Ask five people in Hollis where they're going apple picking this weekend and you'll likely get three different answers, and none of them will be wrong. Drive down Route 130 in September and you'll pass farm stand signs for Brookdale Fruit Farm, Lull Farm, and Lavoie's Farm within a few miles of each other, all selling roughly the same thing: apples, pumpkins, a corn maze. From the road, it looks like three businesses competing for the same customer.
It isn't. Spend a season paying attention and you'll notice each farm has quietly claimed a different piece of fall, and Hollis residents already know it without needing to be told.
The Farm Built for Distance Runners
Brookdale Fruit Farm has been family owned and operated in Hollis since 1847, and it shows in how the place is run. Seventh-generation grower Edwin Hardy has described a farm that treats pick-your-own as one line of business among several, alongside a wholesale operation with its own trucks that, according to Hardy, can move produce from field to table in 24 hours. The New Hampshire Fruit Growers Association lists more than 50 varieties across Brookdale's apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, apricots, cherries, raspberries, and blueberries, and Hardy has talked about dedicated, mowed PYO rows organized specifically so dozens of apple varieties stay easy to find and pick.
Brookdale also leans into endurance sport. Listings for the farm include a half marathon each October among its special events, alongside weekend hayrides through the fall. Hollis has a longer history with distance running through orchard country too. The Applefest Half Marathon, a race that historically started and finished at Hollis/Brookline High School on Cavalier Street, ran its course through what organizers described as the heart of the region's apple and fruit growing farmland, rewarding finishers with locally made apple crisp at the line. Brookdale's identity isn't just biggest and widest. It's the farm that assumes you might want to run 13.1 miles before you eat the apple.
The Farm Built Around One Night
Lull Farm, with its flagship location on Broad Street in Hollis and a seasonal stand in Milford, has built its fall around a single ritual instead of scale. The farm's pumpkin lighting happens on Halloween night and the night after, when carved jack-o-lanterns line up and get lit after dark, and pumpkin carving opens to everyone starting the Saturday before Halloween.
Here's the part that says more about how the farm actually operates than the marketing copy does: that date isn't as fixed as it sounds. Hollis Brookline News reported one recent year when early morning rain and windy conditions forced Lull Farm to push the lighting from its planned Friday to the following Saturday and Sunday instead. A tradition built around a specific calendar date still bends to weather, and the farm's willingness to reschedule rather than cancel is the kind of detail you only pick up by watching the same event for more than one season.
Lull Farm runs a corn maze and PYO apples and pumpkins through September and October too, but the pumpkin lighting is what people organize their Halloween week around. It's less about picking your own fruit and more about a fixed communal night that the farm treats as an actual event, not a photo backdrop.
The Farm Built for the Dark
Lavoie's Farm, tucked off Pine Hill Road at 172 Nartoff Road, has taken the opposite approach from Lull Farm's family-daylight model. In recent seasons, its Dark Crop haunted corn maze has run Friday and Saturday nights across most of October, with an added night the Sunday before Halloween, operating from about 7 to 10 at night. The farm supplies the flashlight. You supply the nerve to make it to the end. It's cash or check only, no cards, which tells you this is a farm still run the way small operations in this part of Hollis have always been run, on paper and handshake more than point-of-sale systems.
By day, Lavoie's still does what you'd expect: sweet corn, apples, pumpkins, school tours. But after dark in October, it becomes the one farm in town explicitly built for people who want to be scared, not soothed.
Why Three Farms Don't Compete
| Farm | What It's Actually Selling | Peak Moment | One Detail Worth Knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brookdale Fruit Farm | Scale and variety, endurance-sport crowd | October half marathon and fall hayrides | More than 50 varieties across its fruit lines, per the NH Fruit Growers Association |
| Lull Farm | A fixed communal ritual | Halloween night pumpkin lighting | The event has been rescheduled for weather before, and likely will be again |
| Lavoie's Farm | Nighttime fright, cash-economy simplicity | The Dark Crop haunted maze, Fri/Sat nights in October | Cash or check only, no cards |
Look at that table sideways and the pattern is obvious. These aren't three farms fighting over the same Saturday. Brookdale has claimed volume, distribution, and the athletes. Lull Farm has claimed the single family-friendly night everyone circles on the calendar. Lavoie's has claimed the after-dark, cash-only, bring-your-nerve crowd. A family that wants dozens of apple varieties and a weekend hayride goes to Brookdale. A family that wants one big Halloween night out goes to Lull Farm. Teenagers who want to get spooked in a corn maze after sunset go to Lavoie's. All three farms survive within a few miles of each other because none of them are actually trying to be the other two.
The Season Is Longer Than the Postcard Suggests
The image most people carry of fall in a farm town like Hollis is a single golden weekend, kids in flannel, one perfect photo next to a pumpkin pile. The actual calendar runs longer and messier than that. PYO apples start as early as late August at some of these farms and stretch into October. The corn mazes open in September and don't wind down until Halloween week. Lavoie's haunted nights don't even start until the first weekend of October. Lull Farm's marquee event is the very last night of the season, not the first.
That means the fall farm economy in Hollis isn't a single event locals attend once. It's a slow rolling season that different households tap into at different points, for different reasons, from late summer through the first days of November. A resident who only shows up once in late September for apples is seeing a fraction of what these three farms actually do across the season.
What This Actually Means If You Live Here
None of this requires a decision. It's just a more accurate map of a season most people flatten into one weekend. If you want the widest apple selection and don't mind a crowd, Brookdale's your farm, and check picking updates before you drive out since availability shifts fast in peak weeks. If Halloween night matters to your family more than the picking itself, build your plans around Lull Farm's lighting and bring cash just in case, and don't be shocked if the date moves for weather. If you're chasing something for older kids or a genuine scare, Lavoie's Dark Crop only runs certain nights, so check the schedule before you show up expecting it to be open.
Living in a town with three working farms that have each found a different way to make a fall season pay isn't a small thing. It's one more reason Hollis feels like a place with a real, working relationship to its land rather than a backdrop for other people's photos.
Marianna Vis has spent more than 25 years getting to know Southern New Hampshire towns like Hollis at exactly this level of detail, not just the median price but which farm stand people actually drive to on a Tuesday. If you're curious about life in Hollis, or ever want to talk about buying or selling in this part of the state, Marianna Vis Realtor is a good place to start that conversation.
