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Sweetser's Apple Barrel and Orchards
(207)829-3074
19 Blanchard Road (just off Route 9), Cumberland
(207)829-3074
19 Blanchard Road (just off Route 9), Cumberland
Open August through November 10-6 daily.
Connie and Dick Sweetser are the present owners of this orchard that has been bearing fruit since the 1880s. Their open-air fruit stand sells all the apples as they ripen, including Connie's favorites, the Red Gravensteins, crisp and complex in flavor, that last just a couple of weeks in September. By October you can find the winter apples here, the ones that keep well in the refrigerator and can be used to make a pie or for a baked apple, like Northern Spy and Wolfe River.
A variety native to this orchard, the Rolfe, or Rholfe-Sweetser, has been grafted and cultivated by Fedco Trees. New trees are growing that will fruit in a few years, keeping alive another rare tree from Maine's 18th-century orchards. Cider, squash from nearby farms, and dried beans from up north are also sold here.