Apr 7, 2007

Pumpkin Man Transformation Didn’t Happen Overnight

“I’m a great believer that you will advertise or the bankruptcy court will advertise for you,” Gene Rhodes said. “You have to be in front of the people continuously or they’re going to forget about you.”

Gene the Pumpkin Man believes in playing the part.

He drives an orange Cadillac. He wears orange clothes. Everything in his house is orange or an earth tone. On the front of his barn is a large orange sign with a picture of a pumpkin. “Gene the Pumpkin Man” is written in large, black letters. It’s clearly visible from M-43, a busy highway near Kalamazoo, Mich.

“I’m a great believer that you will advertise or the bankruptcy court will advertise for you,” he said. “You have to be in front of the people continuously or they’re going to forget about you.”

It seems to be working. Thousands of people visit the farm every fall, and buy roughly 200 tons of pumpkins per year, he said.

Gene Rhodes, 69, wasn’t always known as the Pumpkin Man. His evolution into his alter ego was a slow process.

He first grew pumpkins in 1957, when he was 21. It started out as a kind of hobby. He grew maybe 1/4 of an acre, and gave most of the pumpkins away. Forty-eight years later, he grows 50 acres of pumpkins and winter squash, along with hay, rye, Indian corn and gourds, he said.

“I wanted to do something for a cash crop, and pumpkins seemed like the right thing to do,” he said. “I grew up eating squash and pumpkin pie, and I always liked the looks of them. It’s just one of those quirks of life.”

Pumpkin Man’s emergence was slow but deliberate. The longer Rhodes grew pumpkins, the more people started recognizing him. They couldn’t always remember his name, so they ended up calling him “Pumpkin Man.”

“It started about 30 years ago, and stuck,” he said. “Far more people call me Pumpkin Man than Gene Rhodes.”

When it came time to paint the farm, Rhodes figured orange was as good a color as any. It turned out to be great advertising. People will stop in the middle of winter to take pictures of the barn from the highway, then come back in the fall to see what all the orange excitement is about. Being next to a major highway is an advantage, he said.

“I’m a landmark,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s alright with me. I can tolerate that.”

Rhodes is quick to point out he didn’t get where he is on his own. His farm has a long heritage, which he takes pride in. Neither he nor his father lived anywhere else. He’s a member of the Michigan Centennial Farm Association.

His grandfather bought the farm in 1885. Both his grandfather and father practiced general farming, but Gene now specializes in pumpkins and gourds.

“This didn’t just happen because I came along,” he said. “There’s a reason for it. Love of the land and heritage were instilled in me. You have to remember the past to build on the future.”

All his pumpkins are sold in the farm’s front yard, in clear view of the road. There are usually a dozen varieties. They range from the size of a doughnut to the 150-pound behemoths, he said.

“Everything is retail,” he said. “We don’t deliver nothin’ nowhere.

“We sell what we grow, for the most part. Once in a while there’s a crop failure, and we’ll buy a ton or so from a neighbor.”

The squash is put out for sale around mid-September. Pumpkins are put out Oct. 1, no earlier.

“If you do it before that, you’re asking for trouble in a lot of ways,” Rhodes said. “It’s like selling a Christmas tree for Labor Day.”

Pumpkins sold too early can rot before Halloween rolls around, he said.

About this time of year, Rhodes is usually repairing machinery, ordering seeds, and getting his fields ready for the June planting. Until recently, he’s been doing most of the work alone, but a friend and neighbor named Mark Scholten has been helping him lately.

Scholten, 18, will eventually take over the farm. He’s graduating from high school in June, Rhodes said.

“He wants to farm, and wants to grow pumpkins,” Rhodes said. “I’ll teach him how to do it.”

Rhodes has a wife, Carol, three grown children and some grandchildren.

One thing he doesn’t have time for is entertainment. There aren’t any family activities on his farm, beyond the occasional tour.

“I could go big, but that all takes time and money and labor,” he said. “I don’t have that. One man can do just so much work in so many hours.”

As for the loud orange shirts?

“I can do it and get away with it, so I do it,” he said. “I always liked the color orange.”