ross House (starting October 13, 2023).

After a day at Longwood Gardens celebrating fall’s favorite flower at the brightly colored Chrysanthemum Festival, head over to the arboretum’s Pumpkin Playground (free with admission) for fall fruit-themed play and fun and just a few perfect Instagram opps in the Idea Garden Children’s Corner with pumpkins, gourds, and corn husk towers. Stick around after sunset for the Illuminated Fountain Performances, seasonal color-lighted musical dancing water shows at the magnificent five-acre fountain garden (Thursdays to Saturdays at 8:15 p.m.) featuring music from David Bowie, Mozart, Taylor Swift and more.

Yardley Harvest Day — stretching from downtown along Canal Street to the Delaware River waterfront — celebrates its 55th year in 2023. This community-wide, family-friendly event featuring kids and adult entertainment including magicians, pony rides, face painting, pumpkin painting, balloon twisting, a bounce slide, animals from the Critter Connections Animal Program, the Bucks County Free Library bookmobile, nearly 150 artisans and craft vendors and over two dozen food trucks and food stands.

Enjoy fall fun on the Main Line at the 11th annual Fall Harvest & Pumpkin Patch at The Willows Park in the Villanova section of Radnor Township. The Pennsylvania Recreation & Parks Society Excellence in Programming Award-winning event features fall-themed tractor rides, gem mining, mechanical bull riding, balloon twisters, music and entertainment, food trucks and refreshments and, of course, pumpkin picking and painting. And don’t miss the 31st annual Radnor Fall Festival just up the road in Wayne a few weeks prior on September 17, 2023.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Mennonite Heritage Center’s annual Apple Butter Frolic — a fall staple in Harleysville — celebrating Mennonite heritage, Pennsylvania Dutch culture and farming, food and fun. Enjoy demonstrations on how the Mennonite community lived and worked a century ago before sampling some traditional from-the-farm treats like fresh made scrapple, homemade apple fritters, shoofly pies and much more.

The free Fall Harvest Festival set at the 18th-century Newlin Grist Mill features demonstrations of historic trade skills like candle making, woodworking and milling. This year’s theme, “Food Traditions: Past and Present,” highlights the foods of the 1700s and the cooking techniques and trades that made getting meals from farm to table possible. For pickier eaters, food trucks are also on site dishing out more modern fare.

For 47 years, the borough of Newtown in Bucks County has held the free Newtown Market Day craft show and colonial fair celebrating the traditions of colonial farmers and homesteaders bringing their crops, livestock and wares into town to vend. Today’s modern festival still features fine artists, crafters and an expansive farmer’s market, plus two stages of live music, a puppet show, contests, and fascinating colonial-era demonstrations and reenactments. A full food tent features eats from local restaurants, food trucks and artisan food purveyors.

During the annual two-day Harvest Celebration, the wineries and vineyards along the Bucks County Wine Trail not only hold festive samplings of their award-winning wines but also host special events showcasing the wine grape growing and harvesting process. On the docket: tastings of fresh-pressed grape juices that have not yet fermented into wine. Inquire at individual wineries for time, pricing and tasting information.

Fall isn’t just for pumpkins! Celebrate apple season at Apple Festival, one of the most popular annual events at the Peddler’s Village shopping haven. Now in its 48th year, the event invited visitors to sip on warm apple cider, catch some live entertainment, enjoy apple-themed eats and treats, and pick up freshly picked apples by the bushel. Admission to the rain-or-shine event is free with pay-as-you go food and drink.

Behold fall’s most important insect: the honey bee! Celebrate the significance of bees and their honey at the annual Philadelphia Honey Festival at historic Wyck House. Finish summer sweetly at this buzzy event featuring honey tastings, extraction demonstrations, Hive Talk presentations from the Philadelphia Beekeepers Guild, honey workshops, storytime, scavenger hunts, hands-on cider pressing, a beer and mead tasting tent, and a live bee-bearding exhibition. Free tours of the Wyck House, a National Historic Landmark mansion, museum, garden and urban farm which once functioned as one of America’s first breweries, are also available.

Fall fun for all ages is on full display at Dilworth Park (in front of City Hall) as the three-day-long Harvest Weekend takes up residence with live local music, pumpkin painting and carving demonstrations, roaming circus performers, hay bales, cornstalks and pumpkins aplenty. While enjoying the harvest fun, visit the on-site Made in Philadelphia Fall Market as well, featuring a diverse lineup of over 70 art, photography, jewelry, glassware, woodwork and culinary vendors, plus plenty of fall favorites to eat and drink.

The food, fun and bustle of Reading Terminal Market spill out onto Filbert Street for the annual Harvest Festival street fair. Market vendors showcase plenty of local eats, treats and craft items, particularly from the food hall’s Pennsylvania Dutch merchants. Along with seasonal food specials (both inside and out), the hay bale, pumpkin and corn stalk-decorated festival also features bluegrass music, line dancing, a puppet show, stilt walkers and even ax throwing.

It’s not spooky season if you’re not picking a giant orange fruit (we double-checked this). Bring the kids to Franklin Square for a pick-your-own-pumpkin patch, complete with pumpkin-decorating supplies to get you Halloween-ready. The free family-friendly event is catered to kids 10 and under and supplies are limited (so advance tickets are recommended).