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What's Cooking on 1060: Pumpkin Picking

By Hadas Kuznits

SEWELL, N.J. (CBS) -- Nothing says fall like a visit to a pumpkin or apple picking farm. This month is high season for those activities and a South Jersey Farm offers the full experience, complete with the hayride to the pumpkin patch.

Tracy Duffield of Duffield's Farm in Gloucester County, New Jersey says October is their busiest month for pumpkin picking.

"Agri-tourism has really kind of skyrocketed in the last several years," Duffield says.

She describes the lifecycle of a pumpkin.

"We usually plant them in the beginning of July," she says. "We care for them all the way up until the beginning of September when we start picking."

So how do you grow a gigantic award-winning pumpkin?

"Well, that would be the 'Big Mac' variety," Duffield says, "and they'll go through and actually thin some of them off so that others can get more nutrients to grow larger."

While most people use them for decoration, many cook with pumpkins this time of year -- but Duffield says they also use other similar fall produce.

"We actually had a year when there was a pumpkin shortage," she says, "and a lot of people were using the butternut squash for pumpkin pies."

Duffield says recently, folks are coming out not just for the experience of a hayride and a pumpkin; she says people are actually coming out to buy fresh farm produce for cooking and eating.

"But we feel like this next generation is starting to utilize things more," she says. "They want to make jam, they ask how to preserve things, how to freeze things."

Hear the full podcast (runs 9:24)…

And for this week, that's "What's Cooking on 1060!"

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