COVER STORY
Fall farms by Michael J. DeCicco
The fall harvest season is in full bloom, and South Coast farms big and small are announcing nothing but good news. Escobar Highland Farm
Business at Escobar Highland Farm and Corn Maze, at 255 Middle Road in Portsmouth, is going strong. The farm opened in 1938, and Louis Escobar, 82, the son of the original owner, is still in charge. The farm is still selling hundreds of pumpkins from its pumpkin patch at this time of year as well as all of the milk from the 100-200 cows the Escobar family milks once a day. But the farm’s main attraction, the eight-acre Corn Maze, will also be the major draw this season, said farm manager Stewart McNaught, with no dip in attendance. The maze sees an average of 1,000 visitors per year, he said. The season will again be highlighted by its annual Halloween Party on October 31 (rain date November 1). Wear a costume and receive $1 off admission for an event that will include scarecrows, a hay play area, pumpkin decorating, and possibly hay rides. Don’t miss visiting the nearby concession
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stand that sells popcorn, candy, soda, water, animal crackers, raisins, and butterscotch-flavored lollipops in the shape of an ear of corn. The maze, which was designed by Brett Herbst of The MAiZE organization, this year celebrates the farmer, McNaught said. The farm’s traditional hayrides are a question mark this year because of COVID shutdown regulations, he added. But he is confident the farm’s cow train will be ready for young riders of all ages, he said, and the games and picnic tables will be up and ready. “Part of an increasingly popular ‘agri-tainment’ trend, it will be joined this year by more than 250 affiliated MAiZE sites across the United States, Canada, and Europe,” McNaught added proudly. The maze will remain open until November 8. Times and admission prices are on the website, escobarfarm.com. Also visit Lou’s Pumpkin Patch, open every fall. Get your Jack ‘O Lanterns and your Pie Pumpkins too!
October 2020 | The South Coast Insider
ESCOBAR FARM
A.D. Makepeace
The only difference this year for South Coast’s largest fall harvest producer, the Wareham cranberry grower A.D. Makepeace, is that the company is not doing any of the special events it usually hosts at this time of year. “It’s not because of COVID,” Linda Burke, vice-president of Marketing and Communications, said, “but because of the threat of EEE.” But the harvest season itself has not been changed, she said, and it’s going strong. Makepeace cranberries are harvested from around the middle of September to the first or second week of November every year. That’s when the company’s 2,000 acres of bogs will produce a yearly average of 400,000 barrels of cranberries that are then shipped to Ocean Spray to make the juices and other cranberry products the fruit is known for. How much exactly Makepeace will produce this year in total would be just a guess at this point in time, Burke said. “You never know what conditions will be like.” But the company, she said, was lucky for being dubbed an essential operation under the March shutdowns. That’s when the fruit is “settling” and needs to be protected from frost with a sprayed blanket of ice.
