Hillsboro Farm Country Market

Generations of Farm Knowledge at the Market

The Van Nuys family came to this country from Amsterdam in 1685 and began farming in the Somerset County area in the early 1700s. Peter Van Nuys started Hillsboro Farm in 1867, making it the oldest active business in Hillsborough Township. What began as a dairy operation, at one point numbering nearly 250 cows, changed direction after a barn fire in 1986 and a farming accident the following year that took the lives of Doug’s father and brother. The family sold off acreage to get through those years, restored the farmhouse, and in 2009 secured farmland preservation status for the property, meaning it can never be sold off for development.

The Country Market itself is a more recent chapter. Doug grew up on the farm and started small, growing sweet corn and vegetables and setting out a self-serve wagon along the driveway. Katie, sent over one day to pick up corn and tomatoes for a family gathering, stayed to run the self-serve stand, where customers picked out produce and left payment in an honor-system cash box. Self-serve alone did not hold customers well, so they built it into something staffed, then something open seven days a week by around 2008. The business was formally established as Hillsboro Farm Country Market in 2014. Then, with the design help of Lynn, the current Country Market building opened in 2017, marking the farm’s 150th anniversary and the end of what Doug called a ten year project.

What fills that building depends on the season. Summer brings the farm’s namesake heirloom tomatoes in dozens of varieties, at their fullest from mid-July through September, alongside sweet corn, peppers, squash, and melons. Fall shifts toward pumpkins, gourds, cider donuts, and the start of pie season leading into Thanksgiving. Winter brings wreaths and Christmas trees. The market also carries homemade ice cream made in small batches using a recipe still licensed from the Johnson family, fresh baked goods, meats and dairy from nearby farms like Griggstown, and honey from hives kept on the Van Nuys property itself. Local craftspeople sell goods on consignment, giving the market a role in the wider Hillsborough business community beyond its own produce.

The Country Market started with nothing more than a wagon and a driveway. Today, Doug, Matt, Julie, and Katie are the ones running it day to day, carrying the work forward with the next generation of the family already pitching in around the edges. For a farm that has outlasted fires, accidents, and nearly two hundred and sixty years of New Jersey seasons, the goal has stayed simple: keep the land working, and keep Hillsborough’s oldest business exactly what it has always been.