GLENVIEW, Ill., Oct. 3 – When you visit Wagner Farm’s Fall Sales, think about this. All those pumpkins on display started as seeds in June. Farm Manager Blake Lanphier and two of his assistants literally walked up and down rows of dirt, hand-dropping 2,400 seeds one by one into small holes, then covering each with a hoe.
“As the growing season begins, we have high hopes that everything will produce well,” said Lanphier. It certainly did this year.
Lanphier planted 13 unique varieties of pumpkins and pumpkin gourds ranging from Moonlight, a large white heirloom, to Pumpkemon, a white dwarf with vibrant orange ribs. Each seed has the potential to produce up to six pumpkins. That’s a total of 14,000 pumpkins! Pumpkins are a non-irrigated crop, so everything depends on the weather. As the pumpkins develop and grow from flowering vines, their small round bodies seem to pop out of the ground starting in mid-August. Harvest usually happens in late September and early October…just in time for Halloween.
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Most of the summer is spent weeding the pumpkin patch. Lanphier knows all about weeding. He’s been digging in gardens since he was 11 years old. That’s about the time he and his brothers in rural southeast Iowa got interested in growing produce, which is no surprise since they come from four generations of farmers.
“We lived on an acre of land, raised chickens and got used to picking weeds by hand. There’s not a lot of machinery to producing vegetables. Basically, if you’re back’s not killing you, you’re not doing it right,” Lanphier joked.
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Lanphier’s brothers are still in the produce business. One farms sweet corn and the other, melons.
Historic Wagner Farm Fall Sales are in operation through Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. -6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 10 a.m. -5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
Dress up your home and yard for the season with Wagner Farm's colorful selection of hardy mums, pumpkins and more. All sales help to support the animals on the farm. For more information, call 847-724-5670.
