If the drive doesn’t scare you off—it is the Halloween season, after all—and you’re looking for a seasonal getaway, you can’t do better than a trip to Pueblo or more specifically the outskirts of Pueblo and the Saint Charles Mesa.
The mesa is something of a suburb of the city, a rich agricultural mecca where Pueblo’s famous chile along with carrots, corn and countless other crops are grown. Ooops! Don’t want to forget pumpkins.
With the growing season now in the rear-view mirror and the fields growing fallow, it’s time to celebrate the fruit and spirit of the season.
Spread across a few zip codes on or near Pueblo’s Highway 50, locals and out-of-towners can visit any number of corn mazes and pumpkin patches, each with its own allure and personality.
“This is our fourteenth year,” for Katrina Chamber’s family’s Harvest Days celebration of the season. Harvest Days, like the pumpkins her family grows, said Chambers, “started out pretty small.” Pumpkins were planted by hand. But like the pumpkins seeds they were planting, an idea sprouted up. Why, thought the family, not turn the patch into a little fall fun.
A $15 admission allows visitors to roam the land, try out one or both of the corn mazes and pick out the perfect pumpkin. If they choose, they can also take a hayride, visit the corn mazes and let their children visit the petting zoo and feed the various farm animals. Chambers says young children are given alfalfa pellets to hand feed the goats and bunnies. She calls it a “fun farm experience.”
Chambers‘ Harvest Days Pumpkin Patch and Corn Maze are located at 33111 E. Highway 50. Nearby are the DiTomaso Farms, The Great Pumpkin Patch operated by the Panteleo family and the Milberger Farm Pumpkin Patch.
At the DiTomaso Farm, $7 will not get you a “grocery store sized” pumpkin, which its owner compares to a regulation basketball, but something so much bigger. The DiTomaso pumpkins are located at 37137 Highway 50.
Musso Farms, located at 35779 Hillside Road, invites visitors to take in free horse-drawn wagon rides and $8 pumpkins. It is open onweekends from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. At Musso Farms, owner Carl Musso, Jr., said that if the weather cooperates it may stay open through the final weekend of October. Roasting Pueblo chile will also be available.
The Great Pueblo Pumpkin Patch operated by the Pantaleo family is located at 39651 South Road remains one of the traditional Fall season escapes. It’s open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through month’s end. There visitors can enjoy a “giant” corn maze, hay rides, pony rides, a cow train, petting zoo, food, and evening bonfires. And, of course, pumpkins. Admission is $3 per person.
While things may look easy, putting together a pumpkin patch and all that goes with it for this seasonal event, said Chambers, involves a lot of work. “It takes all year to grow pumpkins,” and putting together a ‘visitor-friendly’ corn maze, is also labor intensive. And then, there’s Mother Nature who, this year, caused a bit of anxiety but, in the end, came through.
“The pumpkins,” Chambers said, “did really great this year.” The weather cooperated, she said, despite “grasshoppers, a little too much heat and too little rain.” In the end, everything turned out fine.
A visit to The Great Harvest also means “a huge variety of pumpkins.” Chambers says there will be yel- low ones, traditional orange, a few blue(ish) ones and a variety that might look like they have a skin condition. It’s actually just another strain of this fall fruit. And, yes, pumpkins are a fruit.
Chambers said, with a degree of reassurance, navigating the corn mazes will not be as difficult as so many are. Also, her homage to Halloween won’t be spooky. “We don’t have anything scary. It’s just a Fall celebration.”
While Harvest Days along with Pueblo’s other seasonal Fall celebrations go through the end of the month, the last day doesn’t mean it’s over. Actually, it’s just the beginning—the beginning of preparations for each of the various farm’s 2025 versions.
