- Banducci Family Farms has been hosting a pumpkin patch for over three decades now, catering to the community for holiday joy each October. The reason this farm has been to keep the celebration alive is thanks to the family members who've stepped in and passed the tradition down from generation to generation.
- Video shows Bandduci's Family Pumkin Patch, pumpkins, and setup.
Have you decided where you’re going to get your pumpkin for Halloween this year? If not one option is Banducci's Family Pumpkin Patch, which looks a lot different than what it did when they first started 31 years ago.
“On average we’ve had upwards of 10,000 people come through,” said Danielle Banducci.
Danielle’s mother-in-law Nancy began the pumpkin patch over three decades ago, only then it was just a few gourds outside in their front yard.
The pumpkin patch opens to the community early October and runs all the way through Halloween. As a farm though, preparations for the festivities begin much earlier in the year.
“We start in July, we have to work the ground, and then the grandkids get on a planter and plant every individual seed,” Danielle said.
It’s a family affair preparing the 10 to 20 acres of pumpkins for the patch, thousands more pumpkins than Grandma Nancy started with. Over the years, as the pumpkin patch grew, so did Nancy’s enjoyment and passion for the pumpkins.
“When you see the little kids come in and [go] ‘Oh look at all the pumpkins,’” Nancy said.
The pumpkin patch has become a go-to spot family photos. Nancy said she’s even seen Christmas cards with their pumpkin patch as the backdrop lining her doctors office. Before COVID, they would team up with school districts for field trips turning their family farm into an educational landscape.
“We actually had 10,000 kids that would come through back then,” she said.
Along with growing and caring for the pumpkins that the community sees during the holidays, the family also maintains a variety of other crops like almonds, cabbage, silage corn for dairy, and even cotton. But their favorite crop, the crop that takes a whole family to produce, are their pumpkins.
“It really takes a family effort to put this on,” Danielle said.
Banducci’s Pumpkin Patch will be running through Oct. 31. It's open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. located at 10747 Taft Highway.
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