Children explore Halikko’s expanded pumpkin park

The popular pumpkin park in Halikko, Salo, has moved to larger grounds across the Halikonjoki River, with nearly 10,000 carved pumpkins and play areas inspired by children’s ideas, Yle reports.

Yle took eight children aged two to four from the Hirvikallio family daycare on a tour. The ghosts and other figures did not frighten them; they were more interested in the tractors, slide and sheep.

The park’s theme this year is food production, with the aim of showing where food comes from and what producing it takes. A black, tree-like figure caught the children’s attention, and they saw it as a hiisi.

Founded in 2018 by Esa Rannikko, an entrepreneur at Rannikon Puutarha, the park began as a gesture of support for another entrepreneur who had lost production facilities in a fire. More than 200,000 people visited last year.

The new grounds are about 200 metres from the former location, on the other side of the river. They are larger, and existing infrastructure makes maintenance easier, Rannikko said. He estimates that traffic has been less congested this year. Thousands of visitors have travelled by bus, a service that locals have also used.

Visitors can find old tractors and more than three hectares of straw-covered ground. Rannikko said the tractors prompt grandparents to share memories with children, while the straw reminds older visitors of Christmases when straw was spread across floors.

Some activities began with children’s own play. Rannikko said they started climbing and bouncing on a pile of straw bales left beside an intact bale, inspiring the park’s bale-jumping area and a slide built among the bales. Visitors, staff and Rannikko’s family continue to suggest ideas, some of which the park tries out in the same year.