🎃 Pumpkin Providing Partners
Grow a pumpkin this summer, and watch it fly at our fall 2027 Pumpkin Smash! Families, classrooms, farms, and neighbors grow the pumpkins the Berkshire Trebuchet Project launches.
Every trebuchet needs ammunition! We're inviting families, classrooms, farms, and neighbors to grow the pumpkins for our fall 2027 launches. The Berkshire Trebuchet Project will provide grow kits: seeds, soil, and planter box materials. Partners grow a pumpkin through the summer and bring it to the launch. It connects the physics of launching with the biology of growing, and gets people involved months before launch day.
🌱 How It Works
- Sign up as a Pumpkin Providing Partner (individual, family, class, or organization)
- Build your planter box at a spring library workshop, or pick up a grow kit
- Plant after the last frost (late May to early June)
- Log your pumpkin's growth over the summer
- Bring your pumpkin to the fall 2027 harvest weigh-in and launch
🔬 The Science
- Plant life cycles, pollination, and how fruit develops
- Soil, compost, and nutrients
- Measuring and graphing growth over time
- Mass matters: how pumpkin weight changes a launch's range and counterweight needs
📦 Grow Kit Contents
- Seeds for small pie or sugar pumpkins, sized to match our trebuchets
- Potting soil and compost
- Planter box materials or a large fabric grow bag
- Growth log and care guide
🤝 Potential Growing Partners
- Ioka Valley Farm and other small local farms, like those at the Williamstown Farmers Market - planting a few extra pumpkins for us and sharing growing expertise
- Armstrong Farm (Pownal, VT) - unsold pumpkins after Halloween for the Pumpkin Smash
- Green River Farm - neighboring farm and potential Pumpkin Smash venue
- Williamstown Rural Lands - land for a community pumpkin patch, plus Sheep Hill as a potential Pumpkin Smash venue
- Second Chance Composting - compost for grow kits, closing the loop from compost to pumpkin to launch and back to compost
- Milne Public Library (and other local libraries) - planter box build workshops in the makerspace, kit pickup, and tools from the Library of Things
- Local hardware and garden stores - donated soil and planter box supplies (tax-deductible if we partner with a nonprofit sponsor)
- Schools, community gardens, and 4-H groups - classroom and garden growing plots
♻️ Compost → Pumpkin → Launch → Compost: a full-circle lesson in physics, biology, and community.
📄 Growing guides & handouts
📅 Growing calendar (Northern Berkshires)
Heads up, pumpkins sprawl! The planter box is just where your pumpkin starts. Vines can run 10–15 feet or more across the lawn, so plan for open, sunny space. Details are in the growing guide.
🎃 Where the pumpkins go: the November Pumpkin Smash
After harvest, partners bring their pumpkins to a fall weigh-in. In November 2027 they fly! We plan to launch home-grown pumpkins, unsold farm pumpkins, and community jack-o'-lanterns with our trebuchet, ideally joining Second Chance Composting and Whitney's Farm's annual Pumpkin Smash. Afterward, everything is composted: compost → pumpkin → launch → compost.
We'll weigh the pumpkins and report the pounds kept out of the landfill. See Programs & Events on the main page for more.
🙋 Want to be a Pumpkin Providing Partner?
Families, classrooms, farms, and organizations are all welcome. Just email info@berkshiretrebuchet.org with your name, and whether you'd like a grow kit or have your own spot to plant. Farms, see the farm handout.