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Dundee chief cuts reserve police force
University hosts
animated talk on the Middle East
School boundary
issue may be put on hold
| Plenty
of big pumpkins |
There's something about the orange orbs of the fall season,
farm operator David Brown says -- they make people smile |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg Graphic
reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
Never have Halloween decorators in the Newberg, Dundee, St. Paul
area had so many huge pumpkins so close to home.
Mustard Seed Farms has grown more orbs pushing 200 pounds this year than ever
before.
“Last year I think I had three over 200 pounds,” said David Brown, who
runs the organic farm. This year, the numbers are upwards of 50 200-pounders. For $35, one
of them can be yours.
A year ago at this time Mustard Seed Farms was still in Newberg, where the
new facility for the hospital is being built. Brown was there for 24 years, and after
three years of being chemical free was certified as an organic farm, before he was advised
that he would have to move.
The farm has been transplanted to a site near St. Paul, on acreage owned by
the Zorn family corporation. Brown said that Jerry Owen, manager of the family
corporation, was excited to have a farm on the property that will be classified as
organic. To get that certification, the land must go three years without chemical
treatment.
The farm was opened to the public early this month. Its main crops are leaf
lettuce, broccoli, winter squash and pumpkins.
Brown said he planted twice as many pumpkin crops this year, but also every crop produced
double the volume as the former farm had. He said he’s produced 1,500 to 1,800
pumpkins this year.
He attributed the jump in yield to good soil.
The size of the pumpkins has also grown. He earned 35th-place recognition in
a contest this month with a pumpkin weighing 373.5 pounds. The world record is more than
1,000 pounds heavier, at 1,383.
The people who buy giant pumpkins for the holidays, Brown said, are
“people who want to make a statement in their neighborhood.”
Brown sees many regulars traveling to Mustard Seed Farms to purchase an
orange giant. He said there’s something about pumpkins; they put a smile on
people’s faces.
Once a person has a huge pumpkin decorating their house one year, the
neighbors expect one each year after, and are disappointed if another sphere of orange
isn’t on display, he said.
If carved, pumpkins last only a few days before rotting, Brown said. However,
the larger pumpkins have skins thick enough that a person doesn’t have to cut all the
way through it; rather, one can simply carve into its surface. These will last a bit
longer, maybe three weeks, by his estimate.
Otherwise, an uncarved pumpkin, if kept inside and out of the elements, will
last months. Brown’s heard of pumpkins lasting as long as April.
“You really put a smile on people’s faces with a big pumpkin,”
Brown said. “We tell people, ‘enjoy your happy pumpkin.’”
For more information, or directions to the farm, see the Web site,
www.geocities.com/mustardseedfarms. |
|
From Oct. 25,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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