What to Know
- Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch
- Opens Saturday, Sept. 16; visitors will find "the biggest and best" pumpkins growing on vines during the early days of the 2023 patch's run
- Parking passes are required on weekends and must be reserved ahead of time
Fairy tales can put several high-spirited fantasies in our heads.
Horse-drawn carriages? They should be shaped like gorgeous gourds.
Styling our hair in the morning? It would be so very helpful if a bird friend would deliver a velvet ribbon via its beak.
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A pumpkin? This fantastical fruit should be admired while on the vine, the sort of curly, twisty, leafy stem that seems to have sprung, fully formed, from some ancient tome of magic.
It isn't often that we get to spy squashes in their storybook-iest forms, but we can when the Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch opens on Saturday, Sept. 16.
For that's when you'll see some of "the biggest and best" pumpkins of the season still very much attached to their vines out in the fields of the Irvine agricultural center.
The Scene
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Will you sing like a prince or do a few enchanted spells once you lift a large leaf and find the pumpkin you love most? That is up to you, of course.
Opening weekend will have a few other magical moments, like the fact that Tanaka Farms will have 25-cent games. Oh yes: And admission will be discounted by 25% during the patch's first two weeks, all to honor the verdant destination's 25th anniversary.
Good to know? Scratch that: Very important to know? You'll need to buy your parking pass ahead of time if you intend to materialize at the pumpkin patch on a weekend day this fall.
Also? Nighttime hours will begin on Fridays and Saturdays beginning in October.
For you corn maze mavens, that, too, will be the stalk, er, talk of the farm.
And if you do want a vine-plucked pumpkin, calling upon Tanaka Farms during the first days of the pumpkin patch is highly recommended, for that's when they'll be available.
For tickets, details, and the tempting thought of finding fanciful pumpkins on vines, visit this recent Facebook post now.
We can't promise that your vine pumpkin will one day transform into a carriage, but it will look mighty handsome as it sits on your table, near your door, or in your yard.
