What to Know
- The 6th Annual Grower's Forum at Irvine Park Railroad in Orange
- Free (parking is additional); Saturday, April 27 at 9 a.m.
- Prizes, a seeds/seedling raffle, and tips on growing giant pumpkins — pumpkins that could win you cash in the fall — are part of the yearly gardening get-together
We're just about "Halfway to Halloween," an annual observance that "falls" around the end of April and beginning of May.
We added quotes to "falls" for a reason: "Halfway to Halloween" is a way for autumn aficionados to enjoy a brief taste of their favorite time of year, months before the monsters and ghouls officially return.
Fall may still be a ways off, but a gardening event will summon some fall-like feelings on Saturday, April 27. It's the 6th Annual Grower's Forum, a tip-filled get-together that anticipates what gardeners may desire when autumn arrives.
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And many gardeners desire really, really ginormous pumpkins, the kind of pumpkins that can almost seem like bright boulders in a garden.
Those scale-testing pumpkins can win prizes, and cash, at places like Irvine Park Railroad, which is where the forum will be held on the final Saturday in April.
Why hold a pumpkin-themed event in the heart of spring?
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Because if you want to grow giant pumpkins, you'll need to get growing, er, going. Planting season is almost upon us, and soaking in all of the knowledge you'll need is what the forum is all about.
Plus a seeds/seedlings raffle, and prizes, and a regular train ticket to the property's cute and nostalgic choo-choo.
If you do plant pumpkin seeds or seedlings and they happen to grow particularly huge, you'll want to keep the Orange-based attraction's Great Pumpkin Weigh-off in mind; "over $8,000 in cash prizes were awarded" in 2023.
The date for the 2024 showdown is live: Saturday, Sept. 21, which is the final Saturday of summer.
Can you grow a behemoth between now and then, the kind of pumpkin that nabs the top prize? May the magic of this time of year — "Halfway to Halloween" time, as the fans call it — as you plant those first hope-filled seeds.
