Farmer Schwartz Looking for a “Pasture”

These pumpkin plants need to go in the ground this week. Is your lot available.

Palisades resident Bruce Schwartz, who annually gives pumpkin plants to residents who are willing to grow them in their yard, has a problem. Many of those people had their homes destroyed in the Palisades Fire.

He has 30 mature seedlings that need to be planted this week. Schwartz wonders if there is a Palisades resident, who is not planning to start rebuilding before September. He will take that yard, lovingly improve the soil, plant the pumpkins and then water the plants during the summer.

Schwartz, who was Citizen of the Year in 2017 for his beautification efforts elsewhere in the Palisades (and also for the placement of high-fire-severity signs that prohibited camping in the brush), wants to ensure that the tradition of giving pumpkins to the YMCA pumpkin patch will continue this fall.

One year, he planted pumpkins on a median strip near the 76 Station at Sunset and PCH, securing water for the plants from owner Robert Munakash and manager Carlos Rodriguez. The harvested pumpkins (many them weighing more than 100 pounds) were donated to the YMCA.

Last year he took fallow ground by Theatre Palisades and grew a lovely crop.

If someone doesn’t have plans for their lot before September and would be agreeable to a pumpkin patch, contact Schwartz: bruceschwartz80@gmail.com.

There is an immediacy the plants need to go into the ground this week.