Lang's Orchard

17411 Secor Road
815-568-7547

History:

What began as a few dozen apple trees for family and friends in 1975, evolved to what it is today - Lang's Orchard. Along the way, we discovered there is more to raising apples than planting a few trees and watching them grow, i.e. rootstock, pollination, diseases, cultivars, pruning techniques, full dwarf trees were a lot bigger than today's dwarfs.  What varieties do customers want? Back in the late 70's, Red Delicious was everyone's favorite (boy, did we overplant those); in the late 80's, Gala came on the market (this is still my favorite apple); today the new kid on the block is Honeycrisp. We also planted a few of the old standards varieties, like McIntosh and Golden Delicious. So today, we have 13 varieties of apples.

The more we planted, the more we learned. The more Steve learned, the more he discovered how little he knew. Steve read a Lot of books; attended a lot of classes and  seminars. This was before the www era. He had to go digging to get information. Along the way, we experimented with raising pigs, turkeys and three children. One year, we even had ducks (what a mess!!!!).

Through all our trials and errors, we discovered one thing - we wanted an "old-fashioned orchard." We recalled coming out of the city and going out to the country to just pick apples. Nothing else!!! This is what we wanted. Families coming out, picking beautiful, fresh apples and having a good time without  breaking the budget on entertainment. We do not charge parking fees, admission fees and just-because-there-are-extra-people-in-the-car fees. We don't charge for empty bags - only the bags full of gorgeous apples. Bon Appetit!!!


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