Aomori · HirosakiNo.460★★★Open in map →
Tsugaru Apples
— Aomori's apple country at a city-run orchard park
An orchard on the western edge of Hirosaki, run by the city rather than a farm business. Admission is free, the planted rows are open to walk without a booking, and Mount Iwaki stands directly behind the trees.
Apples are Aomori's defining crop, and the orchards run thickest across the Tsugaru plain around Hirosaki. Rather than send visitors to a private farm, the city runs its own orchard on the western edge of town, where roughly 2,300 trees of about eighty varieties stand in open rows. Anyone can walk in without paying. Inside the grounds are a market building, a small cider works run by local growers, a relocated Tsugaru farmhouse and an earthen mound with a view. It is a working orchard first and a park second, so the scene turns over month by month — blossom, bagging, colour, harvest. Hirosaki City Hall even keeps a department called the Apple Division.
Background & history
Apples are not native here. Aomori's orchards trace back to 1875, when three fruit seedlings distributed by the Meiji government's industrial bureau reached the prefecture. In Hirosaki they were handed to former samurai families of the Tsugaru domain, who had lost their stipends and needed a crop; a local man, Kikuchi Tatee, taught grafting until the technique spread across the plain. Two older layers survive inside the park. One is an earthen mound raised in the Edo period as a target for gunnery practice. The other is a Tsugaru farmhouse of the late nineteenth century, taken apart elsewhere in the city and rebuilt among the trees.
What to look for — in walking order
- Ringo no Ie
- the market building, with juice, preserves, a light-meal counter and the desk where picking is arranged
- The orchard rows
- open blocks laid out by variety, walkable without a guide or a gate
- Kimori cider works
- a small brewery inside the orchard, run by local growers using Tsugaru fruit
- Kyu-Osanai House
- a Tsugaru farmhouse moved into the park and rebuilt, with old farm tools laid out inside
- Suribachiyama
- the earthen mound at the back of the park, climbed for the view over the orchards and the ranges beyond
How to enjoy it
The market building and the old farmhouse open from 9am to 5pm, while the planted rows themselves can be walked outside those hours. Picking runs from August into late November and is charged by weight rather than sold as an all-you-can-eat session. What is ripe changes week by week, so ask at the market desk before you set off down a row.
How to actually get there
- Hirosaki Station, central exit stand 6 → Tokiwazaka-iriguchi (Konan Bus toward Nishimeya village office or Soma, about 20 minutes).
- Tokiwazaka-iriguchi → Hirosaki Apple Park entrance (walk about 7 minutes, southwest).
- Start at the Ringo no Ie market building, then loop through the planted rows to the mound at the back and climb it before turning around.
- Konan Bus from Hirosaki Station
- From JR Hirosaki Station's central exit (stand 6), or from Hirosaki Bus Terminal (stand 7), take the Konan Bus bound for Nishimeya village office or Soma and ride about 20 minutes to Tokiwazaka-iriguchi. From the stop it is roughly a seven-minute walk to the park entrance. Fares on this route are paid on board.
- Return from Tokiwazaka-iriguchi
- Take the same route back toward Hirosaki Station from the stop on the opposite side of the road. This is a suburban service rather than a city shuttle, so photograph the return timetable when you arrive and check the last departure before you settle in among the trees.
Before you go
- Cash
- Admission is free and the grounds open every day. Picking is charged by weight — 100 yen per 100 grams at the time of writing — and is arranged at the Ringo no Ie building on the day, though groups of ten or more need to book ahead. Carry cash for the bus.
- Closing days
- Snow closes the planted rows for much of the northern Tohoku winter. The ground inside the park is bare earth rather than pavement, so it turns soft after rain. The market building and the old farmhouse keep to their opening hours, and picking is suspended when the crop is not ready.
- Another way
- By car it is about 20 minutes from the Owani-Hirosaki interchange on the Tohoku Expressway, and the park keeps a large free car park — the easier option if you are already driving the Tsugaru plain.
- After you get off
- Get off at Tokiwazaka-iriguchi and follow the road southwest, away from the town. The orchards appear first and the park entrance sits behind them, about seven minutes on foot.