Gourd riddance: Moses Lake FFA holds extra sale for pumpkin surplus

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake High School FFA’s pumpkin patch survived the summer well enough the FFA had to sponsor an emergency pumpkin sale.

The pumpkin patch is an annual project for the FFA, a fundraiser that helps pay for the club’s activities. There’s a big pumpkin sale in early October, Oct. 9 this year, with popcorn and cotton candy, a petting zoo, a setup for parents to take pictures, and of course, pumpkins.

“We had a good crowd,” said Tony Kern, longtime MLHS agriculture teacher and FFA advisor.

But there were still plenty of pumpkins left, even after some were set aside for elementary school classes throughout the district. So a second sale was required, and the FFA kids were back out in the field Wednesday night, waiting for customers.

The pumpkin patch actually was smaller this year, just about an acre, Kern said. The FFA’s field is just outside the ag classrooms, and the FFA participants use it to raise money for club activities.

For the last few years, it’s been split between pumpkins and sweet corn, and for 2021 the corn got the bigger area. The FFA members do the planting in the spring, and the ag teaching staff and FFA members take care of the corn and pumpkins during the summer. It’s been that way so long it’s pretty routine, and the summer of 2021 didn’t look any different.

That is, until the record-breaking heat of late June, which lingered through July. Temperatures reaching 114 degrees were bad for crops everywhere, including the FFA field.

“I was nervous,” Kern said.

And FFA member Jacob Knight said some of the sweet corn didn’t handle the heat well.

“Some of the corn was a little bit – crackly,” he said.

But the pumpkins were less affected, Kern said.

“They came through remarkably well,” he said.

The field got extra water during the hot weather, and a moisture barrier was added during planting. Kern said the moisture barrier might have helped the corn and pumpkins survive.

It helps, Knight said, as pumpkins are pretty easy to raise.

“With pumpkins, there really isn’t a whole lot of work,” he said. “All you have to do is water them.”

The water system turned out to be the bigger challenge.

“We rednecked the whole irrigation system this year,” Kern said.

The crew started the summer running a garden hose from the greenhouse, only solving the irrigation problem when they were allowed to use a metered fire hydrant, Kern said.

Both the irrigation system and the field will be getting a makeover during summer 2022, as part of the work on the Vanguard Academy. An access road will go through the existing field; the new field will be moved to the east. And it will have an upgraded irrigation system, Kern said.

The pumpkin and corn sales, the plant sale in the spring and other fundraisers pay for FFA activities, including the trip to the annual state convention each spring and to the national convention, scheduled for Oct. 27-30.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.