By admin Friday, September 28, 2012

It’s hard to believe but Fall is here and Halloween is just a little over a month away.  This is one of my favorite times of year, the heat of the summer is gone but the bitter winter cold hasn’t hit yet.  It is the perfect time to go pick up your pumpkin for Halloween and I know the perfect place for you to do that and you can bring the whole family!

Whittamore’s Berry Farm was not what I expected and that is why it was so great. I have been to plenty of berry farms and pumpkin patches but I had never been to a place like this.  My goal had been to quickly check out Whittamore’s, help my nephew pick out the perfect pumpkin, and head home but once I arrived I knew my plan was out the window.

Let me start by saying that Whittamore’s is not far outside of Downtown Toronto.  It took me about 30 minutes to get there with no traffic. It is a farm that is practically in the city, which is unusual anywhere you go these days. It is open 7 days a week from September 15 through to Halloween from 10am to 5pm.

It hadn’t been my idea to come to Whittamore’s Berry Farm.  My Sister had called me and asked if I wanted to go with her and my Nephew to pick out a pumpkin for Halloween. They had gone last year and had a blast.  So I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to check it out and not look too weird if I happen to squeal with excitement in the corn maze.

The game plan was to wait until we were done seeing everything else at Whittamore’s Berry Farm before we picked our pumpkin.  It wouldn’t be fun to carry a big pumpkin everywhere.  The first stop was to see the animals. My nephew is almost six and at the perfect age to enjoy seeing and feeding the farm animals. He loved the baby cows and had a blast.  To be honest so did his mom and I.

We stopped and watched the pedal tractor track but my nephew was a little old to be on those and he was not interested in regressing after he had learned to ride a bike.  So we moved on to the two-story tree fort, which ended up being his second favorite adventure at Whittamore’s. Attached to the fort is the Strawberry Mountain Turbo Slide, which my nephew went down at least 10 times.

After the tree fort it was time to take it up a notch and we went and saw Farmer Frank’s Pumpkin Cannon Show.  The show is only on the weekends and only 3 times a day. We hadn’t known about it beforehand but we heard the boom of the cannon and had to check it out.  The Pumpkin Cannon Show became my nephew’s favorite thing at Whittamore’s and to be honest it was probably mine too. Who wouldn’t like to see pumpkins traveling hundreds of feet in the air after being shot out of a giant cannon? It was awesome.

My Sister and I could tell my Nephew was getting a little worn out after all the excitement so we decided to skip the corn maze, he had been through it the year before, and take a nice wagon ride through the spooky forest. It was fun and it gave us all a chance to wind down a little before we started our pumpkin search.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of pumpkins lined up at Whittamore’s Berry Farm just waiting to be picked up by kids and parents. We spent about 30 minutes before we found the “perfect pumpkin”. It was huge and didn’t have any dents or marks on it.  It was a perfect ending to a great day at “the farm in the city”.

For more info on Whittamore’s Berry Farm you can visit their website whittamoresfarm.com and to see other farms and pumpkin patches in Ontario you can visit Summer Fun Guide’s site www.summerfunguide.ca.