Popular New Mexico pumpkin patch opens this weekend

MORIARTY, N.M. — Fall officially arrives this weekend and, for many, nothing says fall like a pumpkin patch.

A pumpkin patch near and dear to many in New Mexico is getting ready. McCall’s Pumpkin Patch in Moriarty begins its 26th season this Saturday, which also happens to be the first day of fall.

“We’re sitting on 11 acres where we play. You include the corn maze and that’s another 13 acres. The pumpkins are another 50 acres so it’s a wide area and a vast area to play in,” said Kevin McCall, the owner of McCall’s Pumpkin Patch.

With so much ground to cover and fall coming quickly, preparations for opening day start early.

“We’re cleaning and putting all the activities back up and making sure that they are safe. So there’s a lot to do at McCall’s to prepare for opening day,” McCall said.

McCall’s isn’t just famous for their pumpkin patch. Each year, they have their annual haunts.

“On Friday night the 29th of September, we debut our haunted barn, so we have our haunted corn maze and our haunted barn,” McCall shared. “For the haunt, you can buy tickets online. You can’t buy tickets here, so the haunt is by timeslots.”

A big part of the annual preparations is also hiring enough people.

“We’re hiring about 300 [people] and it looks pretty good at the moment,” McCall said.

With so much going into this fall, McCall’s is hoping there isn’t a repeat of last fall. The weather forced them to shut down the pumpkin patch for two weekends.

“We’re hoping for drier skies after last season. We had six inches of rain in the month of October, in the month of October alone,” McCall said.

Organizers say they haven’t built anything new this year but they have made improvements to their already-existing attractions.

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