The old saying goes “Meanwhile, back at the ranch; but right now, this time of year, we’re saying, “meanwhile, back on the farm.”
“It’s a busy time of year,” commented Justin DiSanti, “time to harvest, time to get the crops out, everything we worked all summer for. [It’s] time to reap the rewards.”
For DiSanti farms, those rewards, during Fall, contain a wide variety of produce with emphasis on, “Mostly pumpkins,” finished Justin.
It’s an incarnation of fall that this family operation has been producing for decades, “I can’t remember us not doing pumpkins.”
But this year (and last year too) these farmers, among their other produce and pumpkin related responsibilities, have found time to slip into some mad scientist garb and bring unholy life to a few of their orange creations.
“So that is our Frankenstein pumpkin, something I’m very proud of,” stated Sara Genova, a member of the family farm.
These Mary Shelley inspired gourds are created by placing molds around the pumpkin while it’s growing. It all started at a request from Safeway, one of the farm’s clients, “So, I did a little bit of research,” stated Sara.
After finding, and buying 600 “Franken-molds,” the process of giving new life to there annual autumn crop began in earnest.
But apparently, the molding process is not as easy as it sounds, “It’s been a learning process,” said Justin.
With problems like sunburn, extra rot, and even pumpkins simply defying the mold, “So there’s different factors to overcome.”
Of the 600 planted with molds, only about 100 came out really “Franken-looking.”
However, problems aside, the reactions the family is receiving, are priceless.
“A lot of people come in and they say, is that photoshopped, or what did you put on there, or how did you do this? So sometimes I like to tease and say, ‘I go out there everyday while they’re growing, and I just kind of mold it like clay.’ So a lot of people don’t believe it,” stated Sara.
Going forward, there’s no plan to stop gestating these ghoulish gourds; in fact, the family hopes to diversify their molds at some point.
“So we had 25 last year, [slightly more than] 100 this year, maybe next year will be 200 or 300. So, I think we’re slowly learning and we’ll get it figured out with time,” finished Sara.
The best of the molded pumpkins were sold to Safeway stores, but some of the failed experiments (still Franken-looking) are on sale at their farm.
