Delicious Orchards 2023 | Colts Neck, New Jersey

Delicious Orchards

Delicious Orchards is a country food market located in Monmouth County, New Jersey, with close proximity to the Jersey Shore.

It is located in beautiful Colts Neck Township, New Jersey, a wealthy community filled with equestrian farms and large estates.

Delicious Orchards prides itself on carrying many products home-grown in New Jersey! They offer many Jersey Fresh products!

It is an extremely popular place to buy incredible baked goods and gorgeous produce, including lots of pumpkins.

Exterior of Delicious Orchards, Colts Neck, New Jersey

Pumpkins at Delicious Orchards, Colts Neck, New Jersey

The Garden State

New Jersey is known as The Garden State, but that name is really not because of the flowers (although New Jersey has many beautiful gardens.)

According to NJ.gov:

Abraham Browning of Camden is given credit for giving New Jersey the nickname the Garden State. According to Alfred Heston’s 1926 two-volume book Jersey Waggon Jaunts, Browning called New Jersey the Garden State while speaking at the Philadelphia Centennial exhibition on New Jersey Day (August 24, 1876).

Browning said that our Garden State is an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and New Yorkers from the other. The name stuck ever since.

However, Benjamin Franklin is credited with a similar comparison of New Jersey to a barrel tapped at both ends. Some have used that to discredit Browning with naming the Garden State.

In 1954, the state legislature passed a bill to have “The Garden State” added to license plates. Before signing the bill into law, Governor Robert Meyner investigated the origins of the nickname and found “no official recognition of the slogan Garden State as an identification of the state of New Jersey.” He added, “I do not believe that the average citizen of New Jersey regards his state as more peculiarly identifiable with gardening for farming than any of its other industries or occupations.” Governor Meyner vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode the veto. The slogan was added to license plates soon after.

According to the Rutgers University New Jersey Digital Highway:

While science and technology played a major role in the industrialization of New Jersey, it also gave rise to new ideas and theories that were tested in agricultural research laboratories and farm fields. This application of science and technology to problems confronting the farmer slowed the disappearance of New Jersey farms and produced a more bountiful harvest that to the present day brings food to your table. It also gave rise to new areas of agricultural enterprise in areas that previously had been deemed unsuitable due to sour or acidic soils. Thus, “The Garden State” slogan, while somewhat archaic as we enter the 21st century, still characterizes a shrunken but nonetheless important part of the state’s economy.

History of the Market

The original orchards date back to 1911. It grew to over 110 acres of fresh produce.

According to the store’s website:

Carroll W. Barclay took over the operation of Delicious Orchards after World War II and began to change the operations from strictly wholesale to a mix of retail.

In 1959, Barclay hauled several wagonloads of apples to the roadside and set up a makeshift stand. This success with the public led to the construction of a 1,200 square foot stand the following year, and the modern-day Delicious Orchards was born.

Barclay catered to the needs of the public, expanding the product lines to include fresh apple cider and his wife Janet’s apple pie (whose recipe we still use today). And the apples! Jonathans, McIntosh, Rome Beauty, Winesap and Red Delicious were all grown at Delicious Orchards and hand-picked for the best flavor at their peak season.

Apples

Delicious Orchards is well known for its’ apple harvest and many products many of apples, including freshly-pressed cider. One of the most famous products at Delicious Orchards is their Apple Cider Donuts.

Bees and Honey

Delicious Orchards is known for having many varieties of honey. They used to have a display for the honey-making process in the store but it has disappeared. It showed the bees crawling through a tube in the wall. It was certainly unusual.

This is what it looked like:

You can also see the old honey-making process on the Delicious Orchards Facebook page .

According to the Facebook post:

While honey bees can be intimidating, they do deserve our respect. We rely on them for nearly all the food we eat. Without them there would be no apples and in turn no apple cider, which means no apple cider donuts. And that is just plain unacceptable.