Get Fresh!

Pequannock is chock-full of hidden places to buy vegetables, flowers and more— straight from the source.

BY KAREN KINNANE

There’s no need to leave town to find the freshest produce and other food items—including honey and free-range-chicken eggs—along with locally grown plants and cut flowers. Enjoy (and save!) this handy guide to area farms and farm stands.

Slingerland Farmhouse

At the corner of Boulevard and Jacksonville Road, Barry Block and Karen Kinnane sell a wide variety of potted hostas (shadeloving perennials), which are grown right on the property. They also sell “mystery” daylilies, dug fresh while you watch. The daylilies are a “mystery” because you won’t know their color—pink, white, orange, fuchsia, lilac, purple or a combination— unless they are in bloom.

Block raises tomatoes, sweet peppers, zucchini, basil and cucumbers and sells the extras because, as he says, “Everything seems to come in at once!” He also sells bouquets of lilacs and peonies when they are in season.

Block and Kinnane use methods Ruth

Stout describes in “The No-Work Garden Book,” so everything here is grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

Block’s small farm stand consists of a round, umbrella-shaded picnic table with baskets of whatever is for sale that day and a box for payments on the honor system. Occasionally, you will find an antique farm tool or garden sculpture for sale, too. Potted hostas fill a red wagon and old wheelbarrows.

Van Vugt Greenhouses

Located at 144 Jacksonville Road, this family-owned business offers a variety of produce and plants as well as bouquets of fresh flowers and fresh eggs from pastured (free-range) hens. The farm stand opened in

1998 and has undergone two expansions to keep up with the demand for fresh, seasonal food and bouquets of cut flowers. Van Vugt Greenhouses is closed on Sundays.

R&L Greenhouses

The flower borders around Lanie Bednarski’s house at 220 Jacksonville Road are sure to inspire you. Luckily, the family sells flowering annuals and hardy mums here, as it has been doing for 35 years, so you can gussy up the beds around your own home. Bednarski introduced and sells a new plant called “sunpatiens” that resembles a flamboyant New Guinea hybrid impatiens but is designed for full sun. R&L Greenhouses is closed on Sundays.

Dan Collins’ Farm Stand

At 50 Third St. in Pequannock, Dan Collins grows tomatoes and peppers and sells them from a card table out front when they’re in season. When he was getting ready to retire, his wife asked him, “What will you do with all your free time?” He told her, “I think I’ll sell tomatoes.” It was July, and as an experiment Collins put out a wheelbarrow with a few brown bags of tomatoes, a hand-lettered cardboard sign and an old cigar box for money. By the end of that day, he had sold his surplus tomatoes, and a new career was born! Since retiring, Collins has been selling fresh local produce to people who detour down his quiet street for tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant and hot peppers. He raises all his own plants from seed and sells the extra plants to other gardeners in the spring. Collins is 97 years old and still works his garden with assistance from his son.

Twins Hobbee

If you’re looking for local honey— including raspberry honey—visit

5 Winfield St. in Pompton Plains. There you’ll find Twins Hobbee honey, which was started by twins Tod and Mitzy Vanderwekke. Their stand, which operates on the honor system, also offers fresh vegetables in season.

Van Wingerden Farms and Greenhouse

At the corner of Farm Road and Jacksonville Road, you’ll find Van Wingerden Farms and Greenhouse, which offers seasonal annuals. Spring and summer bring a lavish selection of beautiful, healthy flowering and vegetable plants. In autumn, you’ll find chrysanthemums, decorative kale, cabbages and broom corn, followed by poinsettias at Christmastime. Van Wingerden Farms is closed on Sundays.

Suzbee’s Local Organic Honey

Susan and John Visco sell their own honey and homemade jams (including pineapple, strawberry, three-berry and mango) at 43 Second St. in Pequannock. The shop operates on the honor system—serve yourself and pay on the front porch. Hives fill the Viscos’ backyard, and the Viscos have a large number of hives on another tract of land in town. The Viscos have been beekeepers for five years. It was John’s brother-in-law who suggested they get into the bee business, and Susan loved the idea so much that they bought their first hives, queens and bees almost immediately.

Richie and Mary Wilever’s Christmas Tree Farm

Last but by no means least, here’s one to remember come December: Richie and Mary Wilever’s Christmas tree farm, located at 176 Sunset Road. Just look for the fence made of antique rototillers, the “tin man” sitting on the big red farm tractor and the honeybee honey sign made from an old propane canister. Pick out a Christmas tree you love, and Richie will cut it while you wait.