Cream Ridge farm swaps tulips for 350 acres of cut-your-own sunflowers through Oct. 12
Holland Ridge Farms in Cream Ridge, N.J., famous for its spring tulips, has filled its fields with sunflowers for a fall festival featuring a climbable Dutch windmill, food trucks and flowers you pick
Sunflower season has arrived at Holland Ridge Farms in Cream Ridge, N.J. The farm’s U-Pick Sunflowers: Fall Festival is open every day until Oct. 12, with more than 350 acres of flower fields to explore.
Spring is when the family-run farm is best known. It grows more than 8 million tulips and bills itself as the country’s largest pick-your-own tulip farm. After the tulips finish, the same ground is replanted with millions of sunflowers, plus wildflowers, dahlias, gladiolus and other fall blooms.
What to do at the Holland Ridge sunflower festival
Guests cut sunflowers and wildflowers themselves and carry them home. Your ticket gets you through the gate, but the blooms are paid for on top of it: each stem costs roughly half a dollar to a dollar, with the rate varying by day. Beyond the fields, you can climb the Dutch Dream Windmill, visit farm animals, let kids loose in a big play area and pose at photo installations. Tractor shuttles, food trucks, an on-site bakery and a souvenir shop round out the grounds, and some days feature live music.
Two premium upgrades are available: private Picnic Pads, and guided Gator Tours that bring visitors farther out among the flowers. Expect more space between the rows on a weekday and bigger crowds on a weekend. Since this is a working farm, pick footwear you don’t mind getting dusty.
Hours, tickets and getting to Cream Ridge
Gates open at 9 a.m. and the festival wraps at 6 p.m. Arrival slots are timed and start every hour from 9 a.m. through 4 p.m., and no one is admitted after 5 p.m. A ticket costs $17 Monday through Friday and $20 on Saturdays and Sundays for anyone age 3 or older. Kids younger than 3 enter at no charge, and parking costs nothing. Refunds are given only if the farm itself cancels, and it strongly urges buying in advance.
You’ll find the farm at 108 Rues Road in Cream Ridge, a rural corner of Upper Freehold Township in Monmouth County. It sits close to I-195, roughly 70 miles from Midtown Manhattan. A car gives you the most flexibility, though on some dates Megabus runs buses straight to the farm from Midtown’s Port Authority terminal. The Jansen family, Dutch growers going back generations, purchased the land in 2012 and opened it to the public in 2018.
For another fall farm outing, see our guide to Hudson Valley pumpkin picking.
Quick answers
When is the Holland Ridge Farms sunflower festival?
The U-Pick Sunflowers: Fall Festival is open every day through Oct. 12, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. No one is admitted after 5 p.m.
Where is Holland Ridge Farms?
The farm is at 108 Rues Road in Cream Ridge, a rural corner of Upper Freehold Township in Monmouth County, N.J., roughly 70 miles from Midtown Manhattan.
How much does it cost?
A ticket costs $17 Monday through Friday and $20 on Saturdays and Sundays for anyone 3 or older. Kids younger than 3 and parking are free. Flowers you pick cost extra.
