By Brian Conlin

Special to The Herald-Sun

Visiting Ganyard Hill Farm in Durham to pick a pumpkin is a fall tradition for many Triangle families.

So what happens to all those pumpkins between Halloween and Thanksgiving?

Milton Ganyard, 66, a former scientist in entomology and ecology, is a man on a mission to get the remaining pumpkins to children in the community who couldn't visit the farm. The stress of his job as a scientist led Ganyard to become a farmer 15 years ago. Five years ago he leased a plot from the Sherron family at 319 Sherron Road. He chose pumpkins because he remembered how much fun he had taking his kids to pick pumpkins, he says. He didn't have the same experiences as a child.

"I grew up in South Georgia," Ganyard says. "Pumpkins aren't really a significant thing down there. They can't even sell them in stores that much. It's the climate."

But the farm is more than pumpkins. Ganyard Hill Farm serves as a hands-on learning environment. Pick corn, shuck it, shell it and feed it to the goats. Learn that the soil where the pumpkins are planted undergoes preparations in May. After two months of readying the fields, Ganyard plants the first pumpkin seeds July 14.

Every feature of the farm is structured toward giving children a positive experience, Ganyard says. This includes the pumpkins they get when they come on a field trip. Schoolchildren pick pie pumpkins (smaller than carving pumpkins). The size allows children to carry them. The tough shells make them difficult to break if the pumpkin gets dropped.

Fewer children have come to the farm with their schools this season because of the economy. Ganyard hasn't checked this year's numbers to see what kind of effect the economy has had on his business, but he says it didn't hurt his sales last year. Still, the farm sold about 16,000 pumpkins for this Halloween. Ganyard developed a new, secret fertility formula, which in addition to the cool temperatures, may have helped to increase his yield.

At the beginning of November, more than 5,000 pumpkins remained at the farm, Ganyard says. Some of the leftovers that missed the picking hands of area schoolchildren and families get broken and fed to livestock.

"Yesterday, we fed [the cows] some because we had some get busted," Ganyard says. "Then they stood there and mooed at us the rest of the day because they wanted more."

But the livestock can eat only so much before the pumpkins spoil. Ganyard Hill Farm donates the rest to schoolchildren and to organizations putting on fundraisers.

As part of that effort, Ganyard made his last delivery Tuesday to Y.E. Smith Elementary, delighting students there with the possibility of picking a pumpkin to take home. It bookended with the delivery he made after Halloween to R.N. Harris and Burton elementary schools. Each received about 500 pumpkins. Ganyard says that seeing the pumpkins given to the children means as much to him and the teachers as it does to the children. Often teachers fight to hold back tears as they see their students receiving pumpkins for the first time, Ganyard says.

"The kids are just elated because they don't get that kind of thing," Ganyard says. "If it's not the most, it's one of the most gratifying things I do."