By Yazmin Beltran
Halloween is right around the corner. There are some great pumpkin patches open for College of Southern Nevada students to enjoy with their friends and families.
Visitors can choose their own pumpkins from the patches and then take them home to carve into jack-o-lanterns or cook them up for delicious pies.
According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, in 2021 farmers in the top six pumpkin-producing states harvested more than 1.5 billion pounds of pumpkins combined. Out of the total, over 800 million pumpkins were ripe for the picking during October.
Finder.com, a comparison platform, states this year 149 million Americans – roughly 44% of the population — plan to have a gourd ole’ time buying a pumpkin to make homemade jack-o-lanterns.
“I like doing pumpkin carvings,” said CSN student Aliza Mejia. “I’m not an expert but I would recommend it.” She plans on going to a pumpkin patch this month.
Gilcrease Orchard is a 60-acre farm located in the Northwest part of the Valley. The Orchard is about 100 years old and offers visitors the chance to pick their own produce and most importantly this time of year: pumpkins. The Orchard is perfect for those students looking for a fun environment away from the Las Vegas strip.
CSN student Chad Ceredon, who volunteered at Gilcrease Orchard a few years ago and is thinking about volunteering again, said, “I think I just had a lot of time to myself, just walking around seeing all the plants. It’s just pretty calm. I haven’t really gone to many pumpkin patches lately but I do want to go this year because I have new friends.”
The Moapa Valley Corn Maze provides a great offering of pumpkins of all sizes. Additionally, it has a corn maze, animal petting zoo and even pig races. It is an hour outside of Vegas. The ranch is the perfect place to spend a day with family and friends. There’s something for everyone to enjoy from the youngest child to the eldest grandparent.
“I went there last year and they had a pig race and I want to go again,” CSN student Claudeth Baranda said. “They also have a corn maze and haunted houses.”
Those haunted houses motivated Baranda’s family to create its own version of a haunted house in its own home. Her family followed this tradition for the last three years to entertain Halloween trick-or-treaters.
Check out Gilcrease Orchard at Welcome! | Gilcrease Orchard (thegilcreaseorchard.org) and Moapa Valley Corn Maze at Home – Moapa Valley Cornmaze (mvcornmaze.com) to make plans.
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