It’s the great pumpkin, Laura Brown!

Above, Laura Brown displays her wares at the 2008 Kuttawa Harvest Festival.
–Photos Furnished

Local entrepreneur Laura Brown may be only 18 years old, but she has a great head for business that she and her family have developed into a profitable and fun enterprise. Laura’s Pumpkin Patch not only grows and sells thousands of pumpkins and gourds each year, the agribusiness side of the patch has helped her win several Future Farmers of America competitions and landed her scholarships to help pay her way through prestigious Rhodes College in Memphis.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s really a lot of fun, too,” Brown said in a recent telephone interview. “This is the third year we’ve gone commercial and sold to businesses, but I have been growing pumpkins since I was really little. My brother started out with a little pumpkin patch and I used to help him, then I just kind of took over.”
Laura’s Pumpkin Patch has grown to a little over two acres, and this year she wanted to plant even more. Her unpaid business partners, also known as her parents, Susan and Curtis, decided that two acres was plenty this year since Laura would not be around to help with the harvest.
“Since I was going away to school, they thought we better stick with what we’ve been doing and not expand too much,” she said. Laura grows her many varieties of pumpkins and gourds from seeds, planting between June first and 15 in order to get an early harvest. And harvest is a big part of Laura’s success. The Kuttawa Harvest Festival, which takes place this weekend is a big sales week for Laura’s Pumpkin Patch, and she plants early in order to be ready for this season-opening festival weekend.
“But planting is not the first step,” she said. “The ground has to be fertilized and prepared, and then we plant and pray for rain so I don’t have to drag out the hose and water.” Brown said she sprays once a week with both fungicide and herbicide, and weed-pulling is an ongoing battle. “Some varieties are not disease-resistant, and they are really vulnerable, so I have to keep a close eye on them and what sprays I use. If I miss spraying and some disease or fungus comes in, it could wipe out the whole patch.”
The Browns start picking around the first or second week of September, she said. Otherwise the pumpkins and gourds keep growing and may get too ripe.
“Besides,” she said, “around here people like to get their decorations up early and in time for the Harvest Festival, so we need to have them available.” The patch is not open to the public because the Browns work outside the home, but they do invite the Explorer’s Club to come visit each year.
“I think that’s a good thing,” she said, “because it’s kind of neat and a lot of kids have never seen pumpkins except at the store and have no idea how they grow.”
Those who wish to buy Laura’s pumpkins and gourds locally may do so by shopping at Food Giant and Akridge in Eddyville.
“We sell a lot of pumpkins to them each year, and I really appreciate them buying from me instead of someone out of town or even out of state.,” Brown said. Other large-scale clients include Food Giant in Princeton, Uncle Lee’s in Greenville, and the hardware store and farmer’s markets in Cadiz.
“My granddad Charles Cartwright is the Cadiz Connection,” Laura said.
The best seller so far this year according to Curtis Brown is not the typical Jack O’Lantern but the flat Cinderella variety. Some of the more unusual varieties, including the French peanut pumpkin and one odd-looking fellow called “Red Warty Thing,” are new for Laura’s Pumpkin Patch this year. The decorative pumpkins and gourds are the biggest sellers early in the season, Brown said, but then in October the search for the perfect Jack O’Lantern is on.
Curtis and Susan will be responsible for the harvest this year (and the next three) while Laura is away at college, but he said they don’t mind the heavy lifting.
“The profits help pay for her college, and they helped her get the majority of her scholarships,” he said. “But she’ll be here for the Harvest Festival and during fall break. Her mother and I are thinking of negotiating for a raise,” he joked. “We often pick late into the night by flashlight when the big orders come in, and her grandmother, Bonnie Brown, has helped with picking and delivery. It’s a family operation, but it’s still Laura’s show. She did all the planting by herself by hand, and does all the weeding and hoeing and most of the spraying this summer right up until she left for school.”
While some might think Laura is happy to be away from the hard work, Curtis reports that she takes orders, makes business calls and arranges deliveries from Memphis on her cell phone and works by email.
Laura also keeps meticulous records. Her entrepreneurial scholarship is redeemable for four years provided she continues the business and submits the required documentation.
“It’s not just that,” Laura said. “I really, really like growing pumpkins. I think everyone should have a hobby they really enjoy, and the look on little kid’s faces when the find the exact pumpkin they have been searching for is a huge benefit to doing what I do.”
For more on Laura’s Pumpkin Patch, visit her at the Kuttawa Harvest Festival this weekend or go to www.lauraspumpkins.com.