Savannah Smith, left, helps a Pratt family find the perfect pumpkins and gourds for their needs at the Pratt Farmer’s Market on October 8. She has harvested more than 7 rows, 450-500 ft. long, of 40 pumpkin varieties this year in preparation for fall sales from her family farm near Hopewell, Kansas. photo by Jennifer Stultz

Savannah Smith brought a pumpkin buffet, of sorts, to Pratt’s Merchant Park last Saturday. The Farmer’s Market was one of many stops she has been making with her trailer of homegrown produce from the family farm near Hopewell in Pratt County this fall. As manager of the Seven Triangle Sheep and Cattle Co./Smith Farms, Smith said growing pumpkins for the past five years has had it’s pros and cons.

“It takes a lot of work to get them to this point,” Smith said. “But I’m always excited when people are happy to see these things. Their joy in choosing just the right pumpkin makes me happy.”

Smith came home to manage the family farm after graduating from Kansas State University with degrees in agriculture, political science and farm management. The pumpkins became a lucrative addition to the sheep, cattle and traditional Kansas field crops at the Seven Triangle that net a profit worth bill payments for three or four months, she said.

“I plant over 40 different varieties and I admit, I am very particular about it,” Smith said. “I have a book on my kitchen counter where I write down everything from where and when I got the seed to planting, and then harvesting details.”

Smith said her planting schedule helps keep cross-pollination nil, and her method of dealing with grasshoppers was along the lines of pray and spray. Surviving current drought conditions was a bit more of a struggle, in some ways, but Smith had a few advantages over the regular garden producer.

“I cheat the system,” she said. “I put everything on drip-lines, and then some of the other vegetables I plant right under the irrigation system. It’s the only way they will grow in our dry, sandy soil.”

And grow they have this year. On Smith’s trailer at the Pratt Farmer’s Market on Saturday were pumpkins weighing up to 80 and 90 pounds on down to tiny palm-sized gourds that many youngsters had fun digging for in the tank filled with $1 to $4 pumpkins.

“I’ve got everything here but purple,” Smith said. “And I’m trying to engineer that.”

She explained that Carver pumpkins were the midsized typical orange variety, Turk’s Turbin’s were more of a multi-level bubble squash variety in darker red hues. The smaller, dark green pumpkins were akin to acorn squash but had a fancy, elongated Japanese name. Speckled swan gourds were ideal for drying and hollowing out to make bird houses with, as well as good picks for those who like to paint their pumpkins.

“I’ve seen people take these and paint them like ducks, swans, or coiled snakes,” Smith said. “It is just amazing what you can do with a pumpkin.”

In addition to selling pumpkins Saturday, Smith also offered cucumbers, watermelons, turnips, radishes, okra and a variety of homecanned items. She took her trailer to Macksville (she is a Macksville High School graduate) for homecoming activities there on Friday afternoon and evening, and had plans to pull out another trailer full of pumpkins for the Pratt Jam activities at Sixth Street Park on Saturday.

For those who missed a chance at getting that perfect pumpkin or two for the season, Smith will be back at the Pratt Farmer’s Market at Merchants Park next Saturday morning, as well as at the Sawyer Fall Festival from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. October 15.

Customers may also message her on Facebook at her page Savannah Smith or Seven Triangle Sheep and Cattle Co./Smith Farms.

As far as extra pumpkins that have reached their prime at the end of the season, they do become a pumpkin buffet, of sorts, for the sheep and cattle at Smith Farms.

“They get the ones that I didn’t get out of the fields before they freeze and start to melt,” Smith said. “I’ve worked really hard to get as much as possible on the trailers these past two weeks to beat the possible chances of that happening. It’s a lot of work.”