Jucker Farm: Pumpkin Festival & Fruit Picking

In fall, this tourist farm near Zurich hosts a pumpkin festival, with elaborate pumpkin sculptures, an apple tree maze, and delicious harvest inspired food like pumpkin soup. For children, they have a nice playground, animals to pet and feed, and a big haystack for climbing.

Pumpkin Exhibition 2025: 20 Sept to 26 Oct 2025 • buy tickets here

Jucker Farm is also a nice place to visit other times of the year, with good food and lovely views. Their shop has a nice selection of regional produce and products for sale.

They also have pick your own fruit times during the summer. It’s a popular destination for Sunday brunch, which often books out well in advance. 

NOTE: Due to the extreme popularity, you now must buy tickets in advance to visit during the pumpkin exhibition time. Buy tickets here.

Quick info

Region	Zurich Region
Address:	Juckerhof – Dorfstrasse 23, 8607 Seegräben or Bächlihof – Blaubrunnenstrasse 70, 8645 Jona
By car:	Metered parking – Rutschbergstrasse 383, 8607 Seegräben (usually full, see tips below) From Zurich 30 mins
By public transport:	Train station: Aathal then 20 min walk From Zurich 33 mins to Aathal
Open:	all year • pumpkin festival late Sept to late Oct
More info:	www.juckerfarm.ch

How to get there

Jucker Farm hosts the fall pumpkin exhibition at two locations: Juckerhof Seegräben and Bächlihof Jona-Räpperswil. We find Seegräben more charming and fun, but it’s also much more crowded.

Juckerhof Seegräben

Jucker Farm Seegraben is located at Dorfstrasse 23, 8607 Seegräben, near the Pfäffikersee lake, east of Zurich.

By car: 

There is a metered public parking lot at Rutschbergstrasse 383, 8607 Seegräben near the farm. But it’s small and always full with a very long wait. It’s best to arrive by public transport.

If you must drive, there is some parking at the nearby Aathal train station, then a 20 min walk to the farm. But this parking lot is also small and usually full on weekends. There is also a parking lot at the Auslikon Lido (lake swimming), a 20 min walk from the farm.

Public transport

On Sept/Oct weekends and daily during the pumpkin festival, you can take a train to Uster and ride 846 bus to Juckerhof. You must buy a ticket for the bus via SBB. The bus ticket is not included in your Jucker Farm ticket.

Otherwise, the closest train station is Aathal, a 33 min ride from the Zürich main station. Then a 20 min walk to the farm. Part of the walk is a bit steep uphill, which may be a little difficult for very small children. It took our group with several under 5’s about 30 mins. 

Bächlihof Jona-Rapperswil

The other farm location is Bächlihof Jona, located near Rapperswil, near the south end of Lake Zürich. See location on map.

The parking for Bächlihof Jona is located at Grünfeldstrasse, 8645 Rapperswil-Jona. It’s a small lot and often fills up fast on weekends.

You can take a train to Rapperswil or Jona, then a bus to the Jona Grünfeld stop, about an 8 min walk from the farm. 

Planning your day

You can spend as little as an hour at the farm and as long as six or more. I’ve also stayed all day from 10am to 6pm. I’ve gone just for lunch after visiting the nearby dinosaur museum. I’ve also gone at 5pm on a Friday evening and stayed for dinner.

It all depends on your kids and how entertained they are by the farm. It’s best to go as early as possible and eat lunch early. It can get really crowded, especially on the weekends, especially in the café. But once you leave the main areas, it can be quite peaceful.

My favorite week to go is the first week of September, when the pumpkin sculptures are up, blueberries are ripe to pick and it’s still warm enough to swim in the lake. That makes for a full day of entertainment.

Pumpkin Season

The best time to visit is during the full and pumpkin festival. The pumpkin exhibition usually runs from the third week of Sept to the last weekend of October.

The build pumpkin sculptures around a different theme each year, like dinosaurs, fairy tales, Noah’s ark. Here are some samples from years past.

They have a huge variety of pumpkins on display and thousands available for purchase. If you buy heavy pumpkins, they provide wheelbarrows to help you get the pumpkins back to your car.

Of course, this only works if you parked in the nearby lot. There is no “temp” parking near the farm to pick up your purchases. You will get ticketed if you try to stop temporarily on the nearby street for this purpose.

The pumpkins are so photogenic that I always take this opportunity to take a portrait of my kids and these are some of my favorites pics each year. So here’s just a little remind to have your kids wear cute clothes and to save dessert as a bribe for sitting still for a short photo session.

Cafe & Farm Store

They have a self-service cafe, where the food is not fancy but usually very tasty. During pumpkin season, they always have a super delicious pumpkin soup and rotating seasonal dishes like curried pumpkin or pumpkin ravioli.

There usually have pasta with Bolognese sauce, which the kids typically eat. There is a large salad bar and dessert bar, with several pumpkin desserts.

They have hot food on a steam table during lunch 11:30-14:00. They also serve dinner on Th-Sun from 18:30-21:00, where they offer grilled food and meat & sausage to grill yourself on a fire they maintain. I don’t think they have the steam table at dinner. Outside those times, they are always serving cakes and drinks.

Our first stop is always the freshly pressed apple juice. You can simply grab a plastic bottle to fill and drop change in the Kasse box. Or you can pay for the juice in the cafe and then go get your bottle.

Beware the bees which swarm around any juice, so you have to keep your bottle closed and cups covered. You can see one of my simple lunches: apple juice, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread and pumpkin berliner donut – super yum!

We also love the flavored pumpkin seeds with free samples. Oooooo, these are good, especially the chocolate and cinnamon ones. Make sure to try some of these.

They have a large farm shop with produce from the farm and other locally made food products like sausage, cheese, yogurt, oils, jams, etc.

Next to the café, there is outdoor seating with a playground.

Playground near the restaurant.

There is more seating on the other side of the café, under the trees with a view of the lake. Picnicking is not allowed in either of these areas. If you brought a picnic, better to move down near the haystack at the far end of the farm.

View of Pfäffikersee lake from the farm.

Amusements for the Kids

The amusements change from year to year. Sometimes they have a big haystack to climb on and hammocks, which the kids use as swings. It’s surprising how much fun the kids can have on these simple amusements.

Hammock garden.

Apple Tree Labyrinth

There are three apple tree labyrinth/mazes, which are a nice break from the busyness of the farm.

You pay a fee (under 6 free) to visit the apple mazes, payable at the kiosk. This fee includes one apple for each person. If you are visiting during the pumpkin festival, your fee includes the apple tree labyrinth. Learn more.

You are encouraged to walk the mazes barefoot to increase the meditation effect of wandering. There is also a barefoot path, with various textures for the tactile experience.

My kids are old enough that I can let them run wild through the mazes and catch up with them eventually. But for little ones that might wander off or get scared by themselves, you’ll need to stay close so they don’t get lost in the maze where you can’t easily access them. 

The first two mazes are not difficult, but the third one is tricky and I was stuck in there for over 30 minutes one time (there are emergency exits, but I was determined to find my way out the hard way).

Each year there is a different activity in the maze. The last couple years, they had a sort of treasure hunt, where you had to find different stations inside the maze where you can stamp your map.

You turn in the completed map for a chance to win a prize. You can usually pick up the map at the entrance to the apple garden area.

Fruit Picking

Juckerhof and Bächlihof Jona offer fruit picking, usually blueberry and blackberries, sometimes strawberries, cherries, raspberries, or apples. Check their websites to see what is available for picking.

Blueberry picking has been our favorite because it was the easiest fruit to pick for kids. Most other fruit (like cherries and raspberries) is often too high on the trees for kids to reach since all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.

We’ve also picked strawberries in June, cherries in July, and raspberries in September. You can also pick apples, usually in September, but they’ve never been ripe when we’ve gone.

At both farms, you pay a fee per person to enter the picking area. After picking, you bring your box back to the shop to be weighed and you pay pay per kilo.

Extra credit: Summer Swimming

At Juckerhof Seegraben, there is a beautiful lake near the farm. On a hot day, it’s always nice to walk down to the lake and cool off a bit.

I always bring our swimsuits just in case and every time we end up in the water. You can wade around or bring your swimsuit and swim out to the diving platform and other floats.

The water starts very shallow, which is good for little kids. But it also can be slippery as there are a lot of rocks with moss.

To get to the lake, walk towards the lake past the haystack to the little dirt path. With the cherry trees on your left, follow it a few meters until you reach a grassy field on your right. There should be a sign pointing right, down toward the lake. Just follow the path down the hill all the way to the lake.

There’s a changing room, shower, and portable toilet next to the lake. There is also a grassy lawn a bit above the lake (shown right below), which always has the sun and is a good place to dry off.

Biking around the lake

If you want to make a full day of it, you can walk around the lake or bring your bikes and bike around the lake. On bikes, it takes about an hour and the path is on trails and lightly used roads. Read this post for more details.