REEDLEY – When Melissa Bautistia and her husband first acquired Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm in 1992, neither of them anticipated they would also be opening a pumpkin patch.
“I was just trying to get used to the Christmas tree thing,” said Bautista. This was the same answer she gave her brother-in-law when he suggested she and her husband, Sean, open a pumpkin patch at their newly obtained Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm. However, her brother-in-law did not get the message.
“In September 1993, he showed up and said, ‘I have truckloads of pumpkins. Where do you want them?’ And I said, ‘What part of no do you not understand?’,” Bautista said.
Thus was the inauspicious debut of the Hillcrest Christmas Tree Farm pumpkin patch. Thirty-one years later, the patch is still going strong. In fact, Bautista said this year, they broke their attendance records. So, Bautista made some calls to some schools in Reedley.
“That year, we had 325 kids show up for a rudimentary pumpkin patch,” she said. The following year, 700 students showed up. Next year? The number hit 1,500 students.
When asked how she remembered the numbers, Bautista said, “Because it doubled every year. Until it hit about 10,000. And that’s what we’re hitting this year.”
She qualified that remark by saying 10,000 students signed up for the event that runs from Sept. 28 to Oct. 27, but not all 10,000 show up.
BUSIER THAN CHRISTMAS
The couple purchased the farm from Ed and Bonnie Toews, who founded it in 1960. Hillcrest is still the oldest Christmas tree farm in the San Joaquin Valley. Hillcrest Christmas Tree is known throughout the Valley. But Bautista said the pumpkin patch is busier.
“Way busier than Christmas,” she said. And for reasons she still does not understand, the third weekend before Halloween is always the busiest.
“I ask customers, ‘Why do you come on this weekend?’ They say, ‘We always come on this weekend.’”
She said the patch has morphed significantly over the last 30 years.
“When we first started out, the kids used to get their pumpkins early on,” said Bautista. “But then what do they do with it all day?” She said they repositioned the pumpkins so they are near the buses in the parking lot.
“The kids only have to babysit their pumpkins on the ride home,” she said.
Something else that has morphed over the years is the story of Timothy Rabbit and Squire Squirrel, who is Timothy’s best friend. Bautista takes credit for inventing the morality tale – Timothy, who grew the pumpkin patch, talks too much and is too finicky an eater. But his limited palette gets resolved.
There is a small area with fixed benches where 200 kids crowd in to hear the story of Timothy and Squire.
“We’ve added to it over the years,” she said. “But it still has the same characters.” After the story, the kids take a circuitous route to where Timothy and Squire live on the hill. They cross a suspension bridge, up a ladder, and through a rabbit hole. Then they come down and cross a stone bridge that takes them to the hayride.
“It’s very circular,” Bautista said. “You never cross over each other”
As for the students, they are mostly TK (transitional kindergarten) and first graders. They arrived by bus – on the day the Mid Valley Times interviewed Bautista, there were half a dozen buses in the parking lot, and they came from all over the Valley.
“We had some kids from Coarsegold yesterday,” she said. “Hanford. Lemoore. Spring Valley. Even Helm. Tranquility was here today. I think they were an hour and a half on the bus.”
She added that a Fresno-based Arc group arrived recently with 60 adults.
“They were great,” said Bautista. “They were a lot of fun.”
Bautista said one challenge they face each year is scheduling the buses.
“They can’t always get here on time. We had 150 kids who were supposed to be here a half hour ago,” she said. When this occurs, they resort to a tweener. “That’s when we do everything but it’s super quick,” she said.
Everything includes the hayride, a corn maze, train rides (on the weekends), food vendors, and face painters. And the pumpkins, of course.
Bautista estimates they give out about 10,000 pumpkins to kids over the course of the event. This number does not include the pumpkins they sell on the weekends.
When asked why she thinks the pumpkin patch remains so popular, Bautista said it is surrounded by living things.
“It’s a farm,” she said. “There’s stuff growing everywhere. It’s not a corner parking lot at a supermarket. It’s nature.”
