Frozen apple crops doesn’t stop Delmont Apple ‘N Arts Festival from happening this weekend
DELMONT, Pa. —
This weekend marks the 44th annual Delmont Apple ‘N Arts Festival — two days that bring thousands to the small Westmoreland County town.
“It just brings everybody together,” said Vicki Walters, an organizer with the festival at Shields Farm. “It’s the biggest event that we have here in Delmont.”
The festivities, headlined by the 120-year-old apple cider press, are back to provide business to over a hundred local vendors.
“It introduces us to some new customers, and it helps everyone,” said Rob Schilling, of Greendance Winery and Sand Hill Berries. “It’s an exciting weekend. We’ll have our apple dumplings. We’ll have our pies.”
“It’s amazing,” said Kim Shankle, co-owner of K&T Creations and Things. “Usually, it’s our best show of the year. With the amount of people, you can’t see the walkway. It’s that crowded.”
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While thousands of gallons of cider and other goods are ready for this weekend, it wasn’t easy making that happen in 2026.
“All of our apple blossoms, strawberry blossoms, we lost a lot of our early crop,” Schilling said. “We probably had 10% of our apples this year.”
Freezing temperatures in the spring killed crops across Pennsylvania. That meant organizers and vendors had to outsource more apples than usual to avoid coming up short on supply.
“I just found out this morning, they found more apples that they can bring in,” Walters said Friday morning. “I don’t think we have to worry about there being a shortage of cider up there.”
The prices of cider and bushels are a few dollars more than previous years.
However, the festival is happening after all. That’s all that matters to the grateful vendors.
“I’m sure that they went to great effort to get these apples in,” Shankle said. “They’ve been wonderful to us.”
“We’re still going to have cider and apple jack,” Schilling said. “I know they’re going to have apples here.”
“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Walters said. “This is what we do. We’ve just had to make different accommodations. We’re juggling and doing what we’ve had to do.”
The Delmont Apple ‘N Arts Festival begins on Saturday at 10 a.m. and runs until 6 p.m. It opens again on Sunday at 11 a.m. and the festival ends at 5 p.m.
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