Carve out some time to visit Illinois’ mega pumpkin patch

Few things say “autumn” like a pumpkin.

And few things say “pumpkin” like Mac Condill’s family farm in east-central Illinois, the country’s leading pumpkin-producing state.

The Condills’ Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur is packed with 300-plus varieties of pumpkins, squash and gourds from more than 30 countries.

“That’s probably more than any place on the planet,” says Condill, 40, whose great-great-grandfather, Frank McDonald, settled here in the mid-1800s.

“It literally is old McDonald’s farm,” notes the affable horticulturist and father of three. He’s been instrumental in transforming The Great Pumpkin Patch into a top tourist attraction in this agriculture-rich area in the heart of Illinois’ Amish country.

“Last year we had 62,000 people come through in seven weeks,” Condill says about the pumpkin patch, whose season runs through Oct. 31.

“You don’t just come here and see orange pumpkins,” he adds. In addition to a field of future jack-o’-lanterns, “we grow blue pumpkins from Australia, black ones from Japan. We have 14 acres of gardens full of pumpkin towers and crazy displays.”

Those pumpkin towers and crazy displays landed Condill multiple guest spots on Martha Stewart’s TV show. He even had the chance to add some fall flair to the lawn of the White House in 2010.

His artistic cucurbit creations aren’t the only draw for visitors, who come to pick their own pumpkins, get up close to farm animals, wander through straw-bale and sunflower mazes, admire thousands of mums and check out an authentic one-room schoolhouse that now doubles as a sweet shop.

Adding to the allure is the region’s heavy population of Amish, who can be seen tending to their fields on horse-drawn plows and traversing the rural roads with a horse and buggy. Just be respectful of Amish beliefs before whipping out your camera. An Arthur tourism website notes: “Please do not take pictures of Amish people from the front. Many of them are accepting if you take a picture that does not reveal their face.”

Several Amish work in the kitchen of the Condill family’s on-site Homestead Bakery (open year-round), making pumpkin noodles, cinnamon rolls and ridiculously tasty bread and cookies. Many also work seasonally on the Condill family’s 200-acre farm.

“We’re a living, working farm, and we want to show people that — help connect people back to the land,” Condill says.

“That’s what we’ve been doing for nearly 30 years,” he adds. “We were ‘agritourism’ and ‘agritainment’ before they were buzz words.”

Getting there: It’s a little over a three-hour drive from downtown Chicago to The Great Pumpkin Patch, 1749A CR 1900 N,Arthur, Ill., 217-543-2394, the200acres.com/pumpkin.

Pumpkin facts

About half of the country’s pumpkins come from just six states: California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York and Illinois, which smashes the competition in pumpkin production.

Illinois produced nearly 318 million pounds of pumpkin — more than twice that of California, the next-closest state — in 2015, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service.

Most of the U.S. commercial pumpkin crop is grown within a 90-mile radius of Peoria, Ill. Unlike in other states, the vast majority of Illinois’ inventory gets processed into canned pumpkins.

Here’s a breakdown of the 753.8 million pounds of pumpkin grown by the top six states:

Illinois: 317.9 million pounds

California: 146.4 million pounds

Ohio: 84.2 million pounds

Pennsylvania: 79.4 million pounds

Michigan: 77.0 million pounds

New York: 48.9 million pounds

Morton Pumpkin Festival

A half century ago, the first Morton Pumpkin Festival was held in this town near Peoria to celebrate the start of the harvest and canning season at the local Libby’s Pumpkin plant.

More than 100,000 tons of pumpkins — enough to make at least 50 million pies — are processed and canned here each year, according to University of Illinois Extension in Urbana-Champaign. That kind of volume led a former Illinois governor to proclaim Morton the “Pumpkin Capital of the World.”

Morton’s four-day festival in September attracts about 70,000 visitors who come for the carnival, food, entertainment and a slew of pumpkin-related events, from parades and a pumpkin princess pageant to a pumpkin weigh-off, decorating contest and pie-eating competition.

Other places to get your pumpkin fest fix:

Circleville Pumpkin Show, Oct. 18-21, in Circleville, Ohio, pumpkinshow.com.

Sycamore Pumpkin Festival, Oct. 25-29, in Sycamore, Ill., sycamorepumpkinfestival.com.

lrackl@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @lorirackl

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