Agritourism & Farm Experiences near Galena, IL

Galena

Murphy's Gardens is a family-run greenhouse and produce farm three miles outside downtown Galena, growing perennials, shrubs, natives, and grasses across seven greenhouses. Fresh produce comes off the property from June through October alongside the plant inventory. The business started small roughly 30 years ago and has grown into one of the larger retail nurseries in the tri-state Galena area.

Galena

Wooded Wonderland pairs a working hardwood sawmill with a u-pick blueberry patch, an unusual combination for the hills east of Galena. The mill turns logs into lumber and wide-plank flooring on-site, while the country store sells local furniture, crafts, honey, jams, and smoking chips cut from the same wood. Blueberry season is the farm side of an otherwise lumber-focused operation.

Bellevue

Annie's Acres has grown strawberries outside Bellevue since 1987, pick-your-own through June with clean rows and containers provided at the stand. Pre-picked orders are also available for anyone who wants the berries without the bending. The farm is open Monday through Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with berries also showing up at area markets outside the June rush.

Cuba City

A family farm outside Cuba City, in the rolling dairy and crop country of far southwestern Wisconsin near the Grant-Lafayette county line. No website or product list turned up online, so what they grow or sell isn't documented here.

Dubuque

Schuster's Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze operates on Schueller Heights Road outside Dubuque, offering pumpkins and a corn maze as its core fall draw. The farm maintains a standing website, though current hours and pricing weren't independently confirmed — check before visiting.

Woodbine Township

Terrapin Orchards sits on US Route 20 in Jo Daviess County, near Elizabeth in Illinois' Driftless Area. The orchard also turns up on regional honey directories, suggesting bees work the property alongside the fruit trees. Details are thin online — this is a small operation best reached by phone or a visit rather than a website.

Elizabeth

Dittmar Farms & Orchard grows 15-plus apple varieties outside Elizabeth in Jo Daviess County, with pick-your-own pumpkins on fall weekends, sweet corn through midsummer, and apple cider donuts at the farm stand. The property also rents out a treehouse and a cabin, and runs antique-tractor and ATV tours when weather allows. It's a bigger multi-season operation than most orchards this far into northwest Illinois.

Bellevue

Papa's Pumpkin Patch sits on 360th Avenue outside Bellevue, a Mississippi River town in Jackson County known for its bluffs and lock and dam. It's a family pumpkin patch operating each fall on the property.

Sherrill

Fall Harvest Days & Pumpkin Festival runs on the Spoerl family's Hammerand Road grounds outside Sherrill, and it's free to get in. The lineup leans toward the low-key end of fall attractions — hay wagon rides, a kiddie train, pedal tractor pulls, running gas engines, pony rides, and fall decorating supplies pulled straight from the farm. It's open dawn to dusk, seven days a week during the season.

Sabula

Gene Gravert planted this orchard in 1986, and it's grown to more than 65 apple varieties across 600-plus trees along Iowa's Great River Road between Dubuque and the Quad Cities. The on-site store sells apples alongside home-made jams, cider, honey, and pickles, and the orchard opens its rows for u-pick apple season.

Camp Albrecht Acres is a 40-acre residential respite camp for people with special needs, founded in 1978 and run as a private nonprofit funded entirely by donations and fundraisers. Campers swim, do arts and crafts, fish the camp pond, and visit the on-site Beidler Nature Center, with 24-hour nursing staff and camper-to-counselor ratios as tight as one-to-one. It's a working respite facility set on farmland outside Dubuque, not a farm in the agricultural sense.

Lancaster

Vesperman Farms has worked this land near Lancaster, in southwestern Wisconsin's Grant County, since 1900, and today it churns hand-packed ice cream on site. The fall festival runs mid-September through October with a corn maze, tractor rides, barn animals, a zipline, giant slides, and yard games, plus school and homeschool days. Other events include Breakfast with the Bunny, Baby Animal Fest, and a Mother's Day brunch. The ice cream truck serves throughout the season.

South Wayne

A honey producer near South Wayne, in the dairy-and-pasture country of Wisconsin's Green County along the Illinois line. The name points to raw local honey, though no website or product list turned up to confirm what they sell or where to buy it.