In Charlie Brown’s classic cartoon, Linus camped out in the most sincere pumpkin patch he could find to wait for the Great Pumpkin.
Most of us won’t be spending a night surrounded by orange orbs, but many families will be visiting local farms to pick out the perfect pumpkin to carve into a jack-o’-lantern to decorate front porches. As the air turns chilly and cornstalks brown and crinkle, it’s also time to grab the kids and a bushel basket to pick apples to add to lunchboxes or bake into pies using Grandma’s recipe. Catch a free lift into an orchard on a hay wagon, and the day turns into an outdoor adventure.
In Saratoga County, there’s a long list of weekend destinations offering seasonal favorites. Sunnyside Farms in Saratoga Springs is a virtual autumnal playground, with an enormous pumpkin field filled with tombstones bearing jokes (How do you make a witch itch? Take away the `w’) and an old-fashioned, child-sized train zipping around its perimeter. There’s also a hay mountain for kids to scale and a tame hayride through `haunted` woods. On most weekends through Halloween, there’s live music and on-site baking of apple-filled confections. You can also pick up mums and any number of plants, crafts and home decorations.
One of the newest crazes in outdoor fall activities is getting hopelessly lost in a maze carved out of cornfields. Schuyler Farms in Schuylerville was one of the earliest in the area to carve an intricate design into an enormous dried corn patch for the specific purpose of confusing wanderers.
`I’ve owned this farm for 41 years, and five years ago we started designing and cutting patterns into the field,` said Anna Macica. `Every year more people come out. We expect 2007 to be our best year ever.`
It takes about 45 minutes to navigate your way out of the corn maze; extra time is required at night for the `Haunted Maze` offered on weekend nights. Bring a flashlight, and be prepared for various ghosts and ghouls to jump out of the stalks (but they won’t be dragging you away; they’re not allowed to touch you, and vice versa). Mazes have been cut in the shapes of pirates and aliens in previous years; this year’s design is an elaborate mining cave. The farm also offers hayrides, pick-your-own pumpkins, miniature golf, gemstone and fossil mining, petting zoo, gift shop, farm- fresh snacks, and a complete garden center.
At Indian Ladder Farms in Altamont, you can pick orchard fresh apples in an enormous array of varieties including, but not limited to, MacIntosh, Empire, Cortland, Red Delicious and Fuji. You can visit the state-of-the-art cider house and the popular Yellow Rock CafE, and shop for vegetables ranging from arugula, Japanese turnips and baby spinach.
Tim and Colleen Stanton have owned Stanton’s Feura Farm in Feura Bush for 11 years. They devote nearly 400 acres to production of hay and other field crops, small fruits, vegetables, and greenhouse plants. This time of year, you can find pumpkins and apples galore.
Most people head to Fo’ Castle Farms in Burnt Hills hungry, and not just for fruits and veggies. The country cafE offers clam chowder, quiche and pie known around the area as the closest thing to homemade.
`You can have breakfast or lunch in a brick room by a fireplace, or in nice weather out on the sun porch,` said cafE manager Colleen Goodman.
Orchard owner Alan Colyer said the convenience of his apple grove brings lots of young families.
`It’s easy in, easy out,` said Colyer. `You can park right on site and pick your apples fast.`
At Bowman Orchards on Sugar Hill Road in Rexford, there are more than 46 varieties of apples grown on 98 acres of land, as well as strawberries, pears, peaches, pumpkins and blackberries. There are also several varieties of the lesser-known fall fruit, raspberries.
The family added a crop of raspberries late in the summer, so both red and golden berries will be available after a hard frost, right through Thanksgiving. Varieties include Polana, Caroline, Heritage, Autumn Britten, and Encore.
The Bowman Orchards country store lures customers clamoring for home-baked pies, apple cider and cider donuts, pastries, homemade ice cream and more than 12 flavors of fudge.
If you’re headed to Bowman Orchards North in Malta, you can buy pre-picked apples, but inclement summer weather took a bite out of the apple crop.
`We had 25 minutes of hail in July, and all my apples are ruined,` said owner David Bowman. `The apples are out there on the trees, but they’re all marked up. I’m going to ship them all out for cider. What can you do all depends on Mother Nature.“
