Local farm reporting unremarkable pumpkin yield this season

MINEOLA, Texas ( KETK ) – The Blueberry Ridge Farm in Mineola and New Hope community area began as a u-pick farm in 1992. Years later, owner Jill Graves wanted to do something different after being a business teacher for years.

“When I retired, we decided to start a pumpkin patch so I could kind of make up a little bit of my salary,” Blueberry Ridge Farm owner Jill Graves said.

For four years they have planted a pumpkin patch, but the last few seasons saw extreme drought and several days above 100 degrees. In 2023, it left Graves without a crop.

“We lost all of ours, so when you have a really, really hot summer and not much rain, your irrigation just isn’t going to be enough,” Graves said.

Things were looking up for pumpkins this year as East Texas saw cooler weather, but once again Mother Nature had other plans.

“I had hoped they would look better, but that’s just every year. You know, life of a farmer, you never know what nature’s going to bring,” Graves said.

After all the rain and storms this spring and summer, it has made for more weeds in pumpkin patches, meaning an average year for the pumpkins.

“The weed cover blew off and so we had a lot of weeds and we had to weed-eat to find the pumpkins, and so it was kind of crazy,” Graves said.

Without enough sunlight due to weed coverage during vital growing time, Graves was left with smaller and fewer pumpkins, but she’s not going to let that stop her from opening up her farm to people.

“Love to see them just having fun outside and enjoying themselves, and we want to share what god gave us because we feel very blessed to be able to offer this,” Graves said.

Graves says she will have to buy more pumpkins from outside East Texas to stock her patch and to sale, but this season is already better than last year.

The Blueberry Ridge Farm is open Thursday through Sunday for the public and for field trips Monday through Friday. They will be open until the first week of November.

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