Pumpkin Patch Traditions

Long-time readers know that when I lived in Santa Cruz my oldest granddaughter and I enjoyed visiting a pumpkin patch each October. As the years passed, I watched little Bean progress in her relationship with the pumpkins. At first, she just hugged the pumpkin Grandma chose. Then she gave her opinion about which pumpkin we should select. The last time she and I visited that pumpkin patch, she was ten years old. She fetched the wheelbarrow herself, selected a pumpkin to carve and another to bake, then powered up the hill to the cashier before leading me on a merry chase through the Corn Maze. That particular pumpkin patch has piles of hay bales to climb, huge pipes to slide through, and the scary corn maze – enough entertainment to keep us there an hour or more. Since moving south, I have missed those outings, but the memories are sweet.

My first visit to a pumpkin patch took place in Virginia, the year Bean’s mother was born. She arrived in November, so by Halloween, I was pretty big and awkward, and I mostly sat and watched the families milling around us. Recently transferred from California, my husband and I were entranced by the glorious fall colors, and we visited the pumpkin patch as part of our exploration of Fall in Virginia. It was just a corner lot covered with pumpkins, but I remember looking at all the happy children and trying to imagine ourselves there with our own children in years to come. For some reason, it represented that new and mysterious world of parenting.

It has been fifty years since that first visit to a pumpkin patch, and I’m now passing on what has become an annual tradition to my six-year-old granddaughter in southern California. The pumpkin patches here are huge. Both the pumpkins and the entertainments seem to be on steroids. Last October we went to the Underwood Family Farm, which sells produce at the farmer’s market I visit every Saturday. Along with hundreds of pumpkins, there was a tractor ride, a pony ride, apple cider, ice cream cones, and a petting zoo.

The Changing Face of the Pumpkin Patch

This year we attended the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival, which reminded me of a county fair as much as anything else, complete with live music, ice cream, and apple cider, several bouncy houses attracted long lines of excited children. I don’t know whether it’s me who’s changed, or whether the pumpkin patch phenomenon is a thing that’s been evolving all this time, but there seems to be a trend toward expanding the experience. This coming weekend my granddaughter and I plan to visit an historical site that offers pumpkins along with the reenactment of nineteenth-century farm life. Some of the features will be a manual water pump, a blacksmith shop, traditional fall meal preparation, and a goat feeding station.

Bringing the Pumpkins Home

After we return home, we’ll slice a small sugar pie pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and bake it on a cookie sheet. While it’s baking, we’ll wash the seeds and lay them out to dry. Once the baked pumpkin shell is cool, we’ll scoop out the flesh and use it to make the first pumpkin pie of the season.

One day next week we’ll color some of the pumpkin seeds with liquid watercolors, pierce them with a doll needle, and string them on fishing line to make a necklace. The rest will get salted and eaten, or perhaps used in a collage.

The Easiest Pumpkin Pie We’ve Ever Made

Easy Pumpkin Pie

Even though this pie is made from a real pumpkin, rather than pumpkin coming out of a can, it takes only a few minutes and is fun to prepare with children.

Keyword fresh, easy, pumpkin pie, from scratch

Servings 8 slices

Ingredients

2 cups fresh pumpkin
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk or cream
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
OR 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
1 9" pie crust

Instructions

Cut a small ("sugar pie") pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds, etc., and place on a baking sheet cut side down.
Bake at 350 degrees F for one hour, or until soft when poked with a fork. Let cool.
Put all ingredients in a blender and blend to desired texture (or use a large bowl and mix with a mixer). Pour into a 9-inch pie pan lined with your favorite pie crust ( I use a frozen pre-prepared gluten-free crust)
Bake at 350 degrees F for one hour.
Let cool and enjoy.

Pass On Your Fall Traditions

No matter where you live, I suspect there are pumpkins for sale, and even if you have moved past carving jack-o-lanterns and constructing costumes for children, you might enjoy the energy of a pumpkin patch or festival. If you can snag a child or two for a few hours, you can pass on your own family traditions.

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Marlene Anne Bumgarner writes primarily about food, family, and traditions. Her 2020 memoir, Back to the Land in Silicon Valley, is about raising children, animals, and vegetables on a rural plot of land in the 1970s. Organic Cooking for (not-so-organic ) Families will be out before Christmas. Her next project is a book about Grandparenting, and in her spare time, she is plotting a cozy mystery.