Apple Harvest: Put on your overalls.

November is almost upon us. The harvest season is here. Crisp air, fresh produce, yellow and orange leaves, and rainy days. For most, spring is the best time of year here. For me, it's autumn, especially before the city starts cleaning the fallen leaves off of the sidewalks.

One thing that most people love about Paris is the market culture. You can get fresh fruits and vegetables any day of the week if you know where to head and when to go. But did you know that there is a way to buy fruits and vegetables even closer to the source? It’s called a cueillette.

A cueillette is a free-service farm, which means that you go to the farm, grab a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a handful of bags, and then go out and cut what you want. You can find fruits, vegetables, roots, berries, and sometimes even flowers. When you are done shopping, you head to the main farmhouse or little store where your goods are weighed and you pay. Some farms also sell local cheeses, juices, and fresh butter and milk (I’m talking uncooked, raw butter and milk that is out of this world).

During autumn, these farms offer, among other things, winter vegetables, apples and pumpkins. In the spring, they have berries, flowers and summer vegetables.

This week is the perfect time to find a nearby cueillette for picking apples. One of the closest farms to Paris is La Grange, which is located in the Val-de-Marne department. I am always taken aback by how suddenly Paris urbanization turns into the countryside when you get half an hour or so beyond the Périphérique. In just 30 minutes, I can be surrounded by nature, oak trees and fresh air.

After you get your wheelbarrow at La Grange, follow the signs around the farm telling you where different fruits and vegetables are on the 60-acre farm. In addition to apple orchards, pumpkin patches and just regular old veggies, La Grange makes fresh apple juice. You can call ahead for a group demonstration or just be satisfied buying bottles of it from their store. Their juice is 100% natural and tastes like you’re drinking an apple. They first cut and then crush the entire apple (core, stem and seeds included) before they press it.

You don't have to spend an entire day at a cueillette in order to feel like you've gone back to your roots (provided, of course, that your roots are a bit redneck like mine), you can spend just an hour or two walking around the farm picking your produce. But it's much more fun to linger a bit, pretending that you know what you're doing and getting the best stuff.

La Grange is off of R.N. 19, near Coubert. It is one of nine cueillettes in Ile-de-France. For more information about it and others, click here.

To watch a short video from la Grange, click on the photo below: