6 Lancaster County Farm Stops to Make Before Summer Ends
From farm-fresh ice cream and just-picked sweet corn to orchards overflowing with late-summer fruit, these are a few of our favorite ways to savor the season in Lancaster County.
There’s something about late summer in Lancaster County that feels especially abundant.
The corn is tall. Roadside stands are overflowing. And there are just enough warm evenings left to justify stopping for ice cream on the way home.
Around here, eating seasonally doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it simply means keeping a little cash in the glovebox and pulling over when you spot a handwritten produce sign.
And while Lancaster County’s agricultural landscape is beautiful, it’s important to remember that it’s also working land. The farms and markets that make this place so special support livelihoods, feed our communities, and keep a deeply rooted agricultural tradition alive.
So before summer gives way to fall, we’re sharing six stops worth making to taste, experience, and support a little more of what Lancaster County grows.
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This has not been an ordinary year for many of our local growers.
A devastating late-April freeze hit Pennsylvania after many fruit crops had begun emerging from dormancy, causing significant losses to apples, peaches, cherries, nectarines and other specialty crops across the region. State estimates have put potential losses to Pennsylvania's specialty-crop industry between $150 million and $200 million.
Here in Lancaster County, that means some of the pick-your-own experiences we'd normally recommend simply aren't available—or are much more limited—this season. Cherry Hill Orchards, for example, currently lists no pick-your-own cherries, peaches, nectarines or apples for 2026 because of freeze damage.
If pick-your-own is the primary reason for your visit, always check with the farm before heading out.
But we'd also encourage you not to let a limited harvest keep you away. If anything, this is a year to show up.
Weather and uncertainty are realities of production agriculture, but losses of this scale can be devastating for the farms and families behind the food we enjoy. Visit the market. Buy what's available. Pick up a plant, a baked good, a jar from the shelves, or whatever the season did provide.
One of the beautiful things about a strong agricultural community is its ability to rally around the people who feed it. This is a good year to do exactly that.
1. For Fresh-from-the-Farm Ice Cream: Pine View Dairy
Enjoy a fresh scoop of ice cream or frozen yogurt alongside the cows that made the sweet treat possible.
If there’s a better way to spend a late-summer evening than eating ice cream within sight of the cows, we haven’t found it yet.
Pine View Dairy is a family-owned working dairy and one of those wonderfully uncomplicated Lancaster County stops: come for homemade ice cream, pick up fresh dairy from the farm store, and linger for a while. Visitors can see the animals and, during designated times, watch the cows being milked.
It’s exactly the kind of place we love—not an experience manufactured to feel like a farm, but a real working farm that happens to make a very good ice cream cone.
Hall & Harvest tip: Go in the evening, grab a scoop, and enjoy the last of the summer light. This is what late August is for.
2. For the Sweet Corn (& Other Bargain Produce): The Corn Wagon
First come, first served…the early bird gets the worm at The Corn Wagon, open from July through November.
If you know, you know.
The Corn Wagon is a seasonal, family-run roadside stand that has become a Lancaster staple for fresh sweet corn. You'll also find whatever else the season is producing—tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and more—but the corn is the star. Lancaster Farmland Trust even includes it among its staff picks for local sweet corn.
This isn't the kind of place you need to make an afternoon out of. That's part of its charm. Pull over. Grab what looks good. Figure out dinner afterward.
Hall & Harvest tip:Go earlier in the day for the best selection, and bring cash. Popular produce—especially the corn—will sell out.
3. For a Little Bit of Everything: Cherry Hill Orchards
Beyond a gorgeous selection of annuals, perennials, and farm-fresh produce, Cherry Hill is a destination for stocking up on local Lancaster delicacies.
Cherry Hill is one of those places we find ourselves returning to throughout the growing season—and not just for the orchard.
Yes, they’re known for fruit, but their year-round farm market is also stocked with fresh produce, baked goods, preserves and other seasonal finds, while the garden center makes it one of our favorite stops when it’s time to get something growing.
In fact, quite a bit of what’s currently growing in our own garden started here, including several of the cool-season vegetables we recently planted for a late harvest.
That's part of what we love about Cherry Hill: it isn't simply somewhere to visit for an afternoon of picking. It's the kind of local agricultural business that becomes part of the rhythm of the seasons. In spring, we're looking for plants. By summer, we're stopping for produce. And as the season turns, there's always something new coming through the market.
Hall & Harvest tip:Don't let the lack of pick-your-own fruit this year keep you from visiting. Stop into the market, grab an apple cider donut, browse the garden center to see what's in season, and bring something local home.
4. For Pasture-Raised Meats: Breakaway Farms at Lancaster Central Market
A small sample of the amazing, Lancaster County-raised beef offerings the Breakaway Farms Central Market Stand.
Lancaster’s Central Market gets plenty of attention—and for good reason—but when we go, there’s one stand we always make a point of visiting: Breakaway Farms.
Based in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, Breakaway Farms raises livestock on pasture and specializes in locally raised meats, from beef and pork to poultry and specialty products. You can find them at Lancaster Central Market, where you can browse the case and choose your cuts fresh, or order directly from the farm online.
Our personal recommendation? The steaks. We've brought home some truly incredible cuts from their stand, and there's something particularly satisfying about knowing more about where the meat on your table was raised.
It’s also one of our favorite examples of what makes Central Market worth visiting beyond the historic building itself: the opportunity to build relationships with the individual farmers, growers, bakers and producers behind the stands.
Hall & Harvest tip: Bring a cooler bag if you're spending the rest of the morning downtown. Pick out your steaks first; wander afterward.
5. For Produce With a Preservation Story: Meck's Produce
Beyond fresh, straight-from-the farm produce, Meck’s also offers a smattering of other pantry staples, including baked goods, canned goods, and dairy products.
There are plenty of places to buy beautiful produce in Lancaster County. Meck's Produce & Farm Market comes with a pretty remarkable story behind it.
The family-owned and operated farm grows the produce sold at its market, but the land itself is also part of Lancaster County agricultural history: the Meck farm became the 1,000th farm preserved by the Lancaster County Agricultural Preserve Board—a milestone that represented more than 75,000 acres of permanently preserved farmland in the county.
That makes this one especially meaningful to us.
Farmland preservation can sound abstract until you're standing in a market buying food grown on land that will remain available for agriculture for generations to come. This is what preservation looks like in practice.
Stop for whatever is coming out of the fields right now, and let the season dictate what you bring home.
Hall & Harvest tip: This is a buy what looks good and plan dinner afterward kind of stop—the best kind, if you ask us.
Fewer things make us feel at home like a warm, fresh-baked breads and pastries! Even better when they’re small batch and locally made.
6. For Artisanal Bread + Something Sweet: Front Porch Baking Co.
There are few things we'll happily brake for faster than a good farm stand.
Fresh bread might be one of them.
Front Porch Baking Co. in Millersville, Pennsylvania is a small-batch bakery specializing in naturally leavened breads and European-inspired pastries, with an emphasis on traditional techniques, local ingredients when possible, and the kind of baking that takes a little more time.
It's exactly the sort of craftsmanship Hall & Harvest loves: taking something seemingly ordinary—bread, a morning pastry—and making it exceptionally well.
Pick up a loaf for the weekend. Add a pastry because you're already there. Then try to make it home without tearing into either one in the car.
We make no promises.
Hall & Harvest tip: Small-batch means just that. Check what's being offered and when before you go—and if there's something you're particularly excited about, don't assume it'll still be waiting for you late in the day.
