For those stragglers who have yet to purchase a pumpkin or two for their home’s fall/Halloween display, SooToday asked Robert (Farmer Bob) Cuerrier, owner/operator of Mockingbird Hill Farm at 943 Landslide Road, to advise us what people should look for in their search for ‘the perfect pumpkin.’
His answer?
There is no ‘perfect pumpkin.’
“A perfect pumpkin is a highly subjective thing.”
“You might be compulsive and your perfect pumpkin is completely round and has a stem on it, but a perfect pumpkin to someone else might be the most grotesque, warped thing coming out of the field because they see the possibility of making a jack-o'-lantern out of it,” Farmer Bob said.
“If it has a curious tilt or if it’s warted, that’s a plus for some people.”
Mockingbird Hill Farm has grown orange, pink, white, large and small pumpkins.
Farmer Bob says his best sellers are, not surprisingly, “good, small healthy orange pumpkins with no hint of deterioration.”
The smaller the better, he added.
It doesn’t matter if your pumpkin of choice is older, cured and dried, as opposed to younger and heavy in moisture, Farmer Bob said.
“We sell pumpkins that are damp. They’ve been sitting out there damp for two months in this wet fall and there’s not a thing wrong with them. Dampness doesn’t factor in. They’re used to living in the rain,” he chuckled.
Farmer Bob still has approximately 60 pumpkins (large and small) for sale, having sold about 1,500 this fall season.