Owner thankful that community helped with harvest
Schwabe Pumpkins has been a business in St. Andrews since 2004, with them selling pumpkins from their St. Andrews location since 2016. Annually, since then, they’ve opened their farm so that local residents can not only purchase local pumpkins but also have the opportunity to explore and grab some cute fall photos. This year, an early frost threatened this annual community tradition, but luckily, a community effort to get the pumpkins off the field in time took place, and a lot of the crop was saved.
“We saw that we were supposed to get frost on Wednesday (Sept. 3) and then again Saturday (Sept. 6) during the week. So, we did start cutting off any of the white pumpkins or anything that was actually ready. And then Wednesday night, we weren’t too worried about it, because they said it was going to be 5 °C, feels like 3 °C. But when I woke up in the middle of the night, it was actually already down to 2°C. Feels like 0°C. That morning, when we got up, the leaves, you could tell had gotten frosted,” said Melody Schwabe who owns Schwabe Pumpkins with her husband.
After the first small bite of frost, the family, whose income comes from their farm, continued to work getting what they could from the field.
They would normally have started harvesting in mid-August, but the lack of rain this year meant that the pumpkins took longer to ripen than in past years.
“We didn’t have any real rain here for June, July, and August, so things were struggling already. We watered as much as we could, but we don’t really have a huge watering system, because we’ve never really needed it. The first 15 years we farmed here, we never watered at all,” explained Schwabe.
It wasn’t until Friday, seeing the previous damage and knowing more was to come, that Schwabe decided to share on social media, talking about the situation that the farm was in because of the frosts.
“I made the video, and I just felt like, we’re always posting the good pictures, and I had lots of comments from customers all year saying, ‘Oh, you’re having such a good season.’ Because, even though they see us watering stuff, you don’t want to always be like, ‘Look at how hard things are.’ So, I just felt in that moment, people needed to know sometimes how hard it is for farmers,” said Schwabe.
She explained that she was just trying to share the situation that the farm was in with the video.
“I wasn’t asking for help, and then people just started showing up. It was amazing! I still can’t even fathom that everything is off our field right now. People just kept showing up, probably I would say 50 people showed up on Friday, and I woke up on Saturday morning and contacted a bunch of people who had messaged (us on Facebook) about coming on Saturday, because our field was already all cut. We just need to pick it up. I knew we’d be done pretty quickly, and I knew lots of people would probably show up again (from the number of messages I received). Then the same thing happened Saturday. People just kept showing up,” said Schwabe.
Thanks to the efforts of the community, though some of the pumpkins were not quite ripe just yet, the whole field was cut and cleared, which saved a great deal of the crop, which otherwise would have gotten damaged in the field.
Schwabe was very thankful and shocked by how many people stepped up to help them.
“I was blown away. A lot of the people hadn’t even been to our farm before. They just heard about it, and they came. And a couple of people told us that they had seen it and sent it to the radio stations. It just kind of snowballed from there, once the radio station announced it, and I think it was on a weather channel website, so many people who had never even heard of us were coming out to help. It was beautiful. There were grandmas with their grandkids that have come here for years; they felt like they wanted to give something back. People were thanking me for letting them have this experience here with their families, and meanwhile, I’m the one who’s sitting here grateful just to have our income saved for the year,” said Schwabe.
Her family are now going through the process of sorting all of the pumpkins that were brought in and making sure that the not-quite-mature-yet pumpkins are taken out and given a chance to ripen. Separating the immature ones also means that they don’t start rotting around the pumpkins that are ready, which could spoil them all.
All of this work is going to pay off big time later this month, as on Sept. 20, the Schwabe Pumpkin farm will open for the season. Residents will be able to complete their annual tradition of viewing what is basically a pumpkin explosion at the farm, choosing their pumpkins for the year, grabbing some great photos, and, on weekends, there’s normally a food truck where people can grab a bite.
This is a child-friendly fall-themed space, and there are no scary parts, so everyone can come and enjoy.
“We’ll be open on weekends from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Wednesday to Friday, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.,” said Schwabe.
She wanted to make sure to share a big message of thanks to all of the volunteers who came to help, who were so numerous that she lost count.
“I would like to thank everyone who came out and took their time and their day and all their energy to help us get everything off the field. It’s touched our hearts in ways that you can’t even imagine. And I’m just so grateful for everyone, and I’m hoping that if any of them come to the farm, they stop in and say hi,” she said.
