Every fall, Nebraskans of all ages come far and wide to spend an afternoon at Vala’s pumpkin patch. Though, behind the scenes of the pumpkin patch, there is a large staff working hard to keep it up and operating. 

“Vala’s has at least 900 staff members,” Tim Vala said, “part of our staff works year-round to maintain our food areas and buildings, but mostly, staff start working four to six weeks before we open.” 

A lot needs to be done before the park can open mid-September. All of the displays need to be brought out of storage, new staff needs to be trained, food needs to be ordered, and their livestock needs to be resettled into their pens in order for Vala’s first day open to run smoothly.  

“On the first of August is really when we start bringing extra people in and working longer hours to prepare.” Vala said. “By the first week of September things get a little more intense as we get closer to opening and start having smaller private parties come.” 

Once the park is open, it takes a lot of work to maintain and clean it. Every day after closing and before opening staff has to pick up trash, clean facilities, and make sure there are enough supplies at each food location. Maintenance workers arrive at six in  the morning to prepare for the crowds each day. Sometimes, even after 3 hours, the huge park is still not ready. 

“Even after we open they are still doing some of those kinds of things to prepare” Vala said. “We try to be 100 percent done by the time people get here but there sometimes we still have some trucks driving around restocking.”  

When October 31 comes, shutting down is much easier than opening up. Staff only takes two weeks to completely closedown the park. During these two weeks, staff has to weatherproof all of the barns and buildings for the upcoming winter. 

“We take all of the signs down, we take corn stalks down, return pumpkins that weren’t bought to the fields.” Vala said. “Mainly we winterize most of the buildings so the pipes don’t freeze, especially in the food locations.” 

Though, Vala’s is best known for their pumpkins and gourds, they also have a larger collection of animals, all of whom have to be sent off to be taken care of during the seasons that they’re closed. This collection includes, goats, donkeys, and bunnies. 

“We actually kind of contract out with our animals, they all belong to the same boarding house farm so after we close the owner comes and takes them back to take care of them.” Vala said. 

In April, planters begin to return to plant and take care of Vala’s variety of crops. Each day they have to come in to prune leaves, trim vines, and make sure that everything is growing.  

“We start planting pumpkins around June, corn’s planted in late April, and the beans go in mid-May.” Vala said. “So pumpkins really are the last thing we plant to keep them from being ripe too early to sell.”