Champlain Orchards Shoreham
— — the rows that ripen in order from August to October.
Not only on a wall.
“An orchard worked by the same family on a rise west of Route 22A, with the lake on one side and the Adirondacks across the water. About 220 acres of apples, peaches, plums, and pears, grown under eco-certified practice, pressed into cider in the barn behind the store. The first Paula Reds come off the trees in mid-August. By mid-October it is Northern Spies, woodsmoke, and a line at the cider window. The kind of place where the dog at the till knows the regulars.
Champlain Orchards Shoreham, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Champlain Orchards sits on a low rise in Shoreham, Addison County, about two miles from the shore of Lake Champlain and roughly fifty miles south of Burlington. The orchard has been worked since 1949 and is now run by Bill and Andrea Suhr, who took it on in 1998. Roughly 220 acres are planted to more than 150 varieties of apples, plus peaches, pears, plums, sweet and tart cherries, and small fruit. The farm is certified eco-Apple and Bee Better Certified, with solar arrays running the cold storage and the cider press.
Pick-your-own opens in late August with Paula Red and Ginger Gold, moves through McIntosh and Honeycrisp in September, and finishes with Northern Spy, Empire, and Macoun into late October. Peaches run from late July through August. The press makes hard cider, sweet cider, and ice cider through the cold months. Apple bloom in the second week of May draws beekeepers from across the Champlain Valley; the farm is one of about thirty in the country certified Bee Better for pollinator-friendly practice.
The farm store at 3597 Route 74 West is open daily through the harvest season, with shorter winter hours. Pick-your-own runs weekends from late August into October; check the website before driving up because varieties open and close on a few days' notice. The orchard sits about twelve miles north of the Crown Point Bridge to New York and about eight miles south of the Ticonderoga ferry. No admission fee. Dogs welcome at the store, not in the rows.