ROYAL CITY — Actually, Nicole and Dan Mickle just wanted to decorate the porch of their home near Royal City for Halloween.

They grow mint as part of the family business, Jet Farms. But they also have what Nicole Mickle called a “our own little hobby farm,” with some goats and chickens.

“And some cats,” said their son Zachary.

“And one dog,” said his brother Colton.

So they grew a few pumpkins, classic jack-o’-lanterns and some ornamental gourds. “We’ve been growing them for, maybe, 10 years,” Dan Mickle said.

And people started asking where they got the pumpkins they used on their porch display. So they decided to expand the pumpkin patch, plant a tenth of an acre or so, and sell the excess.

That was so successful they decided to expand again, and what had been one-tenth of an acre next to the house was expanded to two acres on a new site.

Colton explained it. “We growed a lot,” he said. “So we had to ... ”

“Start selling,” Zachary said.

“Go big or go home, right?” Nicole Mickle said.

The pumpkin patch opened for the season Saturday and will be open through the end of October.

“We’ve been working on it a lot,” Colton said.

“We started it five months ago,” Zachary said.

“About. It was a long time,” Colton said.

Dan Mickle said it was conceived as a fairly easy project, something that wouldn’t take a lot of time. But of course it didn’t turn out that way. “It took about three or four times as long (as anticipated),” Dan said.

They did a little research into popular varieties of ornamental pumpkins, but mostly just bought seeds and planted them, Dan Mickle said. There are plenty of the classic orange jack-o’-lanterns, but there are also pink pumpkins, blue pumpkins, white and green pumpkins, and green striped pumpkins, just for starters. “Just about every color that we could get,” Nicole Mickle said.

“At least 30 different kinds, and probably more. You start to lose track after a while,” Dan Mickle said.

“We have plenty of pumpkins out here,” Dan said.

Like all plants, growing pumpkins has its own challenges.

“Everything has its different quirks,” Dan Mickle said.

Pumpkins and ornamental squashes are susceptible to the squash bug.

“That can wreak havoc pretty quick,” Dan said.

In addition, “pumpkins don’t like heat,” he said. But they’re not alone there. “Not a whole lot of stuff likes to grow in 100 degrees,” Dan Mickle said.

The vines were supposed to be dying off by the end of September, but they’re not. “Something that we didn’t expect to be causing issues this late in the game,” Dan Mickle said.

The pumpkin patch was busy on a sunny, windy Saturday, with children and adults searching far and wide for just the right pumpkin. The pumpkin patch is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and from 3 to 6 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through the end of October.

The pumpkin patch is located off Road E Southwest. Directions are on the Mickle Farms social media.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.