Stony Hill Puts the Farm in Farmers’ Market

Stony Hill Gardens and Farm Market has been in business for 25 years, but owner Carol Davis’s love affair with farm life started long before that. For a kid born and raised – at least the early part of her life – in Newark, N.J., Davis had country in her blood. 

As a young child Davis and her siblings would spend every summer at her uncle’s farm in Pennsylvania, and that’s where her heart remained. Those experiences, Davis said, “made me love farming.”   

When the kids returned home to Newark, Davis said she and her siblings would lobby their father for a farm. In 1966 when Davis was nine-years-old, her father finally agreed, and the family moved to a farm with 50 acres of land in Chester, N.J., where Stony Hill Gardens sits today.  

Back then the farm was limited to hay and corn, cattle and chickens, and it was operated as a side venture for the family. Once Davis married, however, she and her husband wanted to use the land for their livelihood and started an orchid business on the farm. They soon realized “orchids weren’t going to provide a way of life." Davis added, "We had to diversify.”

They started selling perennials, hanging baskets, bedding plants and opened a florist shop on the property. When Davis’s son took an interest in growing fruits and vegetables, the farm expanded again. Now the farm encompasses 500 acres in northern New Jersey and includes a bakery.  

“We do everything.”

They certainly do. The farm produces 200 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, growing 15 different varieties of peppers alone not to mention four kinds (white, purple, orange and green) of cauliflower, several different eggplants (including white and Chinese), 8-ball and patty pan squash, and tons of tomatoes (from heirloom to yellow plum).

They also have the largest corn maze in northern New Jersey, offer pick-your-own apples and pumpkins, grow a bounty of herbs, and sell a variety of foodstuffs from wasabi peas and flax corn chips to apricot butter and bluebarb preserves at their Farm Market location in Chester and at farmers’ markets around New Jersey. 

And Davis does all this with just her family members and a few hired hands – about 12 full-time employees total.

“You have to love doing this,” Davis said of the hard work and long hours. During the busy season, which runs from May through December, work starts around 6:00 o’clock in the morning and may not end until 9:00 or 10:00 o’clock at night. Some days start even earlier, and it’s a seven-day-a-week job.

Clearly this is the life for Davis and her family. All three of her children have gone to college and come back to work the farm, and two have brought their spouses with them.

“We’re thrilled that our kids want to come back because a lot of farm kids know how hard it is to make a living.”

Farms start planting in greenhouses before the ground thaws in the early spring in order to have produce to bring to market in the beginning of summer. Come March farmers start planting hardier vegetable like onions, beets and carrots, which can withstand the cold weather. After the fear of frost is over around May 15^th the season begins in earnest, and farmers plant continually throughout the spring, summer and fall.

Stony Hill participates in 26 farmers’ markets each week, and they go right up until Christmas. In the colder months you can find greenhouse lettuces, tomatoes, peas, squashes, mums, pumpkins, Indian corn and gourds at their stand at the market. But every month you can find a member of the family at the market.

“We always have a family member at the market," Davis said. "We think it’s important people know the farmer.”