Not a business at all — this is a free, city-run public orchard inside Bismarck's Clem Kelley Athletic Complex where anyone can pick and eat ripe fruit at no charge, with no admission fee, no storefront, and no apple varieties published.
Free public orchard -- pick and eat ripe fruit at no charge; no commercial sales
Bismarck Community Orchard is a free, publicly accessible orchard located inside the Clem Kelley Athletic Complex in Bismarck, North Dakota, and run by the Bismarck Parks & Recreation District. It is not a commercial business — there’s no admission charge, no farm stand, and no apples for sale. Instead, anyone can walk in and pick ripe fruit directly from the trees and shrubs at no cost, during daily hours of sunrise to sunset. This record is included in an apple-orchard directory precisely because North Dakota has very few private, commercial u-pick apple operations, and a genuine, documented, publicly accessible orchard like this one is a real option for anyone in the area who wants to pick apples without needing to find (or pay) a commercial grower.
The park district’s own rules, per its official page, ask visitors to bring their own gloves or picking tools rather than expecting equipment to be provided on-site — a sensible expectation for a facility that isn’t staffed the way a commercial farm stand would be. The park also encourages visitors to donate any surplus produce they pick to a local food pantry, framing the orchard as a shared community resource rather than something meant for any one visitor to strip clean. That framing is worth keeping in mind: this works best as a low-key, honest-use public amenity, not a destination to show up at expecting a curated, managed harvest experience.
No apple varieties are listed anywhere on the park district’s page, and there’s no harvest-timing calendar telling visitors when fruit is likely to be ripe. That’s a genuine gap for planning a visit, but it’s also unsurprising for a municipal park facility rather than a commercial orchard — cities running community orchards generally don’t publish the kind of detailed variety and ripening information that a farm business selling its crop would have an incentive to maintain. If timing matters to you, the most reliable approach is probably checking in person periodically during typical Upper Midwest apple season (roughly late summer into fall) rather than expecting a published calendar.
It would be easy to either skip a listing like this (because it’s not a “real” orchard business) or to write it up as though it were a commercial destination with amenities and curated varieties it doesn’t actually have. Neither would serve a reader well. The honest version is simpler: this is a genuinely free, genuinely public place to pick apples in Bismarck, with no cost and no sales pitch, run by the city’s parks department as a community resource. That’s a legitimate and useful thing for a visitor to know about, even without variety names or a harvest calendar to offer.
No apple varieties, no harvest-timing calendar, and no information about how large the orchard planting actually is or how much fruit it typically produces in a season. Nothing indicates whether the trees are consistently productive year to year or whether availability varies significantly with weather, as is common for fruit trees generally.
Bismarck Community Orchard is exactly what it says: a free, city-run public orchard where anyone can pick and eat ripe fruit at no charge, inside the Clem Kelley Athletic Complex, daily from sunrise to sunset. There’s no pricing to quote because there’s nothing to buy, no varieties to name because none are published, and no reservation needed because it’s open to the public as a park amenity. Treat it as a genuine public resource — bring your own gloves, consider donating extra produce to a food pantry, and don’t expect it to function like a commercial orchard.
Not stated in the record. No harvest-timing calendar or apple varieties are published on the Bismarck Parks & Recreation District's own page for this facility.
you're looking for a commercial orchard experience with named apple varieties, a farm stand, or organized activities — this is a public park orchard, not a business.
No. This is a free public orchard with no admission charge and no commercial sales, per the Bismarck Parks & Recreation District's own page.
Not stated in the record. The park's official page lists no apple-specific varieties or a harvest calendar.
Daily, sunrise to sunset, per the record.
The park's own rules ask visitors to bring their own gloves and tools for picking, and to donate surplus produce to a local food pantry.
No — this is a public community orchard inside the Clem Kelley Athletic Complex, included as a real, visitable apple-picking location because North Dakota has almost no private u-pick apple orchards. It's a public foraging resource, not a farm-stand business.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Daily. Check with the orchard before driving out.
Pricing was not published when we last checked. Free public orchard -- pick and eat ripe fruit at no charge; no commercial sales
Yes — it's a pick-your-own orchard.
517 W. Arbor Ave, Bismarck, ND, in Burleigh County. It is one of 1 orchards we track in Missouri River Valley.
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
bisparks.org
Checked September 2026.