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The entire world of autumn wonder is waiting just beyond your front steps. From local farm stands and bumpy heirloom varieties to giant squashes paddled across lakes, following one familiar orange squash is a wonderful excuse to step outside and discover unique pumpkin traditions and fall activities this season.
Pumpkins are plentiful in the Fall. At the grocery store. At a farm stand. On somebody’s porch. They represent the transition into cool weather, sweaters, and corn fields being cut down. Follow the pumpkin a little farther though, and things get surprisingly interesting.
People grow them to ridiculous sizes. Race across ponds inside them. Build festivals around them. Turn them into food. We carve them because of a tradition that did not even start with pumpkins. We grow varieties that are white, red, tiny, enormous, flattened, warty and occasionally so strange-looking that they barely resemble the orange pumpkin we draw in our heads.
So this time, don’t just buy one. Follow it. Wander a bit. Here are seven places curiosity can take you!
1
Stop at a New-to-you Pumpkin Stand
You know the one. You hear about it or drive past it every fall. Pumpkins lined up near the road. A handmade sign. Maybe mums, apples, gourds or corn stalks nearby.
This year, pull over. You don’t have to buy the enormous pumpkin. Spend five dollars if five dollars is what you have. Or buy nothing and look.
Ask what they grow. Find out which pumpkins came from their farm. Look at the different shapes. See what else is growing nearby. A roadside stand gives you a tiny glimpse into what autumn looks like where you actually live. That is worth stopping for.
2
Find a Funky Looking Pumpkin
Orange and round is only the beginning.
There are tiny orange pumpkins. White pumpkins. Huge pumpkins. Flattened red-orange pumpkins often sold as Cinderella pumpkins. Smooth pumpkins. Warty pumpkins. Pumpkins meant mostly for carving. Others better suited to cooking.
Walk through a good farm market or pumpkin patch and look for the strangest one you can find.
You don’t have to bring it home. Learn its name. Take a picture. Find out what it is used for. One vegetable – or technically, fruit – can give you a surprising number of places to wander literally or figuratively. Let your brain stretch a bit. Do some thinking. Do some learning. Hey, did you know…
3
Why Do We Carve Them in the First Place?
Here is where the pumpkin takes us across the Atlantic.
The jack-o’-lantern tradition didn’t begin with somebody wandering through an American pumpkin patch looking for the perfect carving pumpkin. Earlier versions were carved from root vegetables such as turnips in Ireland. Irish immigrants brought those traditions to the United States, where pumpkins were abundant – and considerably easier to carve.
“Why,” you ask? See… now we’re wandering. Back in time. Overseas. Into the science.
The root vegetables are not only small in comparison, but they are solid and very hard. Turnips were the best choice, but they’re so hard – read about this. Potatoes and beets were softer, but they rot quickly. So anyway… now you see. Suddenly the ordinary jack-o’-lantern sitting on the front step has a much longer story behind it.
This is one of my favorite kinds of wandering: you start with something completely familiar, then discover it came from somewhere you never expected.
4
Go Find a Really, Really BIG Pumpkin
At some point, ordinary gardening apparently stopped being enough. People are growing pumpkins so large they require machinery to move them. And you know human nature! Once humans grow something absurdly large, naturally, somebody creates a competition.
Look for a pumpkin weigh-off at a fall festival, county fair or agricultural event.
Even if you have absolutely no desire to grow one yourself, seeing a giant pumpkin in person is worth it simply because photographs do not quite explain the scale. There is something wonderfully ridiculous about adults standing around seriously discussing a vegetable – or fruit – that weighs more than furniture. Go look. Ask questions. Find out how they grew it. This is exactly the sort of thing fall and festivals are for.
5
Discover the People Who Paddle Pumpkins
So speaking of these gigantic pumpkins: people race in these giant pumpkins.
They hollow them out, climb inside and paddle them across water. This is a real thing. Oregon’s West Coast Giant Pumpkin Regatta has been putting costumed paddlers into giant pumpkin boats since 2004.
I have questions. Mostly about getting into the pumpkin. Also about getting back out.
This is exactly why Wander & Discover exists. You may never attend a pumpkin regatta in person. You can still look it up. Watch one. Read about how enormous the pumpkins have to be.
Then go enlighten someone else, because there is almost no chance they knew pumpkin boating was going to enter the conversation today.
6
Find the Place that Took Pumpkin Seriously
If you really want to follow the pumpkin trail, eventually it leads to Illinois.
The state grows an enormous amount of the processing pumpkins used for canned pumpkin, and Morton, Illinois is considered the Pumpkin Capital of the World. Libby’s has a pumpkin-processing plant there – and naturally, Morton has a pumpkin festival.
There are pumpkin events, a parade, a weigh-off and enough commitment to pumpkin season that the town has built a genuine identity around it.
You don’t need to book a flight to appreciate this. Pull it up on a map. Look at the farms around the area. See what processing pumpkins look like. Read about how the crop gets from a field into the can you may later turn into Thanksgiving pie.
That little can suddenly has a hometown.
7
Let One Pumpkin Question Decide Where You Wander Next
This is the part you can do from anywhere.
Start with one question. Learn something, and then wander to the next.
Why are some pumpkins white? How big is the biggest pumpkin? Can every pumpkin be eaten? Why did people carve turnips? Where are pumpkins grown? What is a Cinderella pumpkin? Why are canned-pumpkin pumpkins different from carving pumpkins?
Follow your question by finding the answer.
* Look up a farm.
* Borrow a book.
* Watch a festival live or through a video.
* Find the place on a map.
* Try a recipe.
* Visit somewhere nearby.
* Or discover a destination you may actually want to see one day.
You don’t want to know where the wandering is going before you start. That would rather defeat the point.
It’s Great When Something So Familiar Has the Best Story!
So about those giant pumpkins. Who grows them? How? Who decided to carve one into a boat? How you get in the boat – or out? One question leads to another. And suddenly something you have seen every October your entire life looks a little different.
That’s Wander & Discover. You don’t always have to travel far from home. Sometimes you just have to follow the pumpkin.
🌿 More soon from the porch.
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