Pie season at White Post Farms

They're well into pie season at White Post Farms, with bakers and ovens working overtime. Rob Brigati, director of baking and one of the four Brigati siblings who own the Melville landmark, estimates the number of pies "in the thousands."

Of the 21 pies White Post Farms sells, six are apple. Rob's favorite pie apple is Northern Spy, which he feels strikes a perfect balance between sweet and tart, hard and tender. He's proud of the flaky pastry that tops the classic double-crust "big apple" pie, but his heart belongs to the apple-crumb pie, whose topping he spent six months perfecting so "the clumps of crumb would have that perfect density."

Among other popular flavors: apple-walnut caramel, blueberry, blueberry-cream, dark-chocolate pecan and peach. (White Post Farms' pies range from $16.99 to $18.99, but the "big apple," usually $16.99, occasionally goes on sale for $9.99.)

White Post Farms also sells 38 quick breads (banana, pumpkin-crumb and hot-chocolate-Oreo, among them), eight pound cakes and oversized cookies, not to mention savory offerings: a deli, salad bar, juice bar and sushi bar. This in addition to the farm's produce market, plant store and petting zoo.

It's all a far cry from the family's original mission. Rob's great-grandparents began farming in 1876, shortly after they emigrated from Italy to Long Island. Once exclusively wholesale, the Brigatis opened a farm stand in 1964, and in 1971 rechristened the family farm White Post after the white posts that acted as a landmark for customers looking for the farm.

Correction:  An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the "big apple" pie is on sale three days a week.