Overlooking Finger Lakes wine country, and blessed with some of the world’s best soil for growing fruit trees, Indian Creek Farm is among the oldest orchards in New York. We offer 40 acres of seasonal picking, including peaches, apples, tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins and more — just 3 minutes north of downtown Ithaca.
You are invited to visit our farmstand full of beautiful fruits and vegetables. Parking is easy and the farmhands aren’t too surly.
If it’s country air you want, and a sense of accomplishment, wander the grounds and try your hand at u-picking. The orchards, veggie fields, and berry patches are your grocery aisles with a view. Don’t forget flowers for Mom.
In our Vintage Orchard, you will find the beloved varieties McIntosh, Rome Beauty, Cortland, Northern Spy and Mutsu. Growing on 100-year-old trees that have weathered the ages, these classic apples are fresh and antique at the same time.
Meanwhile the new Dwarf Orchard, which comes into full swing during 2011, will put an incredible 60 varieties of apples within arm’s reach — and right at eye-level for kids! No junkfood in sight. Til you bake that apple pie tonight.
Ithaca’s Orchard Playground
We think of Indian Creek Farm as the state park with no cover charge. Eight dollars gets you into a state park — it costs nothing to visit the farm. Stroll around, have a picnic, grill out, use the free wireless internet. Why do we offer this? We love the farm and we want to share it.
There are fun spots scattered around, and each month from May through November brings new delights. Come see the seasons at Indian Creek. Bring the kids or bring a date. Hide from the world, read a book, and take in the glorious fall foliage. You can wave to the the dogs and the red-tailed hawk.
During our busy workdays, nothing makes us happier than seeing folks enjoying the place. There are just a few things that we ask while you are here. Please “pack in and pack out,” because it helps keep the farm beautiful. Of course, please pay for what you pick. Everything is based on trust — we won’t frisk you for hidden fruit — and your honesty keeps us open.
Finally, please be safe! Indian Creek is a working farm, so there are tools around and ruts in the ground. Use good sense and tell us if you see a problem to be fixed.
Orchard Ambrosia
Fresh-pressed juice! We make it all season. In this world of processed food we are proud to offer the real thing. We have found a loophole in overzealous state laws – we are allowed to sell cider without pasteurizing it, as long as the label doesn’t say “cider” or “juice.” At Indian Creek Farm, we label it “Orchard Ambrosia,” so we can share the crisp and delicious beverage with the public.
What we offer is freshly squeezed juice straight from apples that were picked from the tree, not the ground. As basic and refreshing as there is.
Want our recipe? We pick 3 or more varieties. We grind them into pulp. We squeeze the pulp. Juice flows. We bottle it. Done! Please feel free to watch the operation when you’re down at the farmstand. It’s pretty neat.
Ask for a free taste of chilled Ambrosia. We make it every week through apple season, so you can buy jugs starting in August and continuing into November.
Looking Ahead
What’s next for Indian Creek? We’re tidying up to make an even better place to share. So far, we’ve cleared most of our farm gear into neat piles out back. We placed tables and grills around the orchards. The u-pick fields are getting new painted signs, and the stand got pendant lights for morning and evening shoppers.
Also, we recently excavated an old concrete barnpad — it will become it a beautiful green space near the farm entrance. How about a cut flower garden? With fieldstone benches and shady spots? Send a message with your ideas about the barnpad or anything else on the farm.
Looking Back
In the old days, central New York was the homeland of the Iroquois. They were the last in a series of Indian peoples to settle the area stretching back more than 10,000 years. One of the original five Iroquois nations, the Cayuga, lived along the shores of the lake which now bears their name — including present-day Indian Creek Farm.
A map from Old Indian Trails in Tompkins County (1944) shows a key footpath running up the west side of Cayuga Lake and crossing Indian Creek, where the farm is today. Some of the creeks in the area, most notably Taughannock, retain their Iroquois names; but the babbling brook which runs through our woods acquired the name “Indian Creek” at some point. So in its own way, the farm recalls a long period of history which seems especially worthy of contemplation.
By the 1790s, following the Revolutionary War and federal campaigns against the Iroquois, a tract of almost 2 million acres in central New York was divided into military bounty lands, and balloted to soldiers for their service against the British. Simeon DeWitt’s map (1802) of the Military Tract of Central New York shows the balloted lots and Indian reservations.
Our 40 acres, along with neighboring farms, were part of a 600-acre parcel granted to a colonial soldier named Alexander Kidd. We haven’t learned much about Kidd or those early years, but we think some sections of the land were farmed continuously throughout the 19th century, while others were logged and reforested. Eventually the farm came into the possession of the Frear family, whose local prominence might ease the search for historical materials about the farm.
Early in the 20th Century, the Vintage Orchard was planted at Indian Creek Farm. Over the years the farm changed hands several times; by 1997, the orchard had fallen into disrepair and a magnificent old barn had burned down. The gnarled trees desperately needed pruning and the grounds were covered with brambles.
That’s when Stephen Cummins took a risk on Indian Creek, hoping to save the old orchard and share it with people who would appreciate it. There he is in the photo, at age 5 in 1968, dragging a load of apples around Dad’s backyard orchard in Geneva.
Which brings us to Dad, Dr. Jim Cummins. During his long tenure at the Cornell University Geneva Experiment Station, Dad got the whole family involved in orchard and nursery work. He had his sights set on developing a new repertoire of apple rootstocks that could resist crown rot and fire blight — the “double whammy” that was killing orchards left and right in the late 1960s.
The whole gang helped cross-pollinate the flowers and produce over 300,000 hybrid seeds. To have a longer plant-breeding season, the family took the camper as far south as the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., and north into Quebec. Much of what we have been able to do at Indian Creek Farm goes back to Dad.
And much goes back to big brother, James, a lifelong orchardist who taught Stephen everything from grafting trees to rebuilding tractor engines. Apprenticing under James gave Stephen the tools to strike out on his own at Indian Creek.
Since the beginning, Stephen has worked side by side with his farming partner, Tony, who has kept us going for fourteen years running. Tony and his dad, “Pops,” have to be thought of as founding members of the ‘Creek and they are family around here. After a few years the farm got a boost from Stephen’s old pal Alan, who traded in his tweed blazer — required dress in the Cornell classics department — for a Carhart and pruning shears. There’s his son, Orson, helping with fall cleanup.
It wasn’t long before a lass called Jen hitched her wagon to the train, when she met Stephen and became The Farmer’s Wife. The dogs of Indian Creek have never been better fed. There’s Maw and Paw strolling the Vintage Orchard.
Well that’s not even the half of it. We could go on and on about everyone who has chipped in to build the farm. Too many friends to name have spent an hour picking apples after their day job, or spent their vacations helping with farm projects. From stacking firewood to polishing peaches, our friends are the real story of Indian Creek.
And to all those customers who sustain us with your visits, thanks for becoming friends of the farm. Hope to see you again this season.
