Picking The Right Pumpkin
Tall ones, small ones, skinny ones and fat ones. “We have the smallest pumpkin that’s available on the market – it’s called a ‘Munchkin’ or a ‘Jack-Be-Little,’ – you can hold it in the palm of your hands,” said Green Acres Farm owner and operator Denton Parkins. “And then we have the prize winners that get up to 150 pounds. We try to have the one stop shop. We try to have everything that is in the books on the farm.” That’s more than 100 varieties according to Parkins. “Some of these pumpkins are really good for nothing but decorative purposes, and certain ones are better for eating purposes,” said Parkins. “If you don’t know your stuff, you could pick up a pumpkin that’s not really good to eat.” He says technically all pumpkins are edible, and most are “carvable”, but that each person’s taste in pumpkins is truly unique. “When people ask me about a pumpkin, what I always say is, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,'” said Parkins. “I’ll be honest, when people are shopping out here and they’ll buy their pumpkins, I’ll go, ‘boy that is an ugly pumpkin!’ But to them, it’s appealing.” Whether you choose an ugly duckling or a prize winner, it’s all about the season’s festivities. “This is something that makes people happy. The fall of the year and all the colors and the fall activities going on,” said Parkins. “When it turns October – there’s something magic about October. October 1st people just go silly about these pumpkins.”
