The Alarming Truth about Pumpkins

The lowdown on pumpkin patches, at least on the east coast. Does anyone know if such shameful practices go on around here?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/08/nyregion/08pumpkin.html

ToniG,

It's entertainment. While they may not pick the pumpkin from the vine, they have the experience of coming out to a farm. IF this is the shameful practice you're referring to, then I guess we don't agree.

I'm considering driving out to Hebron right this moment to visit the apple orchards. My farmer friend makes a practice of luring unsuspecting children to his farm decorated like a pumpkin patch. He gives children hay rides, which really is a tour of his farm. They pick out pumpkins from the large piles, which are priced by which size hole the pumpkin can fit through. I doubt all the pumpkins came from his farm and it never troubled me at all. He even has a corn maze and a haunted house!

"Where consumer pressure is greater, the farms will run out, and they're going to need to keep the customers coming," Ms. Eggert said. "They are business people, and they do what they have to do."

Someone has good business instincts and wants to earn a profit. It is also this extra income which keeps the family farmer afloat and willing to carry on another year.

For me it is a shame how much further I have go every year to buy directly from a farmer.

Regards,

I vaguely remember seeing on TV something about pumpkin patches where kids could choose their pumpkin when it was still small and scratch their name or mark on it. This disfiguration would grow with the pumpkin until it was time for harvest. I thought that 'adopt-a-pumpkin' was a neat idea and (most) pumpkins turned out quite nicely.

Cathy,

I will be out in Hebron at 3:30pm this afternoon. Thanks for the reminder.

I have been preaching to my farmer friends for years that the only way to improve farm income is to get out and sell your product at retail as opposed to complaining about how little they get wholesale. And when you sell at retail, it should be at a PREMIUM to supermarket prices.

My MIL was selling her homemade pies at $4 a piece. She was afraid that she would not sell out at $7. What she found out was that when she moved them to $7-8 and put an ad on the radio bazaar show, she would have people coming in from town buying her pies ... as well as taking home a bottle of homemade maple syrup and a jar of her honey.

Hope to see you.

Cathy2 wrote:ToniG,

It's entertainment. While they may not pick the pumpkin from the vine, they have the experience of coming out to a farm. IF this is the shameful practice you're referring to, then I guess we don't agree.

As was the article, I meant my intro to be tongue-in-cheek. Didn't mean to offend!

Since pumpkins have been mentioned, I thought I'd ask the experts.

Last year I had a little pumpkin patch in my tiny backyard garden here in Albany Park, which ended up producing one pumpkin. Here it was, a few weeks before harvest.



About ten pounds, decent orange color, a little lopsided. I decided not to carve it up, but keep it whole on my dining room table for a lazy person's autumn centerpiece (I am nothing if not lazy). I harvested it mid-October 2004 and here it sits, exactly as it was the day I brought it in. No soft spots, no signs of rotting, no maraca-like sounds when shaken. I still don't want to carve into it, because now it has become more of a curiousity.



Ever heard of the pumpkin that wouldn't rot?

It may look good on the outside but there's NO way I'm cuttin' into that thing:) I'm having a vision of the time I picked up a potato to peel and two of my fingers just sank into it and it oozed all over my hand ::shudder::