Photo: Chaiel Shaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
LEXINGTON, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — At Wilson Farm in Lexington, the “world famous” pumpkin wall is an icon of New England's fall season.
Jeff Callahan, the outside manager, has been building up the wall since the beginning, when the owner of the farm came to him with the idea in the late 2000s. After nearly 20 years, the pumpkin wall now stands at around 25 feet with 200 boxes filled with over 42 varieties of gourd. What's more impressive is Callahan knows the names of every single one of them.
From a ghost gourd to a goblin squash, the names sound like something out of a story book. Callahan reassures that these re real names, not made up.
He told WBZ NewsRadio that he assembles the wall by hand every year, and it takes all day to complete. The real challenge, however, is designating which pumpkin to which box. “All we [have to] do is make sure no similar color touches," he said.
Photo: Chaiel Shaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
The majority of the pumpkin on display are locally produced. “We grow 90 percent of them and ten percent comes from auctions," he added. "Some of the weird ones we don’t grow."
The first wall Callahan built was just a couple boxes with one pumpkin placed in the very top box. Now, the massive gourd display garners lots of social media attention, especially around the fall season.
“If you come here on Saturday and Sunday, there [are] tripods set up over here,” he explains as people line up to get a picture up-close-and-personal in front of the wall.
At the end of the season, most of the squash will go into compost and back into the field. Boxes are saved for next year's reassembling, and the barn is repainted back to its former glory.
The Wilson Farm's pumpkin wall is up now until Thanksgiving.
WBZ NewsRadio's Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.
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