Pumpkin Hill
5415 Kenneth Avenue, Fair Oaks (near Sacramento), CA
Opens October 1, open 7 days a week until 7 p.m. (I suggest an early evening trip, the light at sunset was amazing through all the oak trees)
If you're local, definitely check them out. It's pretty incredible what these first time farmers have managed to do in the last 6 months.
Our friends (the parents of Biscuit's bestest friend from school who, conveniently we really like and have a ton in common with) have a pumpkin patch.
He is a contractor and she is a manager at a grocery store and through some convoluted series of friends and relations they ended up leasing a 90 acre farm and growing a pumpkin patch. This is exactly my kind of random. They are literally learning to farm as they go and are pouring everything into this place.
They open on October 1 and have a LOT of cool giant pumpkins plus even more regular sized pumpkins. They estimate 30,000 pumpkins total plus gourds, corn and other stuff. For the kids they have a straw pyramid and will have a bounce house as well as educational information about pumpkin growing and pollination. They also have a snack bar being run by a very nice, currently-in-between-jobs culinary school trained chef so I'm guessing the chili dogs will be extra tasty.
I'll be honest, their website isn't great which is why I posted the details above hoping to get some web traffic.
This is a view from the top of pumpkin hill. They've got a lot of weeds at the moment so it might be a pumpkin hunt or they might have time to weed in the next few days. Either way it'll be fun. I personally loved the weeds but I might be weird. If they leave the weeds, dress your kids cute as the photos will be amazing. (Check out this photo shoot and you'll see what I mean)
Speaking of amazing photos, behind the pumpkin patch is the rusted out junk yard of the 90 year old owner of the farm. Taking twilight photos of rust was the highlight of my day. I'll share more tomorrow.
Hope to see you at Pumpkin Hill!
That's the pumpkin patch my parents always used to take us to (me and my sister). My parents had this stupid rule that we couldn't get a pumpkin bigger than we could carry. lol. Do they still have the tire swing and hay rides? maybe I'll take Darryl this year ;)
Posted by: Amy Cluck | September 26, 2009 at 01:13 PM
That's my kind of random too!!! How beautiful! Our local pumpkin patch is almost 2 hours away from us and won't be open til late due to our recent heavy rains. We went a loooong time ago and now that the kids are nearly grown I don't know if they'd want to go again, although they love going to get a Christmas tree every year.
Posted by: Molly | September 26, 2009 at 07:57 PM
Amy,
Yes! It's the same place (the owner used to run it and now he is so old he's
leasing it out--this year to our friends) They will have a hayride (I think
there will be a small fee). I believe I know where you're talking about for
the tire swing but it's a wood disk type swing. I tried it and it was fun!
On Sat, Sep 26, 2009 at 1:13 PM, wrote:
Posted by: Melissa Haworth | September 26, 2009 at 08:02 PM
I live about 2 seconds away from Pumpkin Hill, so I'll be sure to take the kids someday soon. Thanks for the suggestion!
Posted by: KristaMB | September 28, 2009 at 07:24 AM
I am SO excited this place will be open again! I run a small in home daycare and am planning a trip there in the next couple weeks and I'm just so happy! I wish the hours were somewhere....I caught a flyer on a myspace page, but no hours. I am wondering if they're open on columbus day, guess we will find out! Thanks so much for the post!
Posted by: randi | October 02, 2009 at 04:40 PM
could you please include the telephone number of pumpkin hill?
its the first website we come to when we type in p.h.
Posted by: josephpagano@sbcglobal.net | October 08, 2009 at 12:49 PM
Pumpkin Hill's phone # is 916-966-4111. We went out there today and it was very nice. I run a pumpkin website and they have offered to allow me to take many photos of their farm for my site. If I get the time anyways. ;)
Posted by: twitter.com/NeitherSparky | October 10, 2009 at 04:58 PM