Where Fall Memories Grow

Family Owned Pumpkin Patches

By Sharon Harper

There is, of course, the pumpkins.

Finding just the right one is part of fall. It might be perfectly round and orange, tall and crooked, white or green, or just small enough for a child to carry proudly back to the car. But spend a little time talking with the families behind some of the Upper East Side of Texas’ pumpkin patches and it becomes clear that pumpkins are only part of the story.

What these families really seem interested in growing are memories.

At farms from Rockwall to Wills Point and from Terrell to Greenville, owners talk less about attractions and more about experiences. They want children to feed an animal, run through the woods, ride behind a tractor, pick a pumpkin from a field or catch a fish for the first time. They want families to spend an afternoon together outside, away from electronics and the routines that seem to fill almost every minute of modern life.

Perhaps most telling is that no two places do it exactly alike.

At Blase Family Farm in Rockwall, that experience unfolds beneath trees that could easily have disappeared as the surrounding community grew.

The family has preserved 22 wooded acres tucked into a residential area of Rockwall, one of the fastest-growing communities in the Upper East Side of Texas.

Rather than seeing the property cleared for another development, the Blase family maintains it as a working farm and a natural place for people to gather.

During pumpkin season, children can visit animals in the petting zoo, find their way through a child-sized hay maze, take a hayride through the trees and walk a wooded trail telling the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin. School field trips are also part of the season, giving children an opportunity to learn and explore outside the classroom.

It feels surprisingly removed from the city growing around it, and that may be part of its charm. There are rocks, roots, hills and uneven ground because this is not a paved attraction made to look like the outdoors. It is the outdoors.

The 2026 pumpkin season runs Sept. 19-Nov. 1, with visits by reservation. Admission is $12 per person, with children age 1 and younger free. For current hours, reservations and additional information, visit blasefamilyfarm.com or follow Blase Family Farm on Facebook.

A little farther east, Flat Cozy Antiques and Farm outside Wills Point offers a completely different fall experience, and its pumpkin tradition began almost by accident.

The owners opened Flat Cozy in 2019, and the original idea was simply to decorate the front porch with pumpkins. Then the owner’s husband found a pumpkin supplier, the same source used by the Dallas Arboretum, and announced that he was ordering an 18-wheeler load.

A porch decoration suddenly became a pumpkin business.

Today, families find pumpkins and gourds in an assortment of colors, shapes and sizes spread around the rustic property, creating natural places for fall photographs. Some families return every year specifically during pumpkin season and have photographed their children there season after season. But one of Flat Cozy’s most memorable offerings does not involve a pumpkin at all.

There is a stocked fishing pond on the property. At first, families simply came by to feed the fish. Then the owners began realizing how many children had never caught one.

So during pumpkin season, when he is available, the owner opens the pond to children who want to fish. It is catch and release, and adults leave the fishing to the kids. The pond is intentionally well stocked, too. The idea is not to have a child spend an afternoon staring unhappily at a bobber. They want that first fish to bite.

It is a small thing until you think about the number of children growing up without easy access to a pond or creek.

For one child, a visit to pick out a pumpkin might also become the day he or she catches a first fish.

Flat Cozy Antiques and Farm is located along U.S. Highway 80 between Wills Point and Edgewood. For current pumpkin availability, hours and other information, visit flatcozyantiques.com.

At Walls Family Farm, between Terrell and Quinlan, family is woven into almost everything.

Dale and Marilyn Walls purchased the property in 1964. Dale was an electrical engineer and Marilyn a third-grade teacher, but both had grown up in small rural communities. They wanted a way for people to get out of the city, and eventually the family began selling choose-and-cut Christmas trees in 1976. What began as something Dale jokingly considered his version of a golf game became a family tradition.

Their son Winston later returned to help continue it. After spending a year working with orphans in Russia, he came home with an even greater appreciation for the difference family interaction can make in a child’s life. He began thinking about how the farm could give parents and children a place to spend time together outside what he calls the “concrete jungle.”

Today, Winston and his wife, Melody, have nine children of their own, and generations of the Walls family have worked on the property.

During the fall, visiting children have plenty of room to do what children do best: play. There is a large playground, a jumping pillow, swings and tire swings, tricycles big enough for parents to race their children, tetherball, duck races, tug of war and other games. A sunflower maze adds another place to explore. The family continues adding activities, not simply to make the farm bigger, but to give visitors something to discover throughout their time there.

Safety is part of the design. Fencing surrounds the children’s activity areas, allowing youngsters some freedom to run while giving parents and teachers a little room to relax. That consideration comes naturally in a family filled with educators. Winston’s mother, sister and grandmother all worked as teachers.

There is an educational side, too. Hayrides can include lessons about pumpkins, agriculture and what grows on the farm. Walls Family Farm has about 100 acres of producing pecan trees, and in years past also grew peaches and blackberries commercially. The family grows its own pumpkins whenever the weather cooperates, including different cultivars that give children a chance to see that pumpkins extend well beyond the familiar orange jack-o’-lantern.

At the end of the hayride, children head to the patch, choose their own pumpkin and write their name on it. Then, Winston says, they are usually more than ready to take off for the play area.

The Walls family has watched some visitors return for decades. Years ago, Winston painted an old tractor and invited anyone who had been visiting for more than 10 years to sign it. Before long, virtually every available space was covered with names. Some visitors returned the following year and simply added another year beside their signatures.

That tradition meant a great deal to Marilyn Walls. Near the end of her life, she repeatedly asked her son to promise that he would keep the farm going. She knew families who had first brought their children were returning years later with grandchildren of their own. Winston made the promise.

It also explains why he says a family farm like theirs needs a reason bigger than money. “If you’re doing it for the money, you’re going to go do something else,” he says.

The work lasts far beyond the few weeks visitors see each fall. For the Walls family, the reward comes from watching families spend time together and seeing the difference that kind of attention and connection can make in children’s lives.

For current fall dates, hours and activities, visit Walls Family Farm on Facebook.

Near Greenville, Kadee Farm has built another family tradition around getting children outside and onto the farm.

Its annual Pumpkin Patch returns Sept. 26-Nov. 1 this year, bringing families to the property for the kind of uncomplicated outdoor fun that is at the heart of these family-owned farms.

Children can climb aboard a train ride, visit the animal barn, explore a corn maze, play on the playground, jump in the hay and dig into a corn pit. There is even a pumpkin water race. Pumpkins come in an assortment of shapes, sizes and colors, and photo settings around the property give families a chance to document another fall together.

Kadee Farm’s 2026 Pumpkin Patch is open Fridays from 4-7 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sundays from 1-6 p.m., Sept. 26-Nov. 1. For current information, visit kadeefarm.com or follow Kadee Farm on Facebook.

Together, these four places make an interesting case for the family-owned pumpkin patch.

At one, a child walks through preserved woods in the middle of rapidly growing Rockwall. At another, that child might catch a first fish. At Walls Family Farm, there is room to race Mom or Dad on a tricycle, pick a pumpkin from the field and then run off to play. At Kadee Farm, a train ride, animals, corn maze and other activities give children another opportunity to experience a little bit of farm life.

They are also relatively simple experiences, which may be part of why families love them.

There is no screen required to catch a fish. No app is needed for a hayride. A child does not need instructions for exploring a maze, feeding an animal or deciding which pumpkin is the perfect one.

And behind each of those experiences is a family that spends much of the year preparing for a season that lasts only a matter of weeks.

The pumpkin may be what everyone carries home.The experience is what they remember.