Thread: Pumpkin patch, or cornfield?

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So my big centerpiece this year is my scarecrow (videos coming soon, I've got a lot more done with it in the last 2 weeks. Just ordered a ultrasonic range finder, so the 'crow knows how close people are to it and can react accordingly).

My original plan was to turn my 15' wide by 40' long front yard into a cornfield... plant rebar or PVC poles in the ground, and ziptie corn stalks to it... with a clearing around the scarecrow, and maybe a path if I had time for that. But I'm thinking that:

A) Its a LOT of work and will be expensive
and
B) it cuts down on visibility - both me seeing out, and people from the street seeing all the decorations

And was considering making it a pumpkin patch instead. That way the ambiance decoration could be lower, and likely be less work. Scarecrow still fits into a pumpkin patch, and may work better with the theme.

And theres not a LOT I can do with a cornfield... had thought of a way to make the corn rustle, but...while cool, theres not a lot there. With a pumkin patch I can actually have the scarecrow 'control' the lighting of the jack-o-lanterns in the patch using my controllers...

Anyone got a good reason to go corn instead of pumpkin?

And if I do decide to go pumpkin, which I'm leaning towards... any thoughts on good foliage? Good ways to simulate the vines and leaves? Leaves I can do artifical from Michael's... but what about the vines? Any thoughts?

Check out Vai's work:

Pumpkin Kreep: Finished!

Or the vine tutorial:

Creepy Hanging Vines



But, I'm confused why a corn would be more work/expensive? Well, if you were wanting it to look like an actual FIELD, hundreds of individual stalks, maybe...And, if you do a path, the corn and lack of visibility COULD actually help. Part of the alure of corn is you don't know what's in there.

But, it would be almost sinful to hide that scarecrow. I vote pumpkins. Especially with the space you have.

Yeah, I was thinking 1 stalk spaced every 1 foot... 15 feet by 40 feet is over 600 stalks. Buck each? Yeah, expensive. Even 1 stalk every 2 feet is $150 at a buck a stalk. And 1 every 2 feet is way too sparse.

And truth be told, I want the scarecrow to be seen.

Thanks for the links!

Originally Posted by lorddamax

Yeah, I was thinking 1 stalk spaced every 1 foot... 15 feet by 40 feet is over 600 stalks. Buck each? Yeah, expensive. Even 1 stalk every 2 feet is $150 at a buck a stalk. And 1 every 2 feet is way too sparse.

And truth be told, I want the scarecrow to be seen.

Thanks for the links!

Buck each?

You wouldn't need rebar, Bamboo would do the job at a few pennies. Around here, I get corn stalks for free...maybe I should start selling them.

Originally Posted by UnOrthodOx

Check out Vai's work:

Pumpkin Kreep: Finished!

HOLY CRAP!

I'm soooo gonna do THAT!!!

Thanks for posting that, UnOrthodOx!!



edit 2 add: Yeah... corn stalks should totally be free. Just make them short if you don't want to deal with the pumpkins. Corn that stands about 3 feet up gets the point across. Hell, it could be seed corn. *shrug*

Pumpkin patch is sooper cool too, though!

You could do both....

Originally Posted by notjustaphaze

You could do both....

Agree.

Short corn, mixed with pumpkins. That is something similar to what I'm doing. Kinda, maybe.

I admit to being a fan of both as well...

However, at 15' wide, I don't know about both. That's only about 5 paces wide. A hard lesson I learned a few years ago is less is more. Get too much stuff in there and it gets lost. Now, the 40' direction could probably use some at the ends, provided they do not obscure the view.

I vote pumpkin patch! GhostTown (my husband) is sitting right next to me and concurs. He wasn't thinking about the size of your area. And, that lesson of "less is more" is something we find quite difficult ourselves.

When I had mentioned both, I had envisioned a row of corn stalks behind the scare crow and to the side to give the illusion of a huge corn fieldin the rear. It would give the rustling sound with maybe some flashing eyes or something evil lurking in the corn field with an evil pumpkin patch in the front.