Kerr’s Kornstand is hard to miss: an old-fashioned, family-run farm market perched humbly among the acres of farmland, corporate greenspace and McMansions on Pennington–Rocky Hill Road.
For decades now, Kerr’s has drawn customers from throughout Hopewell Valley with its promise of sweet, locally grown Jersey corn. But it is not corn season, not yet — that won’t be until around July 10, says Geordie Kerr.
While customers wait, patiently or impatiently, for the Kerr’s signature crop, they are still welcome to stop by daily to see what else is on offer: locally grown strawberries, perhaps, or New Jersey asparagus, or organically grown greens from Blue Moon Acres farm nearby. There are flats of annuals, perennials and herbs for planting, as well as cut flowers, a recent addition to the inventory that has proved popular.
Later in June will come Jersey blueberries, then zucchini and yellow squash, and then pepper and eggplant along with the corn in July. Jersey tomatoes hit their peak season in August.
Kerr is one of three sons of George Sr. and Lynn Kerr, who moved to Hopewell in 1978, and started up a dairy farm in the 1980’s.
“They were doing dairy, and most of the field work was grain and hay for the cows. Sweet corn was a little side gig, something to fill some space. Something to give me and my brother something to do,” Kerr says.
Geordie remembers selling the corn at the end of the family driveway back when he could still count up his age with just his fingers.
“If memory serves, we would only have it for like a couple weeks back in the 80’s,” Kerr recalls. “It started with my father (George Sr.) raising sweet corn — it was Silver Queen back then — and we would sell it out of the back of a pickup truck. My brother (Matt) and I were only 7, 8, 9 years old. Whatever money we made, we took to the Flemington Fair and spent it.” (Their younger brother, Tim, never really got involved.)
Kerr’s aunt and uncle owned Sweet Valley Farms in Ringoes, and they too sold sweet corn at the end of the driveway during the high season. “What we did always mirrored what they were doing a little bit,” Kerr says.
Over time, the Kerrs added other crops — peppers, eggplant, watermelon, squash, zucchini, cucumbers and finally, decorative plants and herbs. Around that time, Geordie went to college to major in business. But it wasn’t for him, and he took a break before enrolling at Mercer County Community College to study plant science.
Around the same time, he began taking a bigger and bigger role in running the farm.
“I grew up with it, I guess I was just comfortable with it,” he says. “I like to joke with customers that my parents named me George, and the meaning of George is ‘husband and farmer,’ so I wasn’t given a chance at birth (to do anything else).”
One thing that he enjoys about farming is that no year is ever the same as any other year. “Every year, you try to produce the best thing you can. And when you get feedback from customers that they love your stuff, it makes you want to keep at it,” he says.
Kerr says that George Sr. has always been and remains the “chief corn grower,” while he oversees most of the other crops. The process of growing corn has changed over the years, as seed producers have bred corn varieties to be sweeter and sweeter.
Kerr believes that the non-sugar-enhanced varieties his family grew in the 90’s and early 2000’s were superior to what is available for growing today, although he says that today’s corn is “still very good.”
“The big growers wanted stuff that could hold the sweetness for a long time, that could hold the sweetness for a long time, could handle shipping across the country,” Kerr says. “That’s where you get the supersweets. For me, that’s like cheating, it’s like popping a packet of sugar in your mouth, but that’s where things have gone.”
He says that in recent years, they have delved more deeply into plant science and soil chemistry in an effort to get the flavor of their corn where they want it to be.
This month at the farmstand, the Kerrs anticipate receiving many questions about when the corn will start to come in. Kerr says that if the weather in June and early July is consistently warm, it might be ready early, but that doesn’t happen very often. He tells people to circle the date of July 10 on their calendars, and start checking in around then.
Late July and August is generally the peak season. Demand typically drops noticeably after Labor Day, although Kerr says that the diehard customers who keep coming by through September say the corn is at its height of sweetness then.
Right up there with corn for many Jersey produce aficionados are Jersey tomatoes, and Kerr’s grows a variety of tomatoes as well.
“We’ve been growing the same varieties for the last 10 years, like red beefsteaks. We try out new ones, but tend to stick with the ones we really like,” Kerr says. “My favorite ones are the ones that are on the softer side, that pack the most flavor.
While waiting for those crops come in, Kerr’s has greenhouse tomatoes from Sunhaven Farms in Hillsborough that he says are “as good as and sometimes better than your main season outdoors tomatoes.”
“Greenhouse tomatoes get a bad rap, but this guy has been doing a great job,” Kerr says. “He’s like a mad scientist. Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing right.”
Like George Sr., mom Lynn is still involved. She and Geordie’s Aunt Kathy Jacob work at the stand, with Lynn taking charge of a lot of spring flower work.
Geordie’s wife, Shannon, is also involved, growing zinnias, sunflowers, liasanthus and other flowers to sell at the stand.
“She started doing summer cut flowers for the stand a few years ago after the Covid year,” Kerr says. “Her and her friend noticed how flowers were flying off the shelves everywhere, and decided to give it a try, and it’s been great. She’s pretty much a one-woman show now.”
Kerr, a graduate of Hopewell Valley Central High, and Shannon have two children: Riley, a sophomore at CHS, and Jack, a 7th grader at Timberlane Middle School.
“They help on the farm when asked,” Kerr says. “Jack and his friend from school sometimes do the Corn Express, a little table on the side of the parking lot for busy weekends when people just want their corn and don’t want to wait in line behind people getting all sorts of other stuff.”
Kerr’s is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. from May through the end of October each year. As the corn season winds down, Kerr’s focuses on pumpkins, mums and other fall decorative crops.
Kerr says his children were behind the decision to start growing pumpkins again after taking a break for a number of years.
“Too many years in a row we had complete crop failure with our pumpkins, but they wanted us to do it, so we’ve been growing pumpkins the last five-six years, and it’s been working well,” he says.
Kerr’s Kornstand, 317 Pennington–Rocky Hill Road, Pennington NJ 08534. Phone: (609) 730-1609.