Gull Meadow Farms will send off its 2026 fall season in dramatic fashion, hoisting its biggest pumpkins nearly 100 feet into the air before letting them smash down in the farm's main parking area. The free event, open to the public without admission, happens Sunday, Nov. 1, in Richland, Michigan, marking the final day of a fall run that began back on Sept. 5.
According to MLive, the pumpkin drop starts at 2 p.m. and requires no ticket to watch. The farm's own event page lays out exactly how the spectacle works: a crane does the heavy lifting before the pumpkins meet the pavement. “We will have a large crane here to drop the biggest pumpkins we can find from nearly 100 feet,” according to Gull Meadow Farms, which also notes the drop is free specifically because it takes place in the main lot rather than inside the ticketed grounds.
Visitors looking for more than falling gourds will find a candy cannon firing several pounds of candy over the crowd at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., per the same MLive report. Unlike the pumpkin drop, that activity sits inside the farm's paid attraction area, so reaching it requires daily admission or a season pass, the station notes.
A Full Day of Attractions Before the Lights Go Up
Beyond the headline stunts, the farm's finale will pack in more than 30 family attractions on its last day of the season, the report states, including wagon rides, a corn maze, doughnuts and apple cider. MLive describes the maze as spanning 6 acres.
Owner Justin Wendzel said the pumpkin drop and candy cannon were a way to celebrate the end of the season and bring families and friends together, per the station's report.
Next Up: Holiday Lights Return to the Greenhouses
Once the pumpkins stop falling, Gull Meadow Farms isn't done for the year. The farm will transition into its holiday season on Nov. 28, with tickets for the Christmas event going on sale Nov. 15, according to the outlet's reporting. The farm previously built out a holiday light display across six greenhouses strung with hundreds of thousands of lights, an earlier MLive feature on the farm's seasonal offerings noted.
This isn't the first time a crane and a giant pumpkin have drawn a crowd to the Richland farm. Back in 2020, Gull Meadow Farms dropped a 1,000-pound pumpkin from 100 feet up as part of a Halloween-day event, that same earlier report detailed, and the farm's full ticketed experience that year included a petting farm, apple chute slides and a pumpkin lane train. The farm also appears on a regional rundown of Southwest Michigan fall happenings for Nov. 1, as listed by WWMT.
Gull Meadow Farms is located at 8544 Gull Road in Richland, with the season's final hours set to combine free spectacle with ticketed fun before the property resets for its next chapter.
