The Bolder Life: Pumpkin Patching

Yep. It’s that time again. The end of October truly marks the beginning of holiday season in my world, and Halloween, the first holiday on tap, happens to be one of my favorite holidays of the entire year.

As a kid, my parents used to spend months planning, prepping and setting up for the elaborate Halloween haunted houses that they would throw on the few acres of land that I grew up on along the St. Vrain River in Lyons. Hundred-year-old barns, sheds and cellars were converted into graveyards, eerie science labs and haunted buildings where mummies and straw scarecrows suddenly came to life, causing some of the younger attendees (and let’s be honest, myself) to shed some pretty legit tears that would last until familiar faces could be recognized underneath the gruesome costumes and scary masks.

Six-foot holes were dug around the property for vampires and zombies to jump out of. Pulley devices were created to enable recruited haunted house characters to fly through the air. Kids, innocently dressed as lady bugs, clowns and witches, would begin the haunted tour by reaching into bowls filled with grapes, spaghetti, tapioca pudding and other food items that made up the gross factor of the haunted house, serving as “eyeballs”, “worms” and “brains”.

Aside from my dad’s creative and spooky stories, complete with a tour of a local field filled with “spirits” (fireflies), my favorite part of the Halloween festivities was always the annual visit to the pumpkin patch followed by a night filled with pumpkin carving, apple cider and toasted pumpkin seeds.

This year, after a few years of sidelining the Halloween traditions that I long grew up with, I decided that it was time to bring ‘em back. Last Sunday, with a crew of pumpkin hunters in tow, I visited the bustling pumpkin patch at Munson Farms and searched and searched until I found my perfect pumpkin. I chose a petite, perfectly unblemished pumpkin which resembled more of a Jacqueline-o-Lantern and less of a Jack-o-Lantern. Families armed with wheelbarrows and wagons spread out around the decent sized, scarecrow-filled pumpkin patch, all methodically testing each pumpkin in their path for weight, size, blemishes and stem length. Happy kids rode the tractor-drawn hay ride which wound its way through the corn fields that produce Munson Farm’s most popular item, and an abundance of farm fresh apples, squash and zucchini were stacked in bins and available for purchase at the farm stand.

All in all, I had a pretty successful trip to the pumpkin patch. I picked up a few baby gourds, pumpkins and dried corn for decorating, some apples for snacking, and when I got my perfect pumpkin home, I carved a pretty decent rendition of the CU Buffaloes logo into it, showing off my team spirit in hopes of bringing my hometown team some much needed luck for this weekend’s Homecoming game.

With temperatures reaching the high 60’s, this weekend looks like it’s shaping up to be the perfect sun-filled weekend for starting some Halloween traditions of your own. Check out Munson Farms, on the corner of 75^th and Valmont for all of your pumpkin and fall vegetable needs and save time for a classic hay ride around the property. One trip to Munson Farms will be sure to get you into the spooky spirit of the Halloween season!

Munson Farms is open seven days a week from 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Pumpkin prices range from $7-$11 and parking on the farm grounds is limited, so utilize the shoulder parking off of Valmont Street.