At the farm store you can also buy apples, pumpkins and other produce, depending on the season.

Every October as kids, we loved to go pumpkin picking and buy fresh pumpkins.

We went to a farm out east and bought pumpkins and gourds and apple cider.

"You can buy yellow and red peppers and pumpkins to arrange on the table with leaves or shrub trimmings for a festive look," he said.

For instance, most stores buy yellow and black crepe paper and black paper cats, masks and papier-maché pumpkins in October.

Coach Bill Parcells bought pumpkins and corn stalks for his porch and, like many of his players, watched pro football on television.

And a tiny minority, certainly aliens or communists, don't buy or steal pumpkins at all but sit grimly through the whole season without a single pumpkin in the house.

During the 2006 season, more than 30,000 people arrived to buy pumpkins and tour the farm, which only has space for a few hundred vehicles.

"Our children went there every year to buy pumpkins," said Dina Koski, the principal of Public School 26, the elementary school behind the farm.

To meet customer demand, he bought pumpkins from another farmer.