From a fifth generation family stand in Wyckoff to a Pinelands farm running on regenerative practices, here is a full tour of the working farms, orchards, and living history sites that still make New Jersey’s nickname more than a marketing slogan.
The Garden State’s Farms Are Still Doing the Heavy Lifting, and These 19 Prove It
New Jersey is home to more than 9,900 farms spanning roughly 750,000 acres, a scale that quietly justifies the Garden State nickname most residents never think twice about. The state ranks among the nation’s top ten producers of blueberries, cranberries, peaches, and tomatoes, a specialty crop dominance built almost entirely on family operations rather than industrial agribusiness. Listing every commercial farm across the state would take thousands of pages, so this guide focuses on 19 of the farms that best represent New Jersey’s full agricultural range, its pick your own destinations, its working history museums, its regenerative and organic operations, and the family markets that have quietly fed the same towns for generations.
North & Northwest Jersey
Morris, Somerset, and Warren counties hold some of the state’s most storied multi-generation farms, several of which still operate on land protected from development.
Alstede Farms
Run by the Alstede family since 1982 across 600 acres of permanently preserved farmland, Alstede has become one of North Jersey’s premier pick your own destinations, drawing visitors for seasonal apples, berries, and pumpkins alongside corn mazes and a cider mill. Its market carries an abundant produce selection, homemade ice cream, local honey, and fresh apple cider donuts, making it as much a full day destination as a working farm.
Wightman Farms
More than a century ago, farmer Albert Wightman sold his harvests from a table set up under a mulberry tree for Morristown locals. Today’s market and cider mill sit directly across from that same tree, now run by third generation family members and close friends, selling seasonal homegrown fruits and vegetables alongside tickets for the farm’s pick your own experiences.
Lima Family Farms
Founded in 2007 with a small cattle and poultry operation, Lima Family Farms has since grown to 206 acres with its own farm store. Alongside strawberries, arugula, tomatoes, and other produce grown on site, the store also carries inventory from neighboring operations, including Martenette Farms in Hillsborough and Rolling Hills Farm in Lambertville, reflecting the kind of regional farm to farm cooperation that keeps smaller operations stocked year round.
Donaldson Farms
Spanning hundreds of acres in Warren County, Donaldson Farms has built a reputation on high quality sweet corn, berries, and pumpkins, complemented by educational school tours and farm to table experiences that give visiting students a direct look at how their food is actually grown.
Ort Farms
A six generation family farm operating for well over a century, Ort Farms has expanded well beyond straightforward produce sales into a full seasonal entertainment destination, offering train rides, monster truck shows during its fall festivals, and an expansive farm stand that anchors the operation year round.
Von Thun’s Country Farm Market
Best known for its massive summer Sunflower Trail, Von Thun’s has built its identity around Instagram worthy seasonal attractions, pairing the sunflower fields with an activity packed Fall Festival featuring multi acre corn mazes and pony rides that draw families from across Central Jersey.
Living History Farms
A handful of New Jersey farms operate less as commercial businesses than as functioning museums, using period accurate tools and heritage livestock to preserve exactly how the state farmed a century or more ago.
Howell Living History Farm
Built as an exact working replica of a standard 1900s family farm, Howell Living History Farm operates entirely on period appropriate methods, offering horse drawn plow demonstrations, sheep shearing, and seasonal maple sugaring events that let visitors watch a full century old growing season unfold in real time.
Fosterfields Living Historical Farm
Set in the late 1800s rather than the 1900s, Fosterfields uses costumed interpreters working with period accurate equipment and heritage livestock breeds to demonstrate the actual daily chores of a Victorian era working farm, giving visitors a genuinely immersive, hands on history lesson rather than a static exhibit.
Central Jersey & the Princeton Corridor
Mercer and Somerset counties blend orchard tradition with newer agritourism attractions built specifically around seasonal photo opportunities and family festivals.
Terhune Orchards
A 250 acre family run farm market, winery, and bakery, Terhune Orchards has built a loyal following around its fresh apple cider donuts, resident farm animals, and pick your own crops, making it one of the more complete agritourism destinations within easy reach of Princeton itself.
Melick’s Town Farm
Melick’s stand carries farm fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables alongside baked goods, jams, jellies, and cider. During stretches when lettuce falls out of the farm’s own growing season, the stand sources it directly from small farms across the New York border rather than leaving the shelf empty, a small but telling detail about how seriously the operation treats year round availability.
Happy Day Farm
Happy Day Farm has carved out a niche around its genuinely photogenic lavender and sunflower fields, giving visitors one of the more distinctive seasonal photo backdrops in Central Jersey, alongside family friendly fall attractions including its well known pumpkin houses.
South Jersey Growers
South Jersey’s farms lean into the region’s multigenerational Italian and Portuguese farming heritage alongside a rising wave of organic and regenerative operations.
Abma’s Farm
Run by the Abma family for five generations across 32 acres, this farm grows more than 90 varieties of fruits and vegetables, from sweet corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, and jalapeños to nearly every variety of leafy green imaginable, a genuinely staggering level of crop diversity for a comparatively small footprint.
Muzzarelli Farms
A fourth generation family farm, Muzzarelli’s market stocks fresh fruit, vegetables, and produce grown directly on site, open each year from April through November. Summer inventory typically includes peppers, beans, eggplants, zucchini, herbs, berries, and melons, reflecting the deep vegetable growing tradition Vineland’s Italian farming community has maintained for generations.
Consalo Family Farms
A century ago, farmer William Consalo Sr. drove more than 100 miles round trip from Medford to the Newark Farmers Market every day just to sell his produce. Consalo and his four sons eventually built that daily grind into a thriving family run operation specializing in blueberries, citrus, wet vegetables, cooking greens, and salad items, now distributed through regional grocery chains including Harris Teeter and Sprouts Farmers Market.
Johnson’s Corner Farm
One of South Jersey’s most popular agritourism stops, Johnson’s Corner Farm draws crowds for hayrides, an animal feeding park, splash pads, and massive seasonal festivals built around strawberries, sweet corn, and pumpkins depending on the time of year.
Creamy Acres Farm
This large Southern New Jersey farm runs a full slate of everyday farm activities during daylight hours, then transforms after dark each fall into one of the largest and most well known haunted attractions on the East Coast, giving the property a genuinely split identity depending on the season and the hour.
Rancocas Creek Farm
Owned and protected by the Pinelands Alliance, Rancocas Creek Farm sells chemical free, regenerative grown produce through a community supported agriculture program, offering both 10 week and 21 week seasonal box shares running from June through October, with pickups held directly on the Pinelands Alliance grounds in Southampton.
Savoie Organic Farm
A certified organic family farm, Savoie plants more than 100 crop varieties that rotate by season, sold through select producers only farmers markets across South Jersey, Philadelphia, and New York City, as well as direct buffet style CSA pickups available in both Williamstown and Cherry Hill.
Taken together, these 19 farms trace nearly every thread of what keeps New Jersey’s agricultural identity intact, multigenerational family markets that have never stopped selling directly to their own neighbors, living history sites preserving exactly how the state farmed a century ago, and a newer generation of regenerative and organic growers proving the Garden State’s next chapter is still being written in the soil.
