Joan Wolf cuts pumpkins from the vines at the Greear Farm field that is leased by Chuck King and Dan Brann in Riner.

Most people think you just put a couple of seeds in the ground and get pumpkins.

"It's not that simple. There's always something to worry about," said Dan Brann, a farmer, who is retired from the Virginia Cooperative Extension. Brann relies on special fungicides and a well-managed irrigation system.

Brann started with a home garden, a lawn mower and trailer. He and his young daughters sat at the end of their Christiansburg driveway and sold the pumpkins. One year a man from North Carolina bought a pickup load and said, "If you can grow pumpkins of this quality, I'll buy a trailer load." This was the first of many trailer loads to follow.

Brann and Chuck King have partnered for 10 years growing pumpkins for the wholesale market on 25 acres. They will produce about 40,000 pumpkins that they sell primarily to Walmart stores in the area. Brann appreciates their willingness to support local growers.

Joan Wolf, who works at the farm, cuts each pumpkin from the vine, one at a time. She started cutting pumpkins when her son was young and she wanted to teach him how to work. He grew up and left home, and she continued.

"Joan has a pattern about cutting. She's figured out the lay of the land, and the direction of the sun. It's a system; a method," King said. "We have to slow her down so we can catch up."

By Sept. 17, the first loading day, Wolf had cut between 5,000 and 10,000 pumpkins in less than a week. A makeshift pumpkin brigade of 15 Virginia Tech agriculture fraternity brothers tossed the 10- to 15-pound pumpkins like basketballs from the field to the tractor-trailers. It's a workout. The agriculture fraternity house earns a contribution by working 15 hours each year. They arrive midafternoon and work until the orders are filled, often as the sun is setting. "Every year one gets rotten and someone sticks their hand through it and it's not pleasant," said Spencer Arey, 19.