The great pumpkin
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme- mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme- mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme- mso-bidi- mso-bidi-theme-} It”™s Halloween and pumpkin sales are rising out of the pumpkin patch.
Stew Leonard”™s looks to sell 50,000 and one community hopes to attract 70,000 people to its jack o”™ lantern haunting.
“We”™re having a great pumpkin crop, and we”™re quite excited about pumpkins this year,” said Lucy T. Joyce, agriculture issue leader at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Middletown, N.Y. “It”™s actually been a good fall harvest season with just the right amount of rainfall.”
Bill Allen, garden shop manager for Stew Leonard”™s in Norwalk, said annual pumpkin sales account for 5 percent of the garden business at the store”™s four locations, including Danbury, Newington and Yonkers, N.Y.
“I would say our pumpkin business has been growing over the years,” Allen said.
Every year, the stores acquire 50,000 standard carving pumpkins grown in Connecticut to be sold starting in September and ending on Halloween.
“We”™re generally receiving about a truckload a day at each location,” Allen said, noting the company average is 80 truckloads a year.
Stew Leonard”™s offers “a nice-sized pumpkin with a great value,” at the flat price of $6.99 each or three for $18, according to Allen.
This year, the Norwalk store held a $2,500 pumpkin weigh-off featuring a 1,100-pound pumpkin grown by a local farmer.
Verdell Jones, 53, of Yonkers has been working at Stew Leonard”™s there for eight years.
“Pumpkin sales have been excellent this year,” he said while showing off a 490-pound pumpkin. “The pumpkins here today are an extra order.”
Stew”™s also showcased hay rides and Hay Bale Theater, which featured four showings this month, including “It”™s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”
If there was ever a question of the popularity of pumpkins, the Great Jack O”™ Lantern Blaze in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., provides the answer.
The nighttime event, which features more than 4,000 illuminated, individually hand-carved pumpkins, draws as many nightly visitors as there are carved gourds.
“Halloween is a huge holiday and it”™s become a season,” said Rob Schweitzer, director of public relations for HistoricHudson Valley, the nonprofit that sponsors the blaze. “I think retail spending on Halloween has gone through the roof and it”™s second only to Christmas at this point.”
The blaze features a mix of real pumpkins and synthetic “funkins,” but, “Every jack o”™ lantern that is here is individually hand-carved on-site by our small team of about a dozen carvers,” Schweitzer said.
The nonprofit”™s 1,000 volunteers start preparing for the event, which is held for 18 nights, in late August.
“It”™s a big undertaking and the event basically sells out every night,” Schweitzer said. “In 2005, when the event first started, we had 18,000 people come. It grew to 35,000 in 2006 and 67,000 in 2007, and we were basically at capacity. This year we”™ve already sold 60,000 tickets and I anticipate that we”™re going to sell over 70,000 by the time it”™s all said and done.”
Schweitzer said the organization “doesn”™t break out expenses and revenue by event, but the event is profitable for us.” Tickets cost $15.
In addition to a traditional marketing plan, Historic Hudson Valley and its media sponsor, WHUD, host a Youtube contest of videos from the blaze.
The live pumpkins come from Wallkill View Farm Market in New Paltz, N.Y.
The farm itself, which features a pick-your-own operation, is 200-plus acres; the pumpkin patch is 35 acres.
“It was a good year for the harvest,” said Carol Ferrante, an owner of the family-owned Wallkill. “The pumpkins are great. The color is good on them. And the weather couldn”™t have been better.” View Farm Market
Mary Secor of the 125- acre Secor”™s Farm in LaGrange, N.Y., said 14 acres of farmland are set aside for pumpkins each year.
The pumpkin range starts at 2 pounds and tops off at 70 pounds.
Secor attributed a good harvest season and tender loving care to the success of the crop this year.
“My husband Don puts a lot of work into it and I think that”™s what makes the pumpkins turn out so great,” Secor said.
Don Secor said most of the pumpkins grown today are used for decorative purposes and carved jack o”™ lanterns.
The farm also sells fawn-colored cheese pumpkins, “which make excellent pies.”