Honey Hill Orchard

Our take

The short version

Honey Hill Orchard has operated in Waterman, DeKalb County, Illinois, since 1965, and several “best in the US for apple picking” roundups single it out — yet it wasn’t previously in this dataset, despite nearby Kuipers, Royal Oak, and All Seasons already being included. The orchard’s own site gives an unusually specific 2026 ramp-up schedule, which is worth working around directly.

A staged opening, not a single start date

Most records in this batch give a single season start date, if any. Honey Hill’s own site breaks it down further: opening day is September 3, 2026, but that day only runs 9am to 1pm — a shortened schedule, likely to manage the initial rush. From September 5 through 8, hours stay limited. Full daily hours, 9am to 5:30pm, don’t begin until September 10, running through Halloween on October 31. If you’re planning a trip for that first week of September, call ahead or check the site’s “Harvest Update” page, since the orchard is explicit that it doesn’t publish fixed picking dates beyond this general ramp-up — availability depends on what’s ready.

25 varieties, unnamed

The site advertises “25 varieties of apples” as a headline number, but doesn’t name them. That’s a meaningful gap if you’re trying to plan around a specific apple — there’s no way to confirm from the record alone whether an early variety like Ginger Gold or a late one like GoldRush is part of the mix. Treat the 25-variety claim as a general indicator of breadth rather than something you can plan a visit around.

Worth a phone call: a conflicting “closed” flag

The research notes flag something worth taking seriously: Yelp’s listing for Honey Hill shows a “temporarily closed” status from an earlier period. But the orchard’s own site currently advertises 2026 season hours and a specific opening day, which suggests it is operating this season. That’s a real discrepancy, not a resolved one — before driving out, a quick call to 815-264-3337 is the sensible way to confirm the farm is open as of your visit date, especially given the stale directory flag.

More than just an orchard

The activities list gives a strong sense of a full family outing: a petting zoo, a straw maze, wagon rides, a pumpkin patch, and an 1880s apple barn that’s been converted into a craft and gift loft. That historic barn detail is a nice, checkable specific — it suggests some age and character to the property beyond a purely modern operation. Cider donuts are confirmed on-site as well, though a working cider mill is explicitly marked false in the record, so don’t expect to watch cider being pressed here.

Getting there

The address is 11783 Waterman Rd, Waterman, IL 60556. The listed coordinates are Waterman town-center coordinates rather than a geocode of the farm’s own parcel, so treat the map pin as approximate and navigate by the street address.

Bottom line

Honey Hill Orchard gives you one of the more specific 2026 schedules in this batch, right down to opening-day hours, which makes it easier to plan a first-week visit than most records here. The one loose thread — a “temporarily closed” flag on an older directory listing that conflicts with the orchard’s own current season announcement — is worth clearing up with a quick phone call before you go.