Queens County Farm Museum offers country experience without leaving the city

Three acres of towering corn stalks twist and turn in a dizzying maze. Nearby, pumpkins sit in a field, ready to be picked, while alpacas poke their heads up at visitors.

This isn’t the countryside — it’s the Queens County Farm Museum, and it sits squarely within city limits. On Saturday, the farm kicks off the fall season with a celebration that includes an adjacent petting zoo, food vendors and Hudson Valley apples (and apple pie, apple cider and apple doughnuts).

“It’s the perfect time of year, weatherwise, to enjoy a day outside,” said Sarah Meyer, a spokeswoman for the farm. “Compared to some places where you have to drive hours and hours, we are right in city limits. You get to enjoy a day being in the country, but you’re inside the city.”

The 47-acre farm is the longest continuously farmed site in New York, according to the Queens County Farm Museum, and includes the restored Adriance Farmhouse that was first built as a Dutch farmhouse in 1772.

Visitors to the farm can hang out with the many animals on the property, including chickens, goats, sheep, pigs and cows, and can purchase vegetables from the farmstand. Yarn culled from resident alpacas and Cotswold sheep is also for sale.

The farm’s Amazing Maize Maze, shaped like a giant jack-o’-lantern this year, offers visitors a chance to gather and decipher clues placed in mailboxes throughout the site. While you can reward yourself with a sweet treat, Meyer joked the prize was much simpler: “You get out of it — that’s the prize.”

The maze and pumpkin patch are open every weekend through Oct. 27, Meyer said, and to keep the fall festivities going, there is a haunted house on Oct. 27 and the costume-friendly children’s festival on Oct. 28, complete with live music and a hayride.

The farm is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the corn maze and pumpkin patch open from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission to the farm is free, while entrance to the corn maze is $10 for adults, and $5 for children 4 to 11 years old. Admission to the Children’s Festival on Oct. 28 is $20 and includes all activities. The farm is at 73-50 Little Neck Pkwy., just north of Union Turnpike.