Fresh pumpkins

Picking fresh pumpkins and apples is delightful for kids and adults alike. It’s interactive, it’s low-activity (depending on how heavy the pumpkins are, or how high you’re leaping to pluck apples from branches!) and at the end of the day, you go home with a fresh, fragrant yield for your oven, fruit bowl or doorstep.

A day at a pumpkin patch can be downright magical — bright fall colors as a canopy, showing peeks of blue autumnal sky; orange spheres with intertwining vines lying as though asleep amid fallen leaves; frost’s beginning etchings of the season across the fruit of fall.

Picking fresh pumpkins and apples is delightful for kids and adults alike. It’s interactive, it’s low-activity (depending on how heavy the pumpkins are, or how high you’re leaping to pluck apples from branches!) and at the end of the day, you go home with a fresh, fragrant yield for your oven, fruit bowl or doorstep.

Kids love choosing their own jack-o’-lanterns, says Greg Burtt, who owns Burtt’s Apple Orchard in Cabot with his wife.

And picking apples, either by hand or with an apple picker for little ones who are too short to reach high branches, is like a treasure hunt. Burtt’s gives out maps detailing which apple varieties can be found in which parts of the orchard. Golden Delicious? Pink Lady? Traditional McIntosh? Over there, down that row, to the left.

The couple has three daughters, ages 2, 4 and 6, who help them “test out everything to see if it’s kid-friendly,” Burtt said.

Burtt’s features about 2 acres of pumpkin patch, and between 8,000 and 9,000 apple trees. Pumpkins are priced based on size.

When kids come to Burtt’s, they sometimes try to pick up the pumpkins by themselves, but end up needing grownup assistance, Burtt said.

“Yeah, there’s little ones out there, but they’re pretty much always picking with their parents. They find a way to move the pumpkins around,” Burtt said.

“They’re usually just excited to see the apples, and the playground, and just going out and having fun picking apples and pumpkins and whatnot,” he said.

Burtt’s Apple Orchard also offers snacks like cinnamon-sugar doughnuts, hot or cold cider, apples, maple syrup, cider vinegar or sweetcorn, at least until the end of October.

Snug Valley Farm in East Hardwick also offers pick-your-own pumpkins.

Located, appropriately, on Pumpkin Lane, the farm boasts five acres of pumpkins. Its owner, Ben Nottermann, was a pumpkin sales magnate by the first grade, when he started selling squash.

Now, Snug Valley Farm offers pumpkin-picking tours for schoolchildren, and sells pumpkins in piles arranged by price, so budget-conscious parents can steer their kids in the right direction.

Other local picking places:

  • Grenier’s Farm Stand & Bakery (pumpkins), 1413 Guptil Road, Waterbury Center. 802-244-8057.
  • Hunger Mountain Orchard (apples), 88 Thurston Lane, Waterbury Center. 244-6680, hungermtnorchard@comcast.net.
  • Adams Apple Orchard and Farm Market, 986 Old Stage Road, Williston. 802-879-5226, adamsfarmmarket.com.
  • Chapin Orchard, 150 Chapin Road, Essex. 879-6210, chapinorchard.com.
  • Isham Family Farm (pumpkins), 3517 Oak Hill Road, Williston. 872-1525, maplemn@yahoo.com.
  • Parker Family Farm (pumpkins), 141 Butternut Road, Williston. 878-2898, parkerfamilyfarmvt.com.
  • Sam Mazza’s Farms (pumpkins), 277 Lavigne Road, Colchester. 655-3440, sammazzafarms.com.
  • Shelburne Orchards (apples), 216 Orchard Road, Shelburne. 985-2753, shelburneorchards.com.

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