Drive around pretty much any part of rural Michigan this time of year and you’ll see no end of pumpkins, winter squashes and decorative gourds for sale by the roadside. As an integral component of autumn in Michigan, pumpkin patches are as fall as fall gets.
Somewhat less commonplace is running across a roadside pumpkin enterprise run by a third-grader, but on the north side of M-81 just east of Reese, that’s exactly what you’ll find: Zach’s Pumpkins.
He comes by it honestly: Eight-year-old Zach Ortner is only the newest Ortner to master entrepreneurial agriculture in western Tuscola County.
Uncle Steve Ortner has been an active Farm Bureau member for decades, and won MFB’s Young Farmer Employee Award in 2005.
And Zach’s grandparents — Myron and the late Nancy Ortner — are Tuscola County Farm Bureau royalty of the highest order. Nancy set the gold standard for volunteerism in every available program and activity, while Myron’s more formal involvement ran the gamut: policy development, community action groups, candidate evaluation, membership recruitment, and service on the board, including county president.
So when Zach first took an interest in pumpkins — three years ago, at age five — all the pieces were in place and the stage set for his success.
“I started with two or three acres,” he said, but expansion isn’t in his plans. “I’m good where I’m at for now.”
It’s been an all-family effort getting Zach up to speed, with mom Sarah taking the lead with technical guidance from Grandpa Myron and Uncle Steve.
Zach reports 2023 was a good year overall for most of his squashes and gourds, although Grandpa Myron helped him keep some pesky fungus issues in check that threatened to cut into his yields.
Varieties include Hubbard, cashew and spaghetti squash, plus most popular varieties of pumpkins: white, green, warty and the standard orange kind in all sizes.
The quality and consistency of his edible varieties — particularly the big Hubbard squashes — have landed him his first commercial customer, a busy little outfit over in Frankenmuth called Bavarian Inn.
Maybe you’ve heard of it…
