Renick’s Family Pumpkin Patch, Ashville, Ohio, October 2000. Photo: Cindy Ott.    

Family Pumpkin Patch

The artifice at these farm festivals is easy to spot, but it is also easy to ignore.  Pumpkins are often cleaned, set upright, and arranged in pleasing displays.  In pick-your-own patches, pumpkins are usually not even attached to a vine much less the patch from which really grew.  Customers still seem pleased to be able to cross a field to find a pumpkin.