Pumpkinfest returns to Didier Farms Sept. 23
Didier Farms' Pumpkinfest will open Saturday, Sept. 23, and run through Halloween, Tuesday, Oct. 31. Hours for Pumpkinfest and for the Farmstand are daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. No pets allowed.
Activities at the farm, 16678 W. Aptakisic Road in Lincolnshire, include tractor-drawn hayrides, a corn maze, pony rides, camel rides, animal Land, an expanded Pumpkin Playland, kids rides, the Buffalo Creek Mining Co., daily pig races and other activities.
Foods include homemade fudge and Didier's famous apple cider doughnuts and pies baked fresh daily. Grandma D's Chocolate Shoppe serves ice cream.
There's also an educational barn and an antique tractor display, and guests can feed the birds in the Parakeet Exhibit or ride a camel.
New this year is the Mobile Room Escape, a 32-foot, climate-controlled trailer built just for adventure. Groups have 15 minutes to solve riddles, puzzles, clues, obstacles and challenges in order to free themselves from a locked room.
The room will be in service on the weekends of Oct. 1-2, 8-9, 22-23 and 29-30.
Another feature this year is the Silly String Asylum, a room where visitors will play against each other with cans of Silly String. It's very similar to a paintball experience, and it's available only on weekends.
Pig races are at 11 a.m., 2 and 4 p.m. Saturday through Monday and 11 a.m. Tuesday through Friday.
Didier Farms has been a family owned and operated farm since 1912 when it was purchased by John Link. He ran one of eight dairy farms along a 2-mile stretch of Aptakisic Road, shipping his milk to Chicago by train. He also raised pigs, chickens and few small vegetables. Later, Link quit the dairy business and raised pure-breed "Spotted Poland China" hogs for a living.
In 1948, his daughter, Mary Sue, married Herb Didier. Herb and Mary Sue began raising sweet corn and cabbage, along with their children. Their cabbage and sweet corn were shipped all over the country through the South Water Market in Chicago.
In the 1960s, several of the Didier children set up folding tables in the front yard and sold produce. Herb Didier sold to local stands as well as shipping into the city. By the early 1980s, the family's produce sales had moved to the front half of the old dairy barn.
Two sons, Rick and Dave, stayed on the farm to join their dad. In 1993, Herb Didier died and a third son, John, joined the business.
Today, three brothers and their wives run the farm and greenhouse. The greenhouse opens in the spring with many annuals, perennials, gardening accessories and more than 10,000 hanging baskets. The farmstand opens in July featuring locally grown vegetables as well as summer fruits and sweet corn.
For more information, go to www.didierfarms.com.