Coleman’s Tree Farm- Pumpkin Picking

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again… I am super cheap. I always try to use coupons, get cash back, find deals and not pay full price on anything if I can help it. Because of that, I have a REALLY hard time doing the u-pick adventures because you pay 3x as much for the produce and you have to do all the work, but you are paying for the experience which I know is also important. When it comes to learning where your food comes from, I think it is important for kids to learn how things grow. Does it come from a tree, a vine, a bush? What time of year is it ready? How do you know when it is ripe?

We have pumpkin patches galore in Delaware, and we aren’t going to pick pumpkins at all of them so there has to be some criteria you can use to narrow down the choices. Here are the reason’s we selected Coleman’s Tree Farm to pick our pumpkins at:

1. The hours. They are open 9am-5pm. Our kids are VERY early risers and most attractions don’t open until 10 or 11am so we are always trying to kill time before we can go and then rush home for nap. Getting to start at 9am is awesome for us.
2. The drive. I made sure to take the scenic route up route 9 to get there. We love going over all the bridges, driving through farmland and having the road to ourselves. You can also take 13 if you are in a hurry but I suggest building the time in to take the long way and drive with the windows down.
3. Hayride and play area…FREE! There is no entry fee to stop by the farm. You have to do the hayride to get to the pumpkin patch which adds to the experience and they have a variety of play structures for the kids to enjoy. Play houses, swings, pirate ships, a GIANT teepee and more. Plus, there are several big swings for the parents. Baby Sloane and Mama got comfy on a swing while the boys played and it was heavenly and relaxing. I don’t usually associate those two words with our adventures.
4. Ice cream. To be honest, this is more for me than the kids. Of course they would love it too, but I am a huge ice cream lover so this was a great feature.

The pumpkin patch has both pumpkins and decorative gourds growing so I was actually kind of glad that one kid picked a pumpkin and the other picked some gourds. The pricing is based on the size of the pumpkin an gourds are 4 for $3.75. Our pumpkin ended up being $9 so we spent $12.75 picking pumpkins there. Coleman’s ONLY takes cash or checks so make sure you keep that in mind before you go. I don’t normally even carry cash, but I did make sure to have some for this adventure just in case.

There are porta potties and a handwashing station so you can get cleaned up after getting muddy picking pumpkins before you eat your ice cream. I will warn you that on the way to the farm, all the signs are shaped like an ice cream cone and there’s a giant ice cream sign at the entrance so if you don’t plan on getting ice cream, you may have to have a distraction plan in place for kids that are very observant. Those signs were the first things my kids noticed and they were asking for it before we even got out of the car. I would suggest having an alternative snack ready to offer to avoid an ice cream meltdown. Pun intended 🙂

We saved the ice cream for last and there are a ton of Woodside Farms Creamery flavors to choose from. 3 single scoops in waffle cones was $13. They charge by weight which I am not a fan of at all, but that’s how they charge at the creamery as well so maybe they mandate that their product has to be sold that way. I find that most ice cream places that charge by the scoop will be pretty generous with their scoop sizes so when you pay by weight you don’t get the most bang for your buck.

Coleman’s doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Fifer’s or Milburn Orchards have but it is still a good quality experience. Sometimes simple is better!