Patches of Fall

It’s the season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness,’ and for picking the perfect pumpkin.

In Southern California, warm blasts of Santa Ana winds are more likely than cold nips in the air, and wildfires more likely than frost.

So pumpkins are a welcome reminder of what poet John Keats called the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” in Ventura County.

And pumpkins, it turns out, are about as Californian as surfers.

The state produces a quarter of the nation’s crop, although Ventura County’s share diminished to 117 acres last year, down from 188 in 1996, according to crop reports.

“A lot of the success really has more to do with successful marketing than successful farming,” said pumpkin expert Mark Gaskell, the University of California cooperative farm extension advisor in Santa Maria. “These things get bound together by the fall marketing season and pumpkins are part of that. . . . You don’t want to have pumpkins ripen in the fields the day after Halloween.”

Indeed, about 90% of the pumpkins that are grown are aimed at the Halloween market.

Oh sure, there is the ubiquitous pumpkin pie, some people rave about pumpkin soup and the Pilgrims--inventive lot that they were--developed a pumpkin beer when they couldn’t get their hands on enough barley or hops.

But the pumpkin is one of the few fruits grown primarily as an ornament, rather than an edible delicacy.

That is reflected in what Gaskell defines as a high-quality jack-o’-lantern type--a deep, rich orange color, upright shape and strong stem to make it easy to tote home from the local pumpkin patch.

The names of varieties don’t disguise their intended purpose: Spookie (a small ornamental), Trick-or-Treat (which boasts an edible, hull-less seed) and Baby Boo (a white mini-pumpkin).

These types inspire a greater degree of creativity from inventive folks with a hankering for an intricately carved gourd than simply growing monster specimens for the local county fair.

“Some people go to incredible extremes with these little drills they use on emu eggs,” Gaskell said.

And at least a gorgeous gourd can briefly take people’s minds off the unsettling thought that there is only a handful of paydays until Christmas.