Don’t sit on the pumpkins, NJ farm warns photo-happy visitors

🎃 A New Jersey farm is pleading with pumpkin-pickers: don’t sit on the pumpkins!

🎃 Damaged pumpkins can’t be sold — and some end up as snacks for the pigs instead.

🎃 Von Thun’s Country Market says social media “pumpkin photo shoots” are costing them big.

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — Pumpkin picking at the farm. It’s an annual rite of passage.

You dress up the kids in their best autumn-themed outfits and pose them sitting on pumpkins, flashing those pearly whites to get the perfect shot with the incredible backdrop.

Seems harmless, right?

Not necessarily. One New Jersey farm has a warning for people who plan to visit its farm and go pumpkin picking.

Please, don’t sit on the pumpkins.

ALSO READ: October brings a harvest of festivals to New Jersey 

Farm warns against social media pumpkin photo trend

Von Thun’s Country Market, with two locations in South Brunswick (Middlesex County) and Washington Township (Warren County), took to social media to make this message clear for its visitors.

“You know all those posts from influencers encouraging you to sit on pumpkins for photos? Please don’t do that unless you plan to buy it and bring it home with you,” according to a post on the farm’s Facebook page.

Damaged pumpkins cost the farm more than just profit

Farm staff say they’ve seen plenty of pumpkin abuse this fall — kids and adults throwing them, playing soccer with them, sitting or stepping on them for cute pictures.

They’ve had to pick up not only small and medium pumpkins that were damaged by horseplay, but plenty of large pumpkins, as well.

But, once a pumpkin is cracked or the stem is broken off, the pumpkin is usually not sellable, and therefore, wasted.

The farm posted a photo of two wheelbarrows full of damaged pumpkins, which it said was a glimpse of what they pick up after every weekend.

From porch décor to pig snacks: what happens to the ruined pumpkins

Now, granted, the damaged pumpkins don’t go to waste, per se, since their farm animals will gladly eat them.

“But we grow pumpkins to sell them, not as piggy snacks,” the farm said.

Von Thun’s thanked everyone for their support so far this fall.

“We hope the pumpkins you brought home are sitting comfortably on your porch, ready for the fall season,” it said.

Report a correction | Contact our newsroom