The Life of Pie
Nice article about the pumpkin harvest and pie-baking/tasting QA that they do. I enjoyed this description:
Ackerman sows his crop about mid-May, usually after the rich, silky clay soil thaws from the last freeze. As the months pass, the plants creep across the ground, their thick vines twisting and climbing into open crevices. Flat leaves, the size of a man’s head and shaped like a palm, cover the fields in a wash of green as they hide the pumpkins.
‘They get into the ditches, the roads, everywhere,’ said Yvette Ackerman, John’s wife.
By the time the pumpkins ripen, the leaves have wilted, and the vines, once several inches thick, have shrunk to near-empty husks. Hundreds of thousands of pale-gold pumpkins cover the ground. At this point, Libby’s takes over.
It reminds me of our local Half Moon Bay pumpkin scene – where previously empty fields are filled with semi-evenly spaced pumpkins to suggest that you can pick ’em up and take ’em home right from where they grew. It’s a bit of theater – but then with petting zoos and garish decorations and ridiculous insane traffic, the whole pumpkin season is a bit absurd, so there ya go.