Enjoy Old-Fashioned Farm Fun at Sunflower Pumpkin Patch
During the month of October, Sunflower Pumpkin Patch at Cornerstone Farm is Siskiyou County’s hottest ticket. Over 1000 school aged children visit the adorable pumpkin patch for some farm fun, finding the most gorgeous – or ghoulish – gourd, navigating the hay maze, and having some good, old-fashioned fun.
Kirsten Olson, the owner of the farm and pumpkin patch, admits the month is hectic, but it offers a valuable opportunity to bring the community together and teach kids about farming and how crops, like pumpkins, grow.
“Pumpkins are an incredible ambassador for the community. We’ve been doing it for many years. Before our pumpkin patch here, we had another one just down the road.” Kirsten and her husband, John, realized just how important it was to the community in the fall of 2001. With 9/11 fresh in the memory of families across the United States, the couple expected a rough season. They were pleasantly surprised when families turned out in droves. “The people, the families needed to come to the pumpkin patch. They needed that. We didn’t have that understanding at the time. But that’s where we first started picking up on it.”
That understanding helps keep the couple motivated to carry on the tradition each year. Sunflower Pumpkin Patch is more than a farm; it’s a labor of love in service to their community.
Pumpkins + pop quizzes
John and Kirsten are passionate about making sure that education is part of the experience at Sunflower Pumpkin Patch. Kirsten explains, “We both love agriculture, and we both understand that we need to have more younguns coming up with a love of agriculture as well. So this gives these school kids a day on the farm.”
As kids explore the property, they’ll find signs with posted questions scattered throughout. Teachers and guides encourage them to share their best guesses before revealing the answers on the back of each sign.
This scavenger-hunt-style activity gives kids a reason to explore every corner of the pumpkin patch and corn maze while picking up interesting facts about agriculture along the way.
Crop management – learning pumpkins are just like us
At Cornerstone Farms, crop rotation and cover cropping enrich the soil and help each year’s pumpkin patch thrive. Kirsten uses the vibrant green fields as a visual aid, explaining that farmers don’t just feed the nation – they have to “feed” their crops, too.
She states, “We have a whole part of our patch that is cover-cropped. There’s no pumpkins on it. I like to tease the kids a little bit and say, ‘You see all those pumpkins in the field? They’re not going to be there next year.’” With a mischievous grin, Kirsten continues, “These little kids get so sad. And then, I point to the green field of lush cover crop and say, ‘They’re going to be over there. That’s all food for the pumpkins – that’s all they eat. You need food. You need water to grow. That’s what the pumpkins need.’ I try to point out that we are not that different. We’re not that different. We need the same things.”
It takes all kinds (of pumpkins)
The comparison between pumpkins and people continues as kids traipse through the patch. Like people, pumpkins come in all different colors and sizes. At Sunflower Pumpkin Patch, visitors will find a wild variety of pumpkins – from the traditional smooth orange pumpkin to warty green specimens. In fact, Kirsten has lost count of how many different types of pumpkins they grow.
She does, however, have play favorites. Laughing, she admits, “We really love the weird pumpkins. The whole squash family, they interpollinate. You can’t keep those bees on one flower, and so you get these lumpy things. You get these weird shapes.”
Kirsten even barters with visitors who have discovered especially interesting specimens while exploring the patch. “Sometimes somebody will come in with a wheelbarrow full of pumpkins. And one of those pumpkins will just be bizarre,” Kirsten explains. “So, I’ll ask them, ‘If I gave you this pumpkin for free, could you save the seed for us?’ And everybody says yes. So, we really have this community, and they now have a little more interest because their seed is going back into the ground.”
Organic farming: “The right thing to do”
Everything grown at Cornerstone Farm – from the pumpkins to the ancient durum wheat and cover crops – is certified organic. Organic farming has always been a priority for Kirsten and John. As stewards of the land, the couple views organic farming as “the right thing to do”.
Kirsten notes, “No one really cares if the pumpkins are organic or not. But we do them anyway, because that’s who we are.” Kirsten continues, “This earth is precious. And we are the caretakers, for the most part, of this earth. If you recognize that some materials are harmful, not only to the pests, but also to the environment and the people in that environment, the better choice for us is to avoid those. Everything we can do to try to protect that and to nurture that is what I feel we, as humans, should do.”
How does organic farming differ from conventional farming?
When asked to define organic farming, Kirsten answered, “Organic farming is, in the most simplistic terms, crops are grown, or animals are raised without synthetic materials. For the most part, it’s trying to grow in concert with nature.” That does not, however, mean that all inputs are avoided. Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers aren’t forbidden; they just have to be derived from natural sources.
Visit Sunflower Pumpkin Patch
Sunflower Pumpkin Patch is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday throughout October. Kirsten and John hope that guests leave their Siskiyou County farm with a car full of pumpkins and a new understanding about how pumpkins and other crops are grown.
Sunflower Pumpkin Patch
3075 Scarface Rd
Gazelle, CA 96038
(530) 598-7996
Open Friday through Sunday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Article and photography by Hilary Rance.