Fall fun: A glimpse of harvest time

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Visiting farms -- or, at least, regularly driving past them -- is commonplace to people in rural areas, but the experience can be novel to those whose everyday lives have put them at a distance from the sights and sounds of agriculture.

By capturing that uniqueness and making it attractive and accessible, operations such as the Koenig family's Perryville Pumpkin Farm have adapted to the changes of the contemporary scene, expanded their vision and added revenue.

One of numerous families around the state to join the state Department of Agriculture's AgriMissouri program of agri-tourism, the Koenigs decided to apply their innate friendliness, and open to the public their farm at 1410 Allen's Road, State Highway E -- just outside of Perryville.

Tilling 700 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat and alfalfa hay, they have set aside 10 acres for gourds, squash and 146 varieties of pumpkins. Visitors to the farm are welcome to take a tractor-drawn wagon ride to the pumpkin patch "to pick your own off the vine."

Visitors also may wander through a one-mile corn maze, feed the family's dairy goats, bowl with pumpkins, launch pumpkins into the air with an oversized sling, play mini-farm golf, decorate a pumpkin and milk Sophia, the simulated cow that helps visitors learn how milk gets from farm to table. Plus, children are welcome to crawl through the farm's straw tunnel and play in the corn pit -- sort of like a sand box, with corn kernels standing in for the grains of sand.

Ayla Schuler picks out pumpkins with her mother, Wendy, at Perryville Pumpkin Farm Thursday afternoon. (GLENN LANDBERG)

The farm is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. seven days a week from Sept. 1 through Oct. 31 and welcomes school field trips, birthday parties, youth groups and adults' tours, with reservations accepted.

Dianna Koenig and her husband Brian had their sons, Tyson, Ryan and Jarod, started growing pumpkins as a learning experience 14 years ago, and that initiative has developed into a multi-faceted enterprise.

Others who help with the pumpkin farm-related activities are Jarod Koenig's wife and son, Jennifer and Benjamin, and neighbors Don and Laura Miesner. Dianna Koenig's parents, Marvin and Eleanor Meckler, live on the farm, which is a designated Missouri Century Farm, a program recognizing farms that have been in the same family for 100 years or more.

New attractions this year are the pumpkin sling, the straw-bale fort with a pipe tunnel and slides, a pumpkin-decorating station and scavenger hunts. The weekend ride package is $4 per person and the play package $2.50.

Of course, much of the interest is Halloween-related. Giant orange pumpkins sell for $20 and the white "polar bears" for $25, but the smaller ones go for $1 to $7. The farm also sells decorative gourds and squash, full- and half-size straw bales, dried corn stalks, Indian corn and locally produced jams, jellies and honey.

"The whole mission of our farm is to help people come learn about agriculture," Dianna Koenig said. "We really like to meet people and have them come out, so that's what we do.

"So many people are separated from farming and the agricultural life. It's also a way to keep the farm viable.

"On a farm, you have to be able to change with the times," she said, noting that the Beggs Family Farm near Sikeston is another example of an open farm participating in the state's AgriMissouri program.

Two boys navigate a corn maze as part of a scavenger hunt at Perryville Pumpkin Farm Thursday. (GLENN LANDBERG)

Koenig said the Perryville Pumpkin Farm, advertising in social media and other venues, has drawn visitors from 15 counties in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois.

More information is available by calling 573-513-2899 or visiting perryvillepumpkingfarm.com.