From Bloom Where You're Planted Farm's blog at www.LocalHarvest.org

Now that August has arrived, we can say "The Pumpkin Festival starts next month!" This is a very exciting but somewhat frightening time at our southeast Nebraska pumpkin patch. While we love fall and can't wait to start seeing our customers' smiling faces at the farm, we still have quite a bit on our "to-do" list! But, for the most part we enjoy the pressure and looming deadline, and knowing our months of hard work will be worth it when the first customers of the season begin arriving on opening day, Sept. 17th!

The pumpkins, squash and gourds are growing by leaps and bounds! They're now all flowering and putting on fruit, and the pumpkins that fruited early have softball to volleyball-sized pumpkins on their vines. A big windstorm came through 7/23 which brought down lots of tree limbs and a few dead trees, but thankfully all the plants and farm animals were fine. We're now working on the new overhang on the south side of the barn. This will be used for our admissions and pumpkin weighing stations, as well as retail space. It's being built with reclaimed lumber from a barn we took down and wood from a friend's corn crib, and is coming together nicely.

The Cass County fair starts next week (Aug. 9) and we'll be represented at the Scenic Weeping Water Valley Association's booth in the commercial building. Stop by to pick up one of our new brochures. We're also planning to take our float through the parade Saturday evening.

I'm feverishly ordering gift shop merchandise and working on lots of marketing these days. Our first field trips of the season are on the books. Now is the time to make your field trip, birthday party, or campfire party reservations. There's just over five weeks to go, and we'll plan on seeing you soon at the farm!