The Perfectly Imperfect, Growing Memories on Gordon Farms
“It’s not just growing pumpkins, we’re building memories.”
When Todd Gordon was 11 years old, he had an idea to grow pumpkins on his family’s farm, and then see if they would sell along his busy rural street.
He planted several rows of seeds, and sure enough, about 25 pumpkins appeared in the fall. Todd and his best friend, Arne Svendsen, filled a couple of red wagons with their harvest, put the pumpkins out in front of his house with a “For Sale” sign, then waited for cars to stop – which they did.
The boys waited in the house and ran out to each car to collect the proceeds of their pumpkin sales. The next year, they planted a few more rows, and a few more the year after that.
“It just kind of snowballed,” Gordon said with a chuckle. He soon had wholesale accounts at local grocery stores, which grew into wholesale accounts around the region.
In the meantime, Arne found his own career, and Todd’s younger brother Eddie took interest in the farm. Todd and Eddie are about as opposites as brothers can be, which helps explain why Gordon Skagit Farms has become so successful.
Todd, now 61, has the stature of a man used to running heavy equipment and hard manual labor. His hands are thick, rough and dirty. He likes to stick to the back part of the farm – the fields, the tractors, and the warehouses. He is a classic Skagit County good old boy. In other words, Todd grows the pumpkins.
Eddie, 54, is likely the most stylish farmer in Skagit County. With a degree in Interior Design, he has a keen eye for aesthetic trends, and a talent for creating a magical world of fall displays with the farm’s 101 varieties of pumpkins and gourds. Eddie spends the winter researching the latest varieties of unique pumpkins, planning the layout and design of the Gordon’s stunning farm retail site. “Good old boys don’t sell pumpkins,” Eddie said with a twinkle in his eye.
Eddie still lives on the family farm in the original 1933 farmhouse, and Todd lives next door. They farm 350 acres, most of which is pumpkins, but also hay, sweet corn, seed crops and apples.
Gordon Skagit Farms has a large regional following, including exclusive, high-end vendors in Seattle, like Ravenna Gardens in University Village and Swansons Nursery in Ballard, which ordered 35,000 pounds of pumpkins from the brothers this year. Recently, the farm has learned to use social media to increase its reach. They’ve even caught the attention of a certain internationally known home and garden magazine (the name of which is secret until it publishes), for which Eddie had set aside the most perfect pumpkins of the season to be featured in a photo shoot.
But it’s not the “perfect” one might expect.
“It’s the wow factor,” he said. He pulled out an Indian Doll Pumpkin – a beautiful bright orange pumpkin with yellow spots on it. Ironically, it’s the mutations that make these pumpkins spectacular.
“It’s a perfect wheel of cheese, good ribbing, this sunken feature, the speckling on it,” he said. “The symmetry of it. It’s not perfectly symmetrical, though, which you don’t want either.”
He also displayed a vivid orange Breaking Dawn French Pumpkin with large bulbous marbling on it, and a light green and pale orange Blue Doll pumpkin with unique color splotches.
Eddie is always on the hunt for these variations that make a perfectly imperfect specimen. He then incorporates them into his fall wonderland in a series of farm outbuildings.
One particularly stunning display nestled in a small shed was a fall “cave” with a variety of dried flowers hung from the ceiling like stalactites intertwined with twinkly lights. Straw bales, baskets of flowers and stacked pumpkins of every imaginable color created a dramatic picture-perfect fall moment, centered around one of Eddie’s own pumpkin paintings.
“It’s an Instagram world,” he said as he hung bundles of Apex, a long brown shrub, from the ceiling. In another barn, dried flowers were hung to create life-sized ball gowns – in fall colors, naturally.
Eddie said that he tries to stay on the cutting edge of the trends. Dried flowers were out of fashion, but he’s trying to use them in a new way to make them hip again. He also walks a fine line between things being picture perfect, and getting people to buy their product. It seems to be working.
Vanessa Kimling is the plant buyer at Ravenna Gardens, an impeccably curated boutique home and garden store in Seattle’s University Village. Kimling discovered the farm three years ago, and drives a box truck to Skagit County every year to pick up the fall bounty of pumpkins and gourds at Gordon Farms.
“It’s literally my favorite day of the year,” Kimling said. “The variety is unparalleled.”
Kimling said she was stunned when she first stepped on to the farm.
“I couldn’t believe how creative and thoughtful the presentation was – the different rooms and barns and displays outside, along with Eddie’s art. It’s captivating,” she said. “What the two brothers offer there, it speaks to your soul. The way it’s presented. It’s simple, but beautiful – wholesome and good, like your childhood. And exciting. It’s the start of a new season. You’re ready for fall.”
She brings some of that fall feeling down to Seattle with her delivery.
“When we start unloading the truck, it draws so much attention,” she laughed. “The pictures start happening immediately. People literally squeal. There is something about pumpkins in a big mass like that in all different colors and sizes that’s just delightful.”
It’s that delight that keeps the Gordon brothers farming.
“It’s the people,” Todd Gordon said.
Just like his original pumpkin patch, the clientele continues to grow. Year after year, he not only sees the same families return, but new ones discover the farm. Todd’s early customers returned with their children, and now visit with their grandchildren to enjoy this quintessential fall experience.
“It’s not just growing pumpkins,” he said. “We’re building memories.”
Story and photos by Tahlia Honea: info@skagitonians.org