Farming since the 1600s

Farms & Farm Stands

Orchards, organic vegetable farms, an animal sanctuary, and a riding stable, all within a few minutes of each other.

For most of its history, Sherborn was a farming town. The stone walls that line its roads were built to mark fields and pastures, and orchards and dairies once covered much of the land.

That history is still at work. Families pick apples where their grandparents did, buy corn from roadside stands in August, and cut their Christmas trees a mile from home. For a town this close to Boston, that is rare.

Where to go

Sherborn’s farms

Farm stands and picking seasons depend on weather and harvest. Check each farm’s own site before you drive over.

Dowse Orchards

Farm stand: 98 North Main Street. Pick-your-own: 30 Rockwood Street.

The Dowse Orchards roadside sign at 98 North Main Street, listing the farm’s own vegetables, pork, pies, and jams

Sherborn’s best-known farm has been worked by the same family for more than two centuries. Its roadside stand on North Main Street is mostly fruit, vegetables, and flowers, with plenty of apples from the family’s own orchard and pumpkins in the fall. A refrigerator holds meats and pies, from chicken pot pies to fruit pies. The stand also sells jams and jellies. The orchard on Rockwood Street opens for pick-your-own apples on fall weekends. Read about Sherborn’s long history of cider making.

Best for: Apples, produce, flowers, and pies; cut-your-own Christmas trees in December.

Visit the Dowse Orchards website

Sunshine Farm

41 Kendall Avenue

Families picking blueberries between rows of bushes on a sunny summer day

Opened by the Geoghegan family in 1937 as a dairy, Sunshine Farm is now a third-generation fruit and vegetable farm with a busy farm stand and an ice cream window. The picking season runs from strawberries in June through blueberries and peaches in summer to apples in the fall.

Best for: Pick-your-own from June to October, ice cream on summer evenings.

Visit the Sunshine Farm website

Silverwood Organic Farm

195 Western Avenue

A certified organic farm restoring historic farmland as a community resource. Silverwood offers seasonal CSA shares and specialty farm products, and its red barn, broad lawn, and farm pond make it a venue for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other private events.

Best for: CSA shares, farm events, and seasonal pop-ups.

Visit the Silverwood Organic Farm website

Hopestill Farm

117 Mill Street, at the corner of Hollis Street

Hopestill Farm is a historic, certified organic farm that has been cultivated by descendants of the town’s founders since the mid-1600s. The farm provides the community with fresh seasonal produce through its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares and offers cut-your-own Christmas trees during the holiday season. Across the street, the Town’s Hopestill Reservation, conserved in 1979, adds open conservation land to explore.

Best for: Seasonal CSA and cut-your-own organic Christmas trees.

Visit the Hopestill Farm website

Unity Farm Sanctuary

17 Unity Lane

A nonprofit sanctuary providing a lifelong home for more than 200 rescued farmed animals, from alpacas, llamas, and horses to cows, goats, pigs, and birds. Visitors can sign up for guided Kindness and Compassion tours and storytime tours from late March through early December, volunteer alongside the animal care team (students as young as 10 can volunteer with an adult), and join educational programs and workshops for all ages. The animals’ living area is open by tour only, but the sanctuary’s four-plus miles of woodland trails are open to the public from dawn to dusk, dogs on leash, and connect to the Bay Circuit Trail.

Best for: Sanctuary tours, volunteering, and trail walks.

Visit the Unity Farm Sanctuary website

Sweet Meadow Farm

111 Coolidge Street

The Sweet Meadow Feed & Grain store, a green metal building with pumpkins, mums, and garden plants out front

The large green indoor riding arena at Sweet Meadow Farm

A family-run equestrian center offering riding lessons, after-school and summer programs, and birthday parties. On the same property, Sweet Meadow Feed & Grain sells hay, shavings, animal feed, pet food, and lawn and garden supplies, along with seasonal plants and pumpkins.

Best for: Lessons and summer programs for young riders.

Visit the Sweet Meadow Farm website

Millborn Farm

97 Bullard Street

Red and orange maples above a Millborn Farm hay field, with an old stone wall running across the field toward the woods

Millborn Farm is a 195-acre reservation owned by The Trustees that stretches from Bullard Street in Sherborn into Millis. Ruth Paine Cunningham brought several older farms together as Millborn Farm in 1935, and The Trustees bought the property in 2024 and opened it to the public. Hay fields lined with stone walls and old farm lanes lead past the farm buildings to woods and more than a mile of frontage on the Charles River, Bogastow Brook, and South End Pond. About two and a half miles of mostly easy trails make it a good walk for families, and birders have recorded more than 100 species here. Admission is free. Check The Trustees’ site for hours, parking, and dog rules before you go.

Best for: Walks through open fields, birding, and views of the Charles River.

Visit Millborn Farm on The Trustees website