(MCCLENNAN COUNTY) — Western Belle Farm in McClennan County is welcoming families this fall season after a devastating summer nearly derailed its annual harvest festivities.
The extreme heat this summer killed the farm's entire pumpkin crop, forcing the farm to ship pumpkins in from other Texas farms. The corn maze also took a hit, growing shorter than usual after weeks without rain.
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"It will feel like fall here. We have pumpkins. And then as far as our maze goes, we did end up getting, after 70 days, a quarter inch of rain, and it definitely helped it grow a little bit more, it is still a little bit shorter right now," Lexi Olson, who has worked at Western Belle Farm since it opened, said.
To keep the Texas-grown spirit alive, the farm sourced pumpkins from a supplier called Pumpkin Pile and other local Texas vendors.
"It's a place called Pumpkin Pile. We have all our pumpkins brought in. We also do have a couple of other, like, Texas more local vendors that we get them in from. It is very important for us to have that Texas grown aspect of it, just because, obviously, we weren't able to provide that out of our fields this year," Olson said.
Olson said this was the hottest summer the farm has experienced, and the extent of the heat caught them off guard. The farm was forced to make difficult choices about where to direct irrigation water.
"Unfortunately, some of the crops like the pumpkins, we also try to flower field. We did have to cut irrigation to that just so that we could have the maze. And then we do plant strawberries in October, and so we knew that we were gonna have to be irrigating those. So it was just making a lot of hard decisions about what, unfortunately, had to be prioritized at that time," Olson said.
Despite the challenges, Olson said seeing families return to the farm on opening day made the difficult season worthwhile.
"Just to see the customers that come back season after season, to see the joy that it puts on people's faces, like, it makes all of those hard days and the days of questioning, like, 'oh, wow, what are we doing here?' Like, it makes it so worth it," Olson said.
Western Belle Farm will be open through November with pumpkins and fall activities available for families.
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