O’Dell’s Organic Orchard

Small farm with terrible hospitality. Some jerk on a tractor yelled at my two year old daughter here. Apparently he was really upset because she was smiling, waving, and saying hi to the man on the tractor. He then yelled at my lady to get off his property several times while she was putting the kid in the car, eventually screaming «HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TO GIT OFF MER PROPERTERRR!!!»
Uhh dude she is 2 and saying hi to you. Your farm let’s the public on your land. Relax. We were embarrassed for you.

I was put off by the fact that I was told to leave my purse in the car because people have been know to steal extra pears. Meanwhile, I see a white family with a backpack, a purse and a picnic basket allowed to roam freely with their gear. Makes me suspicious. The lady was nice about asking me a out it, but when the only other group there doesn’t have to heed by the same rules, it makes me wonder.
The pears were delicious though. I don’t know if we would come back.

We went pear picking 9÷12÷15. We had a great time. The place is a bit hard to find as there were only a couple small signs at the bottom of their driveway. The best part about this place is the working farm. I love pears but I found most of them to not be ripe yet and I wanted to try them as we picked, it’s the best part! After we tried to fill our bags we went and checked out the horse and goats. The older man let us come and watch him milk the goat and let my son get in the pen to pet them. He was in heaven. I will be back next year but I will only purchase 1 bag to fill and then let the kiddos play with the farm animals.

We had the most wonderful day picking beautiful, organic pears and sampling Italian Plums with Carl & Camille. They let us sample their personal, fresh from the farm goat milk as we hung in the shade at their patio table. Carl even gave our busy bee daughter a ride on the tractor to visit the majestic, silver horse at the back of the orchard. Maybe Camille will show me how to make her cheese one day! Such lovely people. We will always be back.

We just had such a great experience here! It’s a family house/​farm and we were immediately greeted by the owner, an elderly man that a lot of other reviewers spoke about. He helped us find a spot to park, brought us out a fruit picker to help with the harder to reach pears and showed us which ones to pick. They were absolutely the best pears we’ve ever had. He told us they don’t use any pesticides (which makes it easier when you have a 2 and 4 year old begging to eat the fruit ;)). He was super super kind, and it was nice to talk to him for a bit.
I didn’t see any problem with having kids here. It’s a family property, so yes, you have to sign a waiver. Other locations are commercial and insured; i would imagine that he isn’t. There wasn’t anything inherently dangerous, but it’s a private home/​farm and i wouldn’t let my kids run unsupervised, if for no other reason than respect.

What a nice orchard to visit! We went on Sunday, 9÷14÷14. Just down the street from Volcan, before you reach Apple Star. Signage on the fence at the entrance, $ 10/​bag for pears. Easy to park and the owner, Camille, was the greeter. My 5 yr old loved her dog Alice, and the goats, horses and two baby pigs on property. The grounds are spacious, and plenty of pears! My son loved using the tree picker. Remember to wear a hat and sunscreen, and bring your water. (fyi — we stopped at Apple Star before coming to O’dell’s — parking was crowded and disorganized, and their fruit was $ 25/​bag for the first bag, and $ 15/​bag for each additional.)

Crazy old man was rude and making stupid rule to most of the visitors. I don’t recommend to go there.

Parking is very limited, they only had one port a potty, we got yelled at from 50′ away while playing in the fire engine. If you dont want little kids playing with the switches, maybe you should disconnect the battery! The old man was not the most pleasant. He just wants people to come pick pears so he doesnt have to. I will not be back!

Not kid friendly.
One thing that you should be made aware of is that children are not allowed on the property unless you sign a legal waiver. Of course, that’s not posted anywhere. There is an old man (security officer?) that notifies you of this rule as soon as you get out of your car. He’ll be watching you like a hawk during your stay.
As for the pears. They were pretty nice. Some people brought a fruit picking stick to grab the best fruit that were at the top of trees. I just grabbed one of the fallen fruit and hucked it toward the big fruit at the top. It actually worked a few times.
Animals are nice, but the fire engine was in pretty bad shape on the inside. Should probably be totally off limits seeing they are so lawsuit afraid.
— Most of the other picking orchards in the area do not spray. (Though keep in mind they didn’t pay for an expensive organic certification).

We loved it! Thanks for sharing this beautiful space with the public. The pears were delicious and the plums amazing for making Zwetschgen Datschi (Bavarian Plum Cake). Also the animals and old fire engine are fun.

This place was a blast, they have pears instead of apples and they are super nice, $ 10 per bag and u can eat as many as u like as you walk around. The pears are large and delicious and plentiful. The lady who sold us our bags was kind with our large group of kids and let us have a good time.

This was our first trip to Julian after living in San Diego for over 10 years. We thought it would be a fun experience for our 4 year old son (and us), and O’Dell’s orchard made our experience better than we expected. We got to the orchard shortly after it opened at 11am (which I recommend). We paid our $ 10 for a bag and started hunting for some delicious looking pears. It was great to get there early since it wasn’t busy yet. There were few people and it felt like we had the place to ourselves. They have a big orchard and its fun to taste/​eat the pears as we pick them. They are delicious! Our son had a great time running up and down the rows of pear trees picking out the ones he thought looked good. After we got a full bag of pears (about 15), we were able to pet the friendly horses and goats. They also have a vintage firetruck that our son loved playing on.
I think most peoole go to Julian for the apples (obviously), but we were so happy to give O’Dell’s farm a try. The owners are really nice and welcoming! We highly recommend it over the other orchards that are crowded and some are over-​priced ($ 25!!!) for a bag of apples.

What a super fun, kid friendly place! We found this place via Unilocal after reading about Raven Hill is under new management and the one poor review posted.
O’Dells is a pear orchard and boy, it’s lovely. Tons of different pear varieties– 10 dollars a bag,
Kid stuff is great there– fire engine, horses, goats, chickens, roosters, and turkeys. Oh, it’s very dog friendly as long as your dog is on a leash.
The woman seems to be very fond of kids and just show so much attention to ours. So sweet!
We’ll be back!

BEST PEARS EVER!!! We happened upon this place last year and the pears were unbelievable. Unfortunately they don’t have many pears this year: (

I’ve lived in San Diego my whole life and had never made the trip to Julian to go apple picking. I decided that this was the year.
Like many others, we originally planned on going to Raven Hill, but as soon as you turn on to Julian Orchards Dr, you are overwhelmed with TONS of people. The entire street was lined with cars, people and children. I even apologized to my boyfriend (who was not 100% sold on the fruit picking idea) for just driving all the way up here to do this because I was not expecting a crowd!
However, I did do my research before going, and I knew that if Raven Hill was packed, we could keep going down Julian Orchards Dr to the organic pear farm. And that is just what we did.
It was an awesome experience and the pears tasted amazing! It was fun going around the orchard picking the best pears we could find– almost felt like some kind of treasure hunt! Even my not-​so-​enthusiastic-​at-​first boyfriend had a blast trying to get pears off the tops of the trees with the stick «pickers» they had. We got tons of pears– two bags for $ 20.00 is about 35+ pears! Even better, we brought our dog with us and he was able to join in on the pear picking fun. Come to find out he loves pears.
I will definitely be back to O’Dells next year. I prefer pears to apples anyway!

It seems like everyone stops at the Raven Hill Orchard because it has a bigger front. We originally wanted to go there too, but it was way too crowded (even though we had «reservations»), so we ended up going to O’Dell’s instead. Unlike Raven Hill apple orchard, O’Dell’s is a pear orchard. Either way, its not like we had to have apple.
The pear picking was really fun. They only have 3 apple-​picking tools to reach the higher fruits, so be willing to share. We had a large group with running toddlers, who loved sampling all the pears and petting the farm animals there. Actually, I think I had more fun than they did sampling everything. =) My favorites were the red Anjou and the Bosc pears. Aim for the large ones, they tend to have had time to ripen and sweeten.
Helpful tip: Bring a clean cloth (or your T-​shirt) to wipe pears before sampling. Most were a little dirty. That is to be expected though, ‘cuz, um, we were in nature.

O’Dell’s was a really nice change of pace for this apple season in Julian. We were attempting to go to Raven Hill orchard, but there was no parking, so we followed the signs for pear picking, and we ended up at O’Dell’s.
The woman who was the cashier (Mrs. O’Dell?) was very sweet, and she asked us about the kids and made friendly conversation, telling us that we could park «wherever we wanted.»
As for the pear picking experience, it’s completely different than Raven Hill. The trees aren’t lined up in rows — it’s really more like what you’d imagine from an orchard, with trees scattered everywhere. What was really nice was that there was no crowd. Our 2-​year-​old kids had a great time selecting the perfect pears to add to the bag. There were quite a variety of pears to choose from, so we picked a couple of each type.
When we were done picking, we spent a few minutes looking at the farm animals… chickens, goats, and horses. The kids had a blast, and so did we. We’ll definitely be back to O’Dell’s next year!

Just a little ways down the road (about a 15 minute walk or a one minute drive) from Raven Hill Orchard and Blue Door Winery, O’Dell’s Organic Orchards offered an alternative to the apple madness. As one of the only places we could find in the area that were specializing in pears, I was looking forward to their varieties of Bosc, Anjou, and Bartletts. For another $ 10, we got yet another half a peck bag from the nicest folks and an equally nice dog named Reba.
These grounds were much more free-​form with uneven ground and very healthy trees scattered about acres of property. Much different than the perfect vineyard-​like rows up the road, we saw a few folks pack picnics to enjoy in this beautiful scenery. The pears here were beautiful, although many were still coming along in ripeness. I was a particular fan of the red pears, which bake in the oven with cinnamon just wonderfully.
With over 20 pounds of apples and pears in tow, we were happy campers for the day. If you compare the price of fresh organic fruit from Whole Foods or a major grocery store, these U-​Pick options were incredibly inexpensive for $ 20 total (roughly about $ 1 a pound). Not to mention the fact that you get to choose what size fruit you get (we got smaller apples so we ended up with more of them and larger pears for baking). Beautiful scenery, a fun outdoor activity, and a whole lot of fruit!