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Sunday, October 17, 2010

Cal Poly Pumpkin Fest #1: The Pumpkins













Yesterday we packed up the garden cart and big two handled bucket in the old man's pickup and went off east on a quest for pumpkins.  The gardeners, er, Plant Scientists and Technologists that is, at Cal Poly Pomona offer up tons of pumpkins and festivities every October and been doing it for the past 19 years or so. 
 
Back in the day, this was a best-kept-secret, very small affair with pumpkins actually growing in the fields waiting to be cut from the vine by pumpkin hunters.  Now they bring in pumpkins and gourds and decorative squashes from other fields and spread them across the pumpkin grounds for people to "pick".  Still, it's a lot of fun searching for the perfect pumpkin and watching imperfect people.    





The festival attracts hordes of people these days.  There are booths with games and crafts; there is a corn maze; there are things for sale; there are things to eat.  People park their pumpkin-laden wagons outside while they go inside to eat pancake breakfast.


It's best to get there early for the best authentic farm experience:  while the mist hangs low and there's a close-in parking spot.  In the middle of the field we found actual pumpkin vines growing with pumpkins on them.  For old time's sake we cut some of those with my trusty Felcos. 





We hauled our haul (always more than I intended, having promised to keep the Halloween decorating to a dull roar) to the close-in parked truck in our trusty beat-up garden cart as the misty sky began to rise. 

1 comment:

Christine said...

Oh the jealousy- I can't stand it! We're stuck with hoity-toity grocery stores or the empty lot littered with pumpkins that have sub-par stems and giant bouncy houses (which they only let the kids use- lame!)