(you will notice the pumpkins are not as bright orange, not as jack-lantern round as American halloween pumpkins. There are a few for sale here in the grocery stores at 10 times the price of these rustic looking, gourd/ pear shaped things AND keep in mind, I hand picked all of these :))
We thought it would be fun, a chance to share the jack-o-lantern tradition with all of our non-American neighbors, an opportunity for the kids to earn a little money and buy/save/give a little here and there, and just a chance to bring a little October fun to our neighborhood.
I went to a large fruit and vegetable market one morning with Canyon and we picked out pumpkins and negotiated a wholesale price. They said NO to delivering such a "small" amount (approx 100 pumpkins) and assured me they could fit all in the back of my car. They were right.
I had to laugh as I drove away with over 250kgs of pumpkins surrounding my little Canyon in his carseat (with all of the other seats laying flat.)!
Once home we washed and sorted them.
Then we put up a few signs and told our friends
and set up shop one Saturday morning and sold the remainder out of the tailgate of our car the following Monday afternoon.
Asher had a calculator and collected the money (we preassigned prices roughly based upon size- small med, large). Ivy had a cauldron full of tea lights and little Halloween bags that she filled with a candle per pumpkin.
If we do it again next year:
- I'll find a scale and let Asher improve his math/calculator skills and charge based upon weight.
- We'll have printed tutorial/ how to pages for carving a jack-o-lantern. (I answered LOTS of questions and explained as best I could)
- We'll have printed recipes on hand for pumpkin pie, soup, cookies etc. (I've emailed and promised to email recipes to multiple people as well)
- maybe we'll even pre-order and sell a lot more :)
we just planted some seeds in our garden- who knows, maybe we'll have a homegrown pumpkin sale again in March!!!
Oh my goodness this is just too darling! So I have to know, did you make a profit? That just sounded like so much fun!
ReplyDeleteAmy so funny!
ReplyDeleteyes- we did make a profit. About 100 U.S. dollars. Not necessarily good money considering the time and effort, but it served it's purpose and 100 dollars is pretty great money for a 5 year old!
What a fun idea!
ReplyDeleteSO COOL! I love your ideas for next year and hope you decide to spread the Halloween cheer again. Maybe next year your order will be big enough to be delivered! :) I have an amazing pumpkin sheet cake and pumpkin cake recipe that I'll have to send you. Mmmmm....
ReplyDeleteAlso, you should try and find an online resource for those special pumpkin carving knives and next time you're in the US, take a suitcase home and sale them with your pumpkins. Seriously, those stupid little knives work amazing pumpkin magic.