Spooktacular Pumpkins at the New York Botanical Gardens

This past weekend was pumpkins-galore for our family starting with a trip to the New York Botanical Gardens.  The main attraction was watching Ray Villafane (winner of several Food Network Challenges) carve 2 of the world's largest pumpkins over 2 days.  During our visit, we stopped in periodically to check on the progress.

When we first arrived at 10:15 a.m we saw the first zombie head and arm emerging from the pumpkin.

 @11:15 Villafane is carving a big chunk of pumpkin.

@12:15 the zombie's body is added and there are further decorative details to the zombie.

@1:15  Villafane is carving the second zombie head and a huge gaping hole appears where the second zombie will be crawling out.

You can see the completed pumpkin masterpiece here.

The other pumpkin attraction we visited was the Haunted Pumpkin Garden in the Everett Children's Adventure Garden where pumpkins were used to make larger-than-life flowers, insects, and looming scarecrow displays.

In the kids discovery center my son also participated in several educational activities including dissecting an owl pellet (you can actually see the bones of small animals that the owl ate!), planting a buckwheat plant to take home, looking at leaves and pinecones under a microscope, and counting the different colored leaves on the trees (doing what he called his "homework." Hopefully his enthusiasm for homework remains when he goes to school!).

Besides pumpkins, the Botanical Garden also has numerous other displays.  The current one in the conservatory features the fall flowers of Japan.  There are some beautiful and serene compositions.