Small morsels of local happenings ... for you to sink your teeth into. beach bites
Whether the hides are smooth or
warty, the physique rotund or
squatty, the hue flaming orange
like the rising harvest moon or pale
white and luminescent, October is
the season for hunting pumpkins.
You’ll find the pumpkin patch minutes away from Wrightsville
Beach in mid-town Wilmington at the Wesley Memorial United
Methodist Chur ch on South College Road. Each week from late
September until the end of October, an 18-wheeler delivers all shapes
and sizes of fresh pumpkins from the Navaho Indian Reservation in
Farmington, New Mexico, to the church yard.
Pumpkin sales support the church’s youth ministry and outreach
for the Methodist Home for Children and other nonprofit charitybased
missions at home and abroad. The Wesley Pumpkin Patch is
staffed by church youth members and families daily from 9 a.m. until
7 p.m. and Sundays from noon until 7 p.m.
For the intrepid pumpkin hunter, an hour-long drive west on US
Highways 74/76 over the Cape Fear River and into the woods of
Chadbourn leads to Bul l o ck Pumpkins at 2204 Princess Anne Road.
Arranged on the lawn of the Bullock family’s Civil War era timber
over-frame farm house are stacks of squatty Cinderellas, warty
grotesque Knuckleheads, jumbo Prize Winners and ubiquitous
Mammoth Gold pumpkins. There are Long Island Cheese pumpkins
for cooking and wee Jack B. Little pumpkins that rest in the
palm of a hand.
Pumpkin foragers are welcome to wander into the family’s
pumpkin patch to pick their own off the vine. Speckled Swan,
Apple and Martin gourds are among the finds, along with hay
bales, Indian corn and bundled corn stalks. Weekdays the Bullocks
operate by the honor system; Saturdays they’re staffed. Call ahead
if you want to (910) 840-3975. — Marimar McNaughton
10
WBM october 2011
Jos hua Cu r r y
Pumpkin patch
R ipe for
the picking
The perfect fall pumpkin
could be just around the
corner or a slight trek away