Tis the season of pumpkins!
Every year around Halloween, pumpkins start popping up everywhere. Of course, you can go to an everyman’s grocery store and pick out a pumpkin from the bin, but what’s more satisfying than getting a local pumpkin from a farm you can visit yourself?
Around here, there are a few local places that you can pick up a pumpkin, but we found the perfect place to get pumpkins for years to come!
We got a chance to talk with Shelley Heinrich, a local pumpkin producer from Lubbock. They started their endeavors in pumpkin growing in 2015 and have expanded and continued to grow since then. Their first year they started out with just six varieties of pumpkins. This year, they grew 20 varieties! When they first started their small farm, a friend suggested that pumpkins would thrive on their land—so they took that advice and ran!
Shelley’s family is of Heinrich Brothers Farms, also in Lubbock. Normally, they farm sorghum, cotton, and cows—which Shelley lovingly refers to as her “girls”.
Speaking of her girls, she told us about her involvement of her 16-year-old twin daughters while she harvested and sold during the farmers market season. She shared her pride in her daughters as she watched them interact with everyone at the market, experience the process of owning a business, and gaining valuable agricultural experience at such a young age.
Shelley shared with us the importance of community to her and the exciting future that is ahead for the Heinrichs (and the Llano Estacado region). We discussed the lack of agricultural involvement of the children in the surrounding area.
This season, Shelley invited the students of Lubbock Cooper High School to come to her farm and help harvest the pumpkins! We know, we were jealous too.
They plan to keep the community involvement going and we got to talk about some ideas that we will be impatiently anticipating to see arise around here.
It’s pretty clear that we haven’t seen the last of the Heinrichs! Keep your eyes and ears open to catch what’s next from them!
