Fall is here, and that means pumpkin spice everything, flannel even if it’s too hot, crunching leaves with our boots, and taking a family trip to the pumpkin patch. There’s so much seasonal fun, we can hardly contain ourselves. Of course, when we visit a pumpkin patch, we have to get that perfect orange pic, right? But one New Jersey farm claims influencers snapping photos are wreaking havoc at pumpkin patches, and they want it to stop.
Von Thun’s Country Farm Market shared a warning on Facebook on October 6 stating that its pumpkins are not intended for use as photo shoot props.
“You know all those posts from influencers encouraging you to sit on pumpkins for photos? Please don’t do that unless you plan to buy it and bring it home with you,” Von Thun’s post reads.
The farm explained that sitting on the pumpkins, even for just a second, can cause damage. The post includes a photo of barrels of damaged pumpkins, and it’s pretty sad to see.
“Once a pumpkin is cracked or the stem is broken off the pumpkin is usually not sellable and we see waste like this (just a glimpse of what we have been picking up this morning) after every weekend,” the post reads in part. “It doesn’t go to waste, per se, since our farm animals will gladly eat them, but we grow pumpkins to sell them, not as piggy snacks!”
Von Thun then thanked customers for visiting and encouraged them to return this fall.
The Von Thun’s pumpkins garnered a lot of attention, and most people couldn’t believe visitors would be so careless. “If I can teach my kids to respect the farm so can teens/adults,” one mom commented on the post.
It felt like a teaching moment for others.
“Teach your kids to respect other people’s property. You want to sit on a pumpkin? Buy one, take it home and sit on it to your heart’s content then clean up your mess,” someone wrote. “There is just no respect for others anymore.”
A few people doubted that people had actualy sat on the pumpkins in the photo, but Von Thun clarified.
“We see lots of whacky things done with pumpkins! Kids (and adults) throw them, play soccer with them, sit on them, step on them for cute photos. Etc. We had plenty of large pumpkins we picked up as well,” the farm explained in a comment.
We have to remember that, most of the time, we only see the best on social media. So that perfect-looking pumpkin patch photo might have taken 20 minutes, a kid crying, a mom shaking her head, a dad walking away, and maybe even a broken pumpkin or two.
We get that accidents happen, but in some cases, it might be time to return to the old “You break it, you buy it” policy. That would change those photo shoots really quickly.
