Pumpkin patches near L.A.

Sometimes the closest families in Southern California ever get to a real pumpkin patch is a stack at the front of a supermarket. But this is the month to celebrate the Great Pumpkin, and a couple of farms within an hour’s drive of L.A. invite kids and their families to get back to nature and find the perfect raw material for a Halloween jack-o’-lantern.

At the Lombardi Ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley, the season is a little sweeter considering that last October’s Buckweed fire took a big toll. “It was pretty devastating,” says Joann Lombardi, who owns the 140-acre ranch with her husband, Bob. The fire took out a number of buildings, including a canteen and ticket booth, and damaged vintage cars and an antique fire engine. But the family – including a son, three daughters and 10 grandchildren – has rebuilt.

During October, Lombardi estimates that they’ll sell hundreds of tons of pumpkins. The ranch grows all of them on a 13-acre area except for the 80- to 100-pound variety called Big Macs. “Those we import,” she says.

The ranch, which has been in the Lombardi family since the 1940s, doesn’t let families pick pumpkins off the vine, but city slickers can walk through a garden currently growing broccoli, tomatoes, corn and pumpkins to see firsthand how veggies are grown. For those who want to bring the farm back to the city, there’s a fresh produce stand near the front of the ranch, alongside Bouquet Canyon Road.

In addition to watching the veggies grow, Lombardi Ranch offers visitors musical entertainment on weekends, train and wagon rides, a petting zoo, face painting and a nearly three-acre corn stalk maze. There’s also Scarecrow Alley, which displays scarecrows from a recent contest amid rows of sunflowers, and a craft fair Saturday and Sunday that will give adults a break from the kid-centric activities.

For an even more authentic nature experience, Underwood Family Farms in Moorpark allows families to pick their own fruit, veggies and, of course, pumpkins. L.A. foodies may already be familiar with the name, because Underwood participates in certified farmers markets stretching from Pasadena to Pacific Palisades. The Underwood family has been farming in the Moorpark area since 1867, says Sara Jane Underwood, who owns the farm with her husband, Craig.

“We grow all our own pumpkins,” she says, adding that the selection can run from the tiny ones called Sugar Babies to Big Macs. “We’ve had some Great Atlantic Giants that weighed about 400 pounds.”

In addition to pumpkin picking, Underwood is hosting an ongoing harvest festival that includes a tractor-themed weekend Saturday and Sunday featuring antique models and a parade; a music-filled Bluegrass, Folk & Old Time weekend (Oct. 18-19); and a dedicated pumpkin weekend (Oct. 25-26), when the farm displays pumpkins, squash and nonedible gourds, and ways to decorate them.

Sara Jane Underwood wouldn’t even guesstimate how many pumpkins they’ll produce during October, but she noted, “We’ll have at least 20,000 schoolchildren come through here, and they each get a [free] pumpkin.”

At least they’re the Sugar Babies and not the Big Macs.

Lombardi Ranch, 29527 Bouquet Canyon Road, Saugus. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays and holidays until mid-November. Admission: Free, but fees for various activities. Pumpkin prices vary by size: $1-$60. (661) 296-8697, www.lombardiranch.com

Underwood Family Farms, 3370 Sunset Valley Road, Moorpark. 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. Admission: $3; $10 on Sat.-Sun. through Halloween. Pumpkin prices vary by size: $2-$50. (805) 529-3690, www.underwoodfamilyfarms.com