Ask a longtime Wyckoff resident when to visit Abma's Farm and most will say October, for the hayride and the pumpkin patch that arrive on Lawlins Road every year like clockwork. That answer isn't wrong. It's just incomplete. In the span of the past week, the farm has run more of its actual business at once than it will at any single point this fall: a potato dig with a brewery pouring between the rows last Saturday, a flower field still open for cutting every Saturday, a wine bar inside a barn that has stood on the property since the 1790s, and the final week of summer camp sending kids home with dirt under their nails right now. October gets the crowds. This first half of August is when you can actually see how the farm works.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. Abma's isn't a seasonal attraction that happens to sell vegetables on the side. It's a working farm that happens to also run a corn maze in the fall. The two models look similar from the parking lot but operate on completely different logic, and this particular week on Lawlins Road is the clearest proof of which one you're actually standing in.
Four Lines of Business, Overlapping for One Week
Most of the year, Abma's runs one or two things at a time. Right now, four are stacked on top of each other.
| Line of the farm | Status as of this week | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Row crops | The Great Potato Dig ran Saturday, August 8, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with Bolero Snort Brewery pouring from 11 to 3 | Out past the greenhouses, gloves and a shovel required |
| Boutique flowers | Pick-your-own zinnias and snapdragons continue every Saturday | The cutting field beyond the market |
| Hospitality | Tomasello Winery's tasting room stays open inside the retail market | Inside the 200-plus-year-old barn |
| Education | The final week of Summer Camp runs August 10 through 14 | Camp fields and the barnyard |
Four different customers walk onto that property this week. One brings a shovel and expects dirt under their fingernails. One brings a mason jar and wants a bouquet. One wants a glass of wine and somewhere to sit. One is seven years old and doesn't know yet that farms are supposed to be seasonal. All four are being served on the same 32 acres, on the same day, by the same family that has run this place since 1929.
The Only Farm Left of Its Kind in Bergen County
Here's the fact that reframes everything else: Abma's describes itself as Bergen County's only produce, egg, and meat farm. Not the oldest. Not the largest. The only one still doing all three.
That claim only makes sense once you look at what's underneath it. The homestead on Lawlins Road dates to the 1790s. Barney Abma started farming the property in 1929 as a modest operation, an orchard, a small vegetable field, some cows and pigs, before his sons expanded the egg side of the business to roughly 25,000 laying hens by the 1960s. The barn that now houses the retail market, the scratch bakery, and the gourmet kitchen is more than 200 years old and was converted into its current retail form in the 1970s. Five generations later, according to the farm's own account, the family is still running it.
None of that would matter if the farm had gone the museum route, preserved and roped off, opened one weekend a year for a heritage tour. It hasn't. The barn still moves inventory every day it's open. The fields still get planted and picked on a schedule that has nothing to do with tourist traffic.
Abma's isn't preserved the way a landmark is preserved. It's used every day, which is why it still works.
That's the difference between a farm and a farm-shaped attraction, and this week on Lawlins Road is where you can watch it in real time.
The Potato Dig Is the Tell
October's pumpkin patch is a set piece. The pumpkins are already picked, staged, and arranged for the photo. It's a fine way to spend an afternoon, but it's curated theater more than it is farm work.
The Great Potato Dig on August 8 was the opposite. Visitors were told to bring their own gloves, shovel, or spade and get their hands in the actual dirt. Bolero Snort Brewery poured from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. while the digging ran from open to close. Nobody staged the rows for a photo. The crop was in the ground because it was harvest time, not because it photographs well in October light.
That's a small thing to notice, but it's the kind of small thing that separates a working farm from a seasonal business wearing a farm's clothing. A pumpkin patch can be built from scratch every October regardless of what happened on the land the rest of the year. A potato dig can't. It only happens because someone planted potatoes in the spring and they're actually ready now.
The Flower Field Didn't Wait for Fall Either
The same logic applies to the cutting field. Abma's has been running pick-your-own flower sessions every Saturday since a hands-on Flower Picking and Arranging Workshop kicked things off on July 15. Visitors walk the field, cut their own zinnias and snapdragons, and head to an arranging table to build a bouquet before taking it home.
That's a full month and a half of continuous operation before anyone in Wyckoff starts thinking about mums and pumpkins. The flower line doesn't ramp up for fall. It's been running quietly all summer, and this week is simply the latest Saturday in a schedule that started well before Labor Day became a factor.
This Week's Campers Are the Real Customers
The most telling detail on the calendar right now might be the least photogenic. Abma's Summer Camp runs in weekly sessions through the season, and the final week of 2026 runs August 10 through 14, which means it's happening as this is written. Camp is priced at $575 per child per week, with a discounted rate of $550 for siblings or multiple weeks, and the farm maintains a staff-to-camper ratio of 1 to 8, with at least two counselors assigned to every group.
The kids in that camp aren't visiting an attraction. They're doing farm labor scaled down to a seven-year-old's attention span, using the farm's own greenhouses and vegetable fields to plant, harvest, and learn how food actually gets from ground to table. That's not incidental programming built to fill a gift shop. It's the same land and the same crops that supply the market, just handed to a smaller set of hands for a week.
The Hillsborough Expansion Doesn't Touch Lawlins Road
One detail most casual write-ups of Abma's miss: the family has expanded beyond Wyckoff. The farm's own branding now reads "Wyckoff, Hillsborough NJ," confirming a second location in Hillsborough, New Jersey. For a fifth-generation family operation, that's a real growth decision, not a rebrand.
What it doesn't change is what's happening on the original 32 acres. The Dutch barn, the potato fields, the flower cutting rows, and the petting zoo, with its Golden Goat Bridge, duck pond, Bunnyville, and Pepper's Play House Village, all stay put on Lawlins Road. The expansion is evidence the model works well enough to replicate. It isn't a sign the Wyckoff original is being scaled back or phased out.
Before You Go
A few practical notes worth knowing if this is your first visit this season, drawn from the farm's own operating details:
- Hours run Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The farm is closed Sundays.
- Bring cash for U-Pick sessions and animal feed at the petting zoo.
- Outside food isn't permitted on the property, including in the U-Pick fields.
- Pets aren't allowed on site, a food-safety rule rather than a preference.
- Parking is free.
- Closed-toe shoes are the right call given the dirt roads and working farm equipment on the property.
The Short Version
Wyckoff's calendar tells people to wait for October. The farm's actual calendar says otherwise. Right now, in the second week of August, four separate lines of Abma's business are running at full speed at the same time, and each one is proof the place is still doing the work its reputation is built on rather than performing a version of it for a season.
None of this requires a real estate agent to enjoy. Grab a shovel, bring cash, and go dig up dinner. But if you're the kind of Wyckoff resident who already has strong opinions about Lawlins Road versus Franklin Avenue, and you're starting to think about what comes next for your own address in this town, the Tony Nabhan Collective spends as much time paying attention to Wyckoff's fields as its listings. Reach out when you're ready to talk about what's next.
