IT'S YOUR PICK
Farms produce the pumpkins — autumn produces the crowds.
Pumpkins, those grinning stars of Halloween and heralds of fall, need no introduction. Except when they do. They’re large, except when they ’re small. They’re smooth, except when they ’re bumpy. They’re orange, except when they ’re not. Sometimes, in fact, they ’re not even pumpkins.
“You know, it’s really evolved,” says farmer Tim Stanton, who knows whereof he speaks.
“We used to grow just pumpkins — and there was just orange pumpkins. Now we’ve got white pumpkins, yellow pumpkins. This year, supposedly I planted what’s gonna be a black pumpkin — but I think it ’s gonna be really dark green. I haven’t seen it yet.” Beyond that, he says, “The big thing that everybody loves is all the odd stuff. What we plant now? It ’s over 40 different things that we’re planting in the field. All different kinds of ornamental winter squash and gourds – I mean, there’s every kind of thing.”
He’s standing in the sunshine one clear Monday morning at Stanton’s Feura Farm, a full-time, year-round, 170-acre spread that transforms each fall into a pick-your-own destination for weekend family outings.
It ’s one of several farms around the Capital Region that welcomes pumpkin-pickers throughout October (see box), tapping into an innate autumnal urge to get outside and grab squash in the last days before the first snow. Aside from the large (or not) orange (or not) pumpkins (or not), farms also offer various activities to amuse the kids and their attendant grown-ups.
“We try to keep it a very family atmosphere. We try to keep it very farm-orient so we don’t have too much carnival stuff like some places have. Everything we’ve g has something to do with farming — and w kinda want to keep it that way. Our logo is ‘We Know Family Farm Fun,’” says Stanton, who manages the farm with his wife, Colleen, and oldest son, Nick, who’s off wi a load of hay in Massachusetts. Their dog Shadow bolts with joy as Stanton rides to and from the pumpkin fields in an ATV.
Weekdays, he says, they work the farm usual. Weekends they welcome the public opening up their rolling sprawl of land to pilgrims on a quest for seasonal produce. Apples take up 10 acres, pumpkins 15 to 20 (Other crops include sweet corn, cow-feed corn and “u-pick ” strawberries, open in th warm months.) Vistors ride a wagon out to the pumpkins, which move from year to year as the farm rotates crops.