Pumpkins anyone?

Houlton Pioneer Times Photo/Joseph Cyr
PUMPKIN PATCH — Todd Willard, an outdoor education teacher at Houlton High School, checks out the pumpkins growing behind the school Thursday. The gourds are available to the public as a “pick-your-own pumpkin” with the proceeds benefitng the school farm.
By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — While last week’s heat wave kept summer thoughts in the forefront of people’s minds, a quick look at the calendar reveals autumn is a mere two weeks away.
    And what better way is there to celebrate the arrival of fall then picking your own pumpkin?
    Nestled behind Houlton High School, is a bountiful patch of the favorite fall gourd ripe for the picking.
    Todd Willard, an outdoor education teacher at Houlton High School, said he wanted to create a “pick-your-own pumpkin patch” for people in the Houlton area because the next closest locations are Caribou or Levant.
    “There’s lots of places to buy pumpkins, but not too many where you can pick your own,” he said. “I’ve been trying to bring that experience to Houlton and now we can.”
    He spent many hours this past summer tending to the pumpkin patch and those efforts are about to pay off, as nearly 200 pumpkins are ripe for the picking. Members of the public are welcome to come to the Bird Farm and select a pumpkin for 40 cents a pound.
    “We’re not trying to take business away from other people,” Willard said. “Basically it’s more of a fundraiser this year, with all of the proceeds going right back into the farm so we can do more next season.”
    The Bird Farm, a 99-acre plot of land donated to the school by the Francis Bird family, has been utilized as an outdoor classroom for education for several years now. Last spring, Willard’s outdoor class planted pumpkins.
    “Pumpkins love hot weather, so this stretch we’ve had has been great for growing,” Willard said. “The pumpkins are early this year. We wanted to see if pumpkins would grow, and they did. Hopefully, this project will drive some other things I would like to do here.”
    Individuals interested in selecting a pumpkin should contact Willard at Houlton High School (532-6551) to schedule an appointment.
    Before creating the vegetable patch, the land was basically not used, Willard said. About 30 acres of the parcel could be used for planting purposes. He said the planting of vegetables by students brings a hands-on approach to the classroom. Ideally he would like to see the farm be able to generate enough vegetables to be used in the school cafeteria.
    “We’d love to start planting enough different types of foods to supplement our own school lunch program,” he said. “We live in an agricultural area, and yet we don’t grow any of our own food.”
    Another idea Willard would like to see come to fruition is composting.
    “I would also like to do more with composting to help reduce our waste,” he said. “We generate 600 pounds of waste a week. Instead of paying to get rid of it, I would like to come up with a recipe for composting so we could then sell the nutrient-rich material.”
    In order for that dream to come to fruition, Willard said an area would need to be constructed so that the compost pile was not accessible to rodents and other wildlife. A tractor would also be needed to turn the pile on a regular basis to facilitate the decomposing process.