Business Feature: Underwood Family Farms
Hello Friend! Happy October! It's time for fall colors, pumpkins, and yummy comfort foods! Something is that super popular in the United States is to visit apple orchards and pumpkin patches starting in September. There aren’t as many apple orchards where I live, but I have access to a farm with a pumpkin event every year! The farm is called Underwood Family Farms and their Autumn Harvest Festival is so much fun that the event has become a tradition for my partner and me every year.
This past September 30 was their opening weekend and my partner and I got tickets a couple of weeks ago. Tickets are fairly inexpensive at about $20 for entry but I believe that prices go up the closer to Halloween you get. Each weekend has its own theme, and this first weekend’s theme was for first responders. There were displays from the local law enforcement, K9 units, and tents for service dog puppy raisers. I spent far too much time petting all of the puppies. Pets are not permitted at the festival because there is food available for purchase and it violates health codes but service dogs are an exception.
There are 2 different parking lots when you arrive which will determine which entrance you end up going through. We always bring our own folding wagon to carry all of the produce and pumpkins we end up purchasing. Underwood Family Farms has so much to offer including: A petting zoo, assorted animals you can feed and buy food pellets from a quarter machine, games, pig racing, a country store, additional produce stores, pumpkin slingshots (or some form of launching pumpkins at a target?), tractor rides, horse-drawn carriage rides, food for sale, pick your own produce fields (Something we like to do because the produce is DIVINE), HUGE pumpkin fields, specialty pumpkin fields, and probably more that I just didn’t end up seeing.
We usually try to arrive early or close to opening because the farm gets very crowded by the afternoon and it can become challenging to see and do everything you want to do when you have so many other people to share with. We also head straight to the pick-your-own-produce fields for these same reasons. Later in the season, the fields are generally picked clean and there isn’t much to find. My first year I definitely went nutty and bought too much. It’s all organic and I ended up not being able to eat it fast enough before it went bad. However, the produce is delicious so I love to pick what I plan to eat in the next day or so. I usually load up on way too many tomatoes. Near the produce fields are the flower fields where you can pick your own flowers too. Often the sunflower fields are the main attraction but you do need to be careful because the honey bees are very hard at work around these flowers, so be mindful of them especially if you have an allergy. There are also lavender fields near their berry fields and I love passing by them because the smell is so wonderful. The lavender isn’t available for picking and is fenced off to guests but you can still get a calming scent as you walk by.
Once we visit the produce and flower fields, we like to pick out our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. We do this last since the wagon gets very heavy after picking pumpkins and it doesn’t make sense to haul all of that around all the time. So we do that last. There is a huge selection of pumpkins, but the largest section is the area with carving pumpkins. On the sides of the field are the selections of specialty pumpkins. I love to pick up some sugar babies for making pie or any other assortment of pumpkin foods with, and then the unusual pumpkins to decorate my front patio with. These pumpkins last incredibly long as long as you don’t cut them open so it’s a great way to decorate for the season and not have to find a place in storage for them later.
Pumpkins everywhere!!
Tons of specialty pumpkins!
It was a cool day (which is rare here) so we felt comfortable storing our haul in the car and going back to experience more of the festival. This year we attended our first pig race. It was cute. The crowd was divided up into sections and assigned a bandana color to cheer for. We had the yellow bandana and it was fun seeing people get really excited about cheering for their pig to win. The hosts also played mini-games with the audience in between races to give the piggies a break to recover from their short sprint through a course with a few manageable obstacles. The pigs seemed to enjoy themselves too and ran like they were playing a fun game together.
Our pig was smart but passive. Green won all 3 races.
We also rode on a horse-drawn wagon. We had a coachwoman and a coachdog at the front and of course, I had to greet the wonderful dog. He was a mellow boy and loved sitting on the cushion and sleeping the entire ride. The ride took us through the whole farm and we even got to see the blackberry fields that we hadn’t been aware of previously. The ride is a nice way to see most of the fields available to pick produce from. The only area the ride didn’t go through was the animal area at the front.
Once again I came away with a large haul of delicious foods and beautiful pumpkins. My front porch is decked out and I honestly can’t wait to visit this farm again next year.
Our 2022 haul
Our 2023 pumpkins!
If you find yourself interested and happen to be near Moorpark, CA, tickets are still available as of this writing.
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Christmas tree shaped lettuce?!
