Pumpkin Power

The Pohl family is awash in giant squash, at least until the hoards seeking gourds come to visit.

This is the fourth year that Dan and Kendall Pohl have sold pumpkins on their Town of Belgium farm on Jay Road, and this year they added new family friendly features: four-legged friends and a playground.

The idea came from the pumpkin purchasers themselves.

After visitors said they liked seeing the Pohls’ cats and cows, Dan and Kendall decided to make the pumpkin selling season a “farm family experience.”

The Pohls set out on their mission. They already had 100 cows, barn cats and Dale the beloved 5-year-old red Labrador.

“Dale the dog is the known character of the playground. He is the show dog. Everyone remembers Dale,” Kendall said.

The family then bought nine sheep from a farm down the road and nine goats from a farm near Cleveland, Wis. They also have chickens and rabbits.

Kendall and their three young children helped name most of the goats and sheep.

“Don’t ask me,” Dan said.

“I know them all,” Kendall said.

Loretta the sheep may even know her name.

“Our sheep are very smart,” Kendall said.

The Pohls also constructed a playground — a low ropes course, combine slide that also draws adults and a tower of tires in a sandpit ripe for climbing.

The playground and petting zoo, open on weekends, has been drawing more than 100 people a day.

“Business is pretty good,” Kendall said.

“For the first year, we’re pretty happy with that,” Dan said.

The goats are among the biggest hits. Dan wanted friendly goats, and that’s all he got. They will greet and snuggle with visitors, but they have a non-goat-like quirk. They’re picky eaters.

Dan once gave the goats a pumpkin, which most of the farm’s other creatures enjoy, but it only garnered a sniff before being ignored. They also don’t eat grass.

“That was a disappointment,” Dan said.

 As a result, the sheep have been tasked with grass removal, and they oblige.

It was one of the many things the Pohls learned during their pumpkin patch venture.

One of the motivations for growing pumpkins was to make them affordable. Pohl’s prices are $1 to $5 for pumpkins, and they offer other fall decor.

“We have the resources and the land to do it. The goal is to make it more affordable for families,” Kendall said.

That means more work for the family farm of 400 acres. They planted 15 acres of pumpkins that grow to 15 to 60 pounds. They pick them themselves.

“It’s very physical labor,” Dan said. “To keep the prices down, we can’t hire 15 people.”

Some assistance is on the way. The Pohls’ children — ages 6, 4 and 2 — love to help and will join the workforce in time.

They can use the manpower. Demand remains high, and the patch is down the road from where the pumpkins are sold. Dan said he can fit nine bins on a trailer, and he goes through 30 to 40 bins per week.

Two weekends ago, customers were buying pumpkins out of the bins as fast the Pohls were delivering them.

“They don’t just buy one,” Dan said.

The Pohls started by growing pumpkins on two acres and sold out the first two years.

This year, they planted 27,000 pumpkin seeds and have 50 varieties, with different sizes, shapes and colors.

Customers come from as far as Illinois, Manitowoc, Jackson and Brown Deer to the farm stand that operates on the honor system.

The Pohls are the sixth generation to run the farm, which dates to 1863. Dan’s father Mike lives next door and still helps run the farm — they milk the old-fashioned way by connecting the tubes by hand — but are selling the cows at the end of the year and getting out of the volatile milk business.

“It gives four hours per day back to the business,” Kendall said.

“Six hours back,” Dan added.

The Pohls are sticking to growing soybeans, corn, wheat, alfalfa, beans, winter wheat and pumpkins. It was a learning curve to add the orange giants.

“The largest part is weed control,” Dan said. “You can’t spray anything on a pumpkin.”

Kendall works as general manager of the Kohler Sports Core, and she has done fall decorating with pumpkins, corn stalks, hay bales and the like, for people’s homes and businesses ever since the family began growing pumpkins. Deliveries have reached more than 2,000 pumpkins per week.

Kendall grew up on the Strupp dairy farm in Slinger, so she knew what she was getting into when she married Dan eight years ago. She studied kinesiology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and did personal training before getting into leadership and management.

For Dan, who’s 33, taking over the family farm was a given. His brother Andy lives nearby but isn’t interested in farming and instead works for the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s Office.

“I’ve been in it my whole life. It’s natural,” Dan said.

But Kendall said, “It’s not a lucrative business.”

Dan said he likes that he’s his own boss, but the work is hard and the hours long. He is up at 5 a.m. and usually not back in the house until 7 p.m. 

“You have to want to do it,” Dan said.

The family loves growing pumpkins.

“The kids love coming out and inspecting them,” Dan said.

But picking them grows old.

“We love it. It’s our favorite time of year until about now when we’re sick of it,” he said.

The playground and petting zoo are closed for the season. Pumpkin sales close after this weekend.

New ventures are in the works. The Pohls hope to offer wagon rides to take people to the patch where they can pick their own pumpkins and a corn maze.

Halloween and harvest aren’t the only events the family plans to cater to. Growing and selling Christmas trees are on the list.

For more information, visit https:// pohlspumpkinpatch.com.