Hot Commodity: Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere

October 21, 2012

Pumpkins have been a hot commodity around the North Escambia area the past couple of weeks.

For Jill Kelley and her boyfriend Jeffery Steadham, a little pumpkin patch experiment in the 500 block of Highway 164 in McDavid produced big results. Priced at 75-cent to $12, their locally grown pumpkins — all 5,000 of them — were gone in just days.

“We will definitely be going bigger next year,” Kelley said.

When the Ernest Ward Middle School FFA chapter decided to sell pumpkins, students were lining up to buy them. Hundreds of pumpkins were gone in just days, long before they were offered for sale to the public.

Hundreds upon hundreds of pumpkins have been sold this year under a tent a Highway 29 and Neal Road in Cantonment at the Allen Memorial United Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch. The first order of over 1,500 pumpkins was gone in a short time. But another semi load of pumpkins was delivered Friday, just in time for weekend shoppers.

Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes are still available at the Allen Memorial Pumpkin Patch on Highway 29 just north of the paper mill. Some of the pumpkins are priced as low as $1.

Pictured top: Allen Memorial United Methodist Church Pumpkin Patch on Highway 29 at Neal Road. Pictured inset and below: A few of the 5,000 pumpkins grown at a local patch this year on Highway 164 in McDavid. Submitted photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.

Comments

2 Responses to “Hot Commodity: Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere”

  1. Tammy Duncan on October 23rd, 2012 11:17 am

    Congratulations Jeffery and Jill!!!!!! I know it was alot of hard work, you two stuck to it and now are reaping the rewards. So happy for y’all

  2. ngd on October 21st, 2012 12:28 pm

    Way to go Jeffery and Jill…You two are an inspiration to other young people….

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under FEATURE TOP STORY, Features, News