A Patchwork Orange : Santa Paula: With Halloween just around the corner, families come from all over to pick their own pumpkins at Faulkner Farm.

Seemingly unaware of the crowds milling around him, Vito Vitale stood in the Faulkner Farm pumpkin patch near Santa Paula Sunday with his camcorder trained steadily on the curly-headed 22-month-old boy frolicking amid the orange gourds.

“This is his first Halloween,” Vitale said, commenting on his son Giancarlo’s becoming aware of the special day for the first time.

To mark the occasion, Vitale and his wife, Annette, took their son and two young nieces on an hourlong trip from Sylmar to the Faulkner Farm 18th annual Fall Harvest Festival.

“We could’ve bought a pumpkin at Ralph’s,” Vitale said. But “it’s all the extras” at the festival that make it worth the trip.

In addition to picking their Halloween pumpkin, the family planned to go on a hayride, which cost $2 per person, and visit the small zoo of farm animals next to the Faulkner Farm’s bright red barn.

Visitors could also buy jams, pies and other goods, take a ride in a Model T flatbed truck and enjoy the sounds of the Old Country Trio, which, despite its name, has four members.

Parent groups from four local elementary schools ran booths where they sold refreshments or let children hand-paint the gourds to raise funds for student activities.

The festival, one of many pick-your-own-pumpkin events in Ventura County this month, ended Sunday after running every weekend in October.

Faulkner Farm owner Linda Ayers estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 people came to the celebration this year, including about 3,000 to 4,000 Sunday.

For many visitors, the colorful pumpkins and other squash displayed Sunday against the backdrop of the Ayers’ red barn, their restored Victorian farmhouse and the clear blue sky provided the perfect photo opportunity.

Cameras and camcorders appeared to be nearly as essential as the wheelbarrows that carted the pumpkins around.

Vitale said he was making a video for his son’s grandmother in New York, who rarely gets to see the boy.

“Isn’t this the great American way for the 1990s?” he asked about the home-video craze.

Valerie Begakis went so far as to encourage her oldest child to dress in fall colors to enhance her photos of the family outing.

Lisa Begakis, 11, wore an orange T-shirt and orange-and-white checked shorts.

Lisa and her three siblings came with their parents on the two-hour trek from their Pacific Palisades home to buy pumpkins and other gourds for decorating their home and the Los Angeles restaurant the family owns.

“It feels like we’re out on the farm,” Lisa said. “I like the horses the best,” she said, referring to the plodding Clydesdales that pull the hayride trucks.

Lisa’s father, Mike Begakis, said the family has been coming to the harvest festival for at least five years.

Many other families also said they have made it a tradition to get their Halloween pumpkins from the Ayers pumpkin patch.

Sharie Robbins and her husband, Quinn, come every year with their three children because Sharie came as a child with her godmother, who lives in Ventura.

“I just wanted to do that for my kids,” the 25-year-old mother said.

The children got so excited about the trip this year, she said, that they began asking about it three months ago.

In addition to the hayrides, the farm animals and the fun of being outdoors, the Robbins children got rides from their parents in one of the dozens of wheelbarrows available for carting the pumpkins to cars.

Lying side by side, the 4-year-old twins, Ashley and Anthony, fit into the wheelbarrow perfectly, their heads touching one end and their toes the other.

Not wanting to be left out, their 2-year-old sister, Justine, jumped in to join the fun.

Quinn Robbins said the children are getting heavier every year. Eventually they won’t all be able to fit into one wheelbarrow.

“You get three of them in there and three pumpkins, that’s heavy,” he said. “They’re going to push me next year.”