Everything you need to find the perfect pumpkin

By Tim Goodwin - Oct 7, 2014 | 0 comments

Let’s see, yup, those are pumpkins.

Rob Larocque of Carter Hill Orchard checks out a few pumpkins from the 12-acre pumpkin patch he uses to grow his crop each year.

One of the best things to do with pumpkins is decorate them. This display at Dimond Hill includes plenty of creativity, and based on the expression of some in the front row, those pieces of corn don’t stand a chance.

This sign sort of speaks for itself, even though it doesn’t actually talk.

Some pumpkins are smaller than others, like these in a basket at Dimond Hill Farm.

Rob Larocque knows what you want when it comes to picking out the perfect pumpkin.

“What people like to get is a big orange pumpkin with a big stem on it,” Larocque said last week in his 12-acre patch. “That’s what sells the pumpkin.”

And it doesn’t matter if it’s for the annual jack-o-lantern carving competition in your neighborhood or to display on the front step of your house – odds are that is what you’ll end up buying. So when the Carter Hill Orchard crew hits the field to pick, if it fits that criteria then you better believe it’s going in the bin.

“The darker the pumpkin, the better it seems to last,” Larocque said.

The pumpkins are picked twice a week, depending on the demand, and his 24-foot box truck can hold 12 bins, which is about 15 to 20 good-sized pumpkins per bin. Now for those of you who don’t feel like doing the math, that’s about 180 to 240 pumpkins per load. And you can probably guess when the busiest time is.

“The week before Halloween is the biggest for us, always,” Larocque said. “That’s when they want the carving pumpkins.”

You also might be wondering why Larocque needs to fill a box truck with his pumpkins – that’s because he doesn’t actually grow them at his orchard on Carter Hill Road. Well, he does have three-quarters of an acre there, but those don’t last long. On the other side of town, he has a super secret stash of land (or it was super secret until now) that’s devoted strictly to pumpkins, as well as butternut squash (so technically it’s not just for pumpkins, but close enough since they’re both in the gourd family.)

“We came across this 12-acre field and said ‘why not grow our own,’ ” Larocque said.

Out of the close to 70 rows of planted goodness, 59 are filled with pumpkins, which Larocque estimates turns into somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 that he can sell. Not all of those make it past the inspection process for color, shape and stem strength, but the hope is for most of them to find a nice home for the fall season.

“You have to have a little bit of every size,” Larocque said.

It all started this year on June 1. That’s when the seeds went in the ground. After the rows were rototilled, Larocque made an indent with his foot and dropped in two pumpkin seeds. He always puts two because for one, the crows love to eat them, and if one doesn’t take the other one hopefully will. Two steps down, he does the same thing. The seeds, of which there were 10 different varieties this year, are fertilized a total of three times.

And while a lot of people want the big pumpkins for carving, those are the ones you want to save for the time right before Halloween. The mini pumpkins and sugar pumpkins are the kind to buy early in the season – because they last a lot longer. So that’s what Larocque recommends. Buy the smaller ones for decorations and the big ones for late season carving.

“It’s going to last a couple weeks, maybe, if you’re lucky,” Larocque said of the larger pumpkins. “So I would hold off making that big pumpkin purchase until the last two weeks of October.”

Larocque does sell some of his pumpkins on the wholesale market to places like Dimond Hill Farm on Hopkinton Road. Jane Presby, owner of Dimond Hill, used to have 5 acres of pumpkins herself, but a few years back decided it wasn’t worth all the extra work and instead used the space to plant more corn.

“You have to pick your battles,” Presby said. “That’s a lot of pumpkins. Those 5 acres took two weeks just to harvest. So now I go to other farms that want to sell wholesale.”

But after years of selling pumpkins, Presby didn’t want to disappoint her faithful customers. So that’s why she still brings them in to decorate her lawn and farm stand – and don’t worry, they’re all for sale. Her farm manager, Ian McCluskey, a lifelong Hopkinton resident, has fond memories of family trips to Dimond Hill in the fall.

“The barn was always filled with pumpkins, and we’d be running around,” McCluskey said.

It’s those kind of treasured moments that Presby still wants to provide for families.

“People are really understanding when we have to bring stuff in,” McCluskey said.

And since she is all about local, like most farmers, that’s why she buys pumpkins from Larocque. It’s fairly common for the two to do business with each other. Actually, the plot Larocque rents for his pumpkin patch used to be leased by Presby, so in some sort of weird roundabout way, you could say the pumpkins are kind of partly hers anyway.

“He and I have been friends for a long time,” Presby said of Larocque. “He’s like family. I sell stuff to him, he sells stuff to me.”

But regardless of where you get your pumpkins this season, just remember to follow a few simple rules – buy small and work your way up to big. And don’t drag your pumpkin across the ground. One little scratch can turn your perfectly shaped scary face into a puddle of rotten goop.