San Maximum: The Pumpkin Patch

By Austin Cowan
Blog Content Contributor

The season of fall is now upon us. Leaves are falling, the temperature is dropping and pumpkins are plentiful. The annual Pumpkin Patch at First United Methodist Church in San Marcos is an event looked forward to. Customers can spend hours looking for the perfect pumpkin to make a pie out of or a silly jack-o-lantern. If you want a pumpkin, they have one for you. If you just want a place to take fall family pictures, you are welcome here. Picking pumpkins is not just an activity for the locals in San Marcos to do, but it brings out community closer together. This pumpkin patch is definitely a must do event for anyone who desires to achieve the San Marcos experience.

First United Church in San Marcos puts on this event every year. An eighteen-wheeler pulls up to the church filled to the brim with hollow-orange fruits. Unloading this truck has become a community event because Texas State students volunteer to help unload the truck, blessing the locals in San Marcos who give us so much. If a fraternity or a sorority want to have a service project, then unloading then this is a great opportunity.

Watching people pick out pumpkins is pretty entertaining, honestly. Some customers will pick the first acceptable pumpkin they come across while others will spend hours. I have noticed three kinds of pumpkin pickers.

The Inexperienced Gambler
Normally, the pumpkins that are picked by Gamblers are in the front of the patch. The first adequate pumpkin that a Gambler comes across, which is acceptable, will be picked, whether it was the right choice or not. Gamblers gain this mentality for a variety of reasons: they just do not care, they have other things to do, they have small children with them and want to get home, etc.

The Digger
These kinds of people are the opposites of the Inexperienced Gamblers. Instead of picking the first pumpkin that seems good, they will take as long as they possibly can to find the perfect melon. Normally, these kind of people go straight to the back of the patch assuming that all the good ones at the front of the patch have been taken already.

The most noticeable sign that someone is a Digger is that they will spend hours combing the patch for a melon, then a few more hours examining which melon out of the few they have picked out to buy.

The Indecisive Pumpkin Picker
This kind of pumpkin picker can be a strange combination of the other two, except they will not settle on buying just one melon. Their indecisiveness will always get the best of them, no matter how long they have spent looking around. An Indecisive Pumpkin Picker is the kind of pumpkin picker every child wants to have as a parent, because it means more pumpkins for them.

This pumpkin patch will put a smile on everybody’s face who come here because it is a fun event. The pumpkins come in all shapes and sizes, and there is even multicolored pumpkins. If you want to see the people in San Marcos come together in community during the fall, then this is the place to be.

The Pumpkin Patch is located at First United Methodist Church at 129 W Hutchison St, San Marcos, TX 78666.

Featured image by Austin Cowan.