Oct 22, 2012

Benton City farm produces plethora of pumpkins

Chances are the pumpkins you picked up at the grocery store to carve up for Halloween this year were grown somewhere in Benton County.

Robert Cox Farms of Benton City supplies all the pumpkins sold by Walmart, Albertsons, Yoke's Fresh Markets, Fred Meyer, Winco and a number of smaller grocery outlets in the Northwest, said Cody Elliot, son of the farm's owner Robert Cox.

The 250-acre farm, started more than 50 years ago by Robert Cox Sr., father of the current owner, began as a door-to-door venture. He would load up the pumpkins he grew into a wagon and visit neighbors trying to sell them.

Over the years it has grown into the largest producer of the bright, orange gourds in the Northwest and one of the largest on the West Coast, Elliott says.

The farm, located in rural Benton City, grows enough pumpkins to fill 6,000 of its 800-pound bins in a season.

Each pumpkin seed produces four to six pumpkins, ranging in weight from 1 to 50 pounds. The News Tribune

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