Belmont Pumpkin Farm in Mathews County: Celebrating 40 years!

Story and photos by Tom Chillemi – 

One of the longest-running attractions at the Rivah is the Belmont Pumpkin Farm in Mathews County. The farm is celebrating 40 years of cultivating joy and learning.

The pumpkin patch is only the beginning. It’s a festive atmosphere with something for everyone and it’s a happy place for all.

Spread over several acres, it’s a place where excited children dart from one attraction to the next — hayrides, farm animals, a corn maze, games, playgrounds — and we’re only getting started. “It’s an awesome farm,” said Shawn Rosenblum of Gloucester. “We try to come every year.”

Her husband Aaron added, “It’s alway a nice place to come.” He borrowed a line from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song, “All I Can Do Is Write About It,” that longs for the natural world, that is being encroached by development. “I can see the concrete slowly creeping.”

Their children, ranging in age from 4 to 13, have found activities — one is climbing a pear tree, another is at the toy duck races, and one has gotten her face painted.

Farm animals

The hayride circles back to the main complex and riders scurry off to visit the farm animals. “My favorite are the turkeys, gobble-gobble,” said Ella Boehm, as she jumps for joy and heads for the mini-zoo. Ella, 6, is there with her twin sister Emma, her younger sister Nevaeh, 2, who does a good job of keeping up with her big sisters, and parents Christopher and Elizabeth. They came from Gloucester and escaped a cloudy Friday.

Animals to visit include sheep, baby goats, turkeys, rabbits, pigs, chickens, geese, and baby ducks.

Off to the races

Jackson Byrd, 4, and family are having lunch on a picnic table. He plans to get a pumpkin to carve into a pirate ship. As soon as he finishes his hot dog, he’s off to the toy duck races.

Floating ducks are propelled down a chute by water pumped with an old-time hand pump. The faster the racers move the pump handle, the more water flows.

On this day it’s not about competition, but the fascination of gravity. Brothers Preston Phillips, 8, and Ben Phillips, 10, of Gloucester furiously work the pump handles, sending the duck back to each other.

“We’ve been coming here for years,” said their mother Kristina, who likes the family environment… and the Belmont prepared foods, especially the “Kickles,” pickles with the right amount of a spicy kick. “They are delicious.”

Dog day

Cruz Sepeda and Kaitlin Hernandez drove from Newport News to bring their dogs to “Dog Days,” offered only on Fridays. It was their first trip to Belmont Pumpkin Farm. He’d seen the Dog Days advertised so it seemed a good place for their second date, and a dog date. “I hope to kick off fall,” he said.

Activities

Make a scarecrow, paint pumpkins, have your face painted. All are among the fun things to do.

The farm supplies a burlap sack for the head, straw to stuff the clothes, and decorating materials. Bring your own scarecrow clothes and it only costs $8.

Hayride

Belmont is a place to experience new and different things and learn where food comes from. The hayride’s first stop is the mysterious “Pirates in the Maze — Treasure Hunt” corn maze where children run on circular trails looking for the way out.

Next stop on the hayride is the sunflower field. They are next to multi-colored zinnias. No two flowers are the same, Gabbie the Gardener explained. Zinnias attract monarch butterflies as they migrate riding the winds of the east coast from Mexico as far north as Maine. Several years ago, a scientist from the Virginia Living Museum visited Belmont to tag and release butterflies, said Gabbie.

Food

The cafe serves pumpkin funnel cakes, cider slushies, farm smoked barbecue with apple slaw, cider, pumpkin loaf, pulled pork street tacos, hot dogs, and of course pumpkin pie.

Take home items also include honey, hot sauce, old-fashion preserves and jams, barbecue sauces, syrup, salsas, hot pepper relish, pickled baby beets, apple butter and pumpkin butter.

Decorative items for sale include sunflowers, zinnias, pumpkins, gourds, straw bales and corn stalks.

Future of Belmont

Noah Brown, 23, will be taking over management of Belmont Pumpkin Farm next year. Brown is the grandson of the farm’s founder Cammie Gustafson Flanagan. He plans to build on the farm’s 40-year history and expand the agritourism business with additional fruit and vegetable crops and host festivals. Brown is passionate about music and studied guitar with the late bluesman Franklin Jay Jarvis. He invites fellow musicians to come out to jam anytime the farm is open.

Pumpkin secrets

A day of fun at Belmont Pumpkin Farm is capped with something to take home. Pumpkins are sold by the size, for carving or eating. “Gabbie the Gardener” explains some fun facts about pumpkins. Oakley Farmer got a tip from Gabbie about Jack-o-lantern carving. The pumpkin will stay fresher longer if you remove the bottom of the pumpkin, and leave the stem and top in place. The stem is the umbilical cord, she said, and it’s best to not pick up pumpkins by the stem. Oakley found that out when the stem of his pumpkin broke. 

Oakley planned to carve a traditional Jack-o-lantern this year, a departure from his more unusual creations of past Halloweens.

Also, removing the pumpkin bottom will keep water from collecting under it and causing rot, said Gabbie.

Self healing

Pumpkins are self healing, Gabbie tells a group. When deer bite pumpkins, the skin will scab over, keeping the plant alive.

Some visitors were intrigued by the dark green pumpkins. Gabbie explained the green pumpkins, like green tomatoes, are just unripe fruit. Yes, scientifically they both are fruits, because they start as a flower.

Gabbie Crowder is a seventh grade teacher at Thomas Hunter Middle School in Mathews. Until the Covid shutdown, Belmont Pumpkin Farm hosted school field trips for 30 years, and 3,500 to 5,000 students a season learned about farming. Gabbie recalled how urban school children had never seen where food comes from.

They plant 11 edible pumpkin varieties including specialty “Global” pumpkins from Venice, France, New Zealand  and Thailand.

Pumpkins are low in calories, high in fiber, beta carotene and alpha carotene for disease protection and anti-aging… and pumpkins are a lot of fun.