This was our family's 6th year growing a pumpkin patch, and it was the most successful one we've ever had. After experimenting with seed varieties each year, I think we finally found the perfect combination that both works well in our soil and is what the customers like and want. We grew less kinds of variety this year, and planted more of what's been most popular in years past. We had one row of orange jack-be-littles, one row of Gyant Hybrid, and ten rows of Connecticut Field (we didn't grow any blue ones this year, though, even though we had requests for them). Then in our neighbor Frank's garden plot, we planted white jack-be-littles and White Moon pumpkins--which turned out to be the best white ones we've ever planted: they were big, perfectly round, and there was no mold issues with that breed.
As the boys have gotten older, the work load has become less for Josh and I during the summer months: Ammon rototilled the dirt, and the other boys did a great job weeding on their own. But with age also comes extra opportunities, and the patch has become more challenging for us to work at in the fall due to their increasing sports schedules: it took us about 10 days in September to cut and move all the pumpkins into storage, and the pumpkin patch is open for 6 days in October for the sales days. It was tricky for us to get everything done in the patch this fall with Ammon's cross country and Jonah & Micah's football schedules. As a result, we decided this was our final year. This was a difficult decision to make, but we know it is a necessary one.
We opened up for business on Friday, October 10, and the patch was open the rest of the Fridays and Saturdays in October. I took Thursday the 9th off of work all day to get the whole patch prepared because there wasn't any time to do it; it took me 8 hours to get it all set up! The boys had all helped me on Wednesday night getting the hay-bale maze ready, and I'm so glad, because with their help, we were all able to get it done in 2 hours. If I'd had to do it myself on Thursday, it would've taken me 3 times as long!!
For every day that we were open, we pulled two trailers full of pumpkins out of storage to place in the patch. This system worked out great last year, so we did it again this year--it helps cut down on the pumpkins being exposed to weather. Except this year, we started with over 750 big pumpkins and we had to be creative with our storage!! We've never grown that many large pumpkins in one year before! We put 200 in our bike shed, 200 in the calving shed, 200 in the backside door of the calving shed, and the rest went into Grandpa T.'s shop.
Every year, I like to add one new/different thing in the patch. This year, I added a stomping game. You put a bean bag on the wooden plank, stomp the other end, and try to make the bean bags land on the colored pumpkin board to make the design of a jack-o-lantern face. This required minimal work from me to purchase/paint/and set it up, which was nice, and I also liked having something new for our returning customers.
Last year we added the pumpkin cemetery, and it was so popular that we did it again this year. It amazes me how many people like to look at the rotting pumpkins in the cemetery and take pictures by it!
We also had the cinderella pumpkin carriage photo booth again...
...as well as the jack-o-lantern bean bag toss. It required a fresh paint job this year, which took me just over an hour to do on Thursday afternoon.
I got a few strawbales and set up a group photo area in front of the cornstalks, which was nicely staged right in front of the fall foliage on the large trees in Kathy's yard.
We bought orange shirts and hats last year for the boys to wear on sale days. But this year there was only one day in October where they were actually all helping at the same time; the twins were gone to football two of the six sale days, and Ammon had cross country practice and hunting and his mowing job and was hardly able to help out in the patch this fall.
Kanyon turned out to be the biggest and best help on sale days this year! He was courteous, loyal to the customers, very helpful, and worked hard pushing the wheelbarrows around. We were all so impressed with him! In years past, he's usually just come down once in a while to the patch when his friends were here, but he was in the patch all 6 days, and he was an awesome worker!
Sometimes when it got slow, Kanyon and the twins would go and play in/on the hay bale maze that Edward built next to the pumpkin patch. Edward has done this for us for five years now, and this was the biggest one he's built yet. It had 5 rows and was very long. Lots of customers enjoyed running through/playing in the maze when they came out to the patch, and it has become very popular!
The haybale maze has a spider theme, and every year I add more spiders to the collection that we place in/on the bales. The favorite one that delights the youngsters is the "mommy spider". We hid her in a dead-end this year, and when she is touched, she laughs like a witch and vibrates. I always enjoyed hearing shrieks and screams from people when they found her!
The weather was awesome for the first two weekends of our sale days, and we were so blessed to have such beautiful weather! We were open from 11-5, so when the weather is miserable, 6 hours of straight sitting outside can be miserable. But when the weather is nice, it means we have lots of customers, and it's also a delight to be outdoors and enjoy the gorgeous fall surroundings on the ranch.
At the end of each Saturday night, we loaded up the leftover pumpkins from the patch into our enclosed cargo trailer for the week to protect them from the weather in case we had freezing temperatures, and then we placed them back in the field each Friday morning. This system worked out great--I wish we would've thought to do it before this year! The only drawback was if we had special visitors midweek, like for example one Sunday afternoon my parents and sister Trina and her new husband Dan came to visit us. We took them down to the patch, and they walked around the maze, played games, and then picked their pumpkins out of the trailer (which isn't quite as fun)!
We stayed pretty busy the first two weekends, and by the beginning of the 3rd weekend, we worried that we were going to run out of pumpkins--which we actually did halfway through our final sale day. That's never happened before! We didn't have one single extra pumpkin left (good thing the boys had already picked out their own pumpkins to carve!), and we closed down about 2:00 that day.
Since Kanyon has finally become SO good at growing and selling pumpkins (unfortunately just in time for our last sale year), we have worked out plans for him to do it again next year--but in a different way. The Sacajawea Center began having a fall festival this year, and they purchased a truck-full of pumpkins from us to sell at it. Next year, we will plant just a few rows of pumpkins, and then take them ourselves to the Sac Center where Kanyon will be the salesman and earn the proceeds from it. This makes it feel like the patch closing is not so final, and also gives him a job to work towards, too. I feel confident that this is the right plan for everyone!
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One of my favorite pumpkins we grew this year
was a large, white pumpkin shaped like a pear! |
I will miss the pumpkin patch, and many of our customers have expressed similar thoughts and feelings! The pumpkin patch has been a good project for our family: it has taught the boys to work together, to save money, and to be self-sufficient. And although it is sad that this phase of our lives is ending, we know that teaching our kids the value of work is a treasure that will last a lifetime.
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Another one of my favorites from this year's crop:
the butt crack with a bulging top |
