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'Pumpkin tree' marks the season in Central Saanich

With the help of a bucket truck, about 200 pie pumpkins were hung from a tree at the top of Island View Road at the entrance to Michell’s Farm
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Pumpkin tree at Michell’s Farm beside Island View Road. DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

Michell’s Farm got into the Halloween spirit this year with its first pumpkin tree.

Boyd Fuerst, a family friend, used a bucket truck to hang about 200 pie pumpkins — the miniature kind — from the crown of the tree at the top of Island View Road at the entrance to the Michell family homestead.

The family has received a lot of compliments and social-media attention for the pumpkin tree, said Terry Michell, although after a couple of weeks, not all of the pumpkins remain.

Some have been lost to wind and hungry birds that have been picking away at them.

Michell’s Farm, meanwhile, celebrated a bumper crop of pumpkins this fall, with about 800,000 pounds harvested on about 25 acres of land.

Some were sold through U-pick, but the bulk went to Island grocers such as Thrifty Foods, Country Grocer, Fairway Market and Red Barn Markets.

Several pallets of the pumpkins also made it as far as Sobeys’ Calgary stores.