By MARY STEVENS DECKER
Redmond Reporter
You could buy a pumpkin at a supermarket. Or you could take a short jaunt off Redmond-Fall City Way and traipse through a profusion of pumpkins at Serres Farm, 20306 NE 50th St.
Serres is one of 27 working farms participating in the 10th annual Harvest Celebration Farm Tour, sponsored by Washington State University King County Extension, in partnership with King County.
This official celebration of local agriculture happens Saturday, Sept. 27 from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. but Serres Farm is open to the public every day throughout the fall and early winter. Its sales year began with “U-pick” sweet corn and cut flowers. Now it’s moving on to U-pick pumpkins and then to U-cut or pre-cut Christmas trees.
“It’s a family tradition,” said owner Bill Serres, when asked why repeat visitors come back year after year to select their own produce instead of taking if off a grocery store shelf. They want to slow down just a bit, feel the sun, the wind — or the rain — on their faces before the long, cold winter sets in.
And what could be cuter than photos of toddlers surrounded by gleaming orange pumpkins?
The Serres family has tended this 23-acre farm for 30 years. “The pumpkin patch is a big deal here, starting this weekend,” said Serres. “We have about 10 varieties of pick-your-own pumpkins.”
They’re priced at 20 cents a pound and gourds cost 25 or 50 cents apiece, depending on the type. There are teeny pumpkins, medium pumpkins and whoppers such as Atlantic Giants. Those weigh up to 300 pounds.
Believe it or not, there are folks who can’t resist behemoth pumpkins.
Serres Farm has 30 wheelbarrows and a big platform scale to assist those hale and hardy pumpkin lovers. You wheel the heaving wheelbarrow onto the scale and they just deduct the weight of the wheelbarrow, Serres explained.
A pumpkin catapult and hayrides are part of the fall fun, too, as well as a corn maze which opens in October.
Serres said the Harvest Celebration Farm Tour is a helpful marketing tool to attract people who are new to the area or have been too busy to get out and explore the farms.
King County Councilmember Kathy Lambert, who represents the Sammamish and Snoqualmie Valley agricultural areas, said that “support for local agriculture is at the heart of developing a sustainable community. Locally grown food is fresher, healthier and requires fewer natural resources for transportation and packaging. We are fortunate to have such productive agricultural areas so close and accessible to our large urban center.
Mary Stevens Decker can be reached at mdecker@reporternewspapers.com or at (425) 867-0353, ext. 5052.
