In 2025, Patricia Granger started Pumpkin This! “a premium pumpkin concierge service that blends creativity, a strong process and seasonal specialty.” In other words, she’ll bring an assortment of pumpkins and gourds to your home that will be aesthetically arranged. Leaving the porch to please the neighborhood, and with Granger’s advice, the squirrels will leave the design alone.
I spoke with Granger about the genesis of Pumpkin This! Including her musical choices for arranging gourds, how her fine arts background informs her process and how she’s ready to do the heavy lifting this fall.
Celebrate this year’s winners of the Betty Awards!
Tell us how you got involved in curating and designing pumpkins.
Fall is my favorite season, I love the creativity of it, and the colors; the pumpkins between the pink, orange, white and kind of the grayish blues. So last year after losing my job, I dabbled in pumpkins, and I did a little bit more than break even.
So what’s it like when fall begins?
The whole selling season condenses into about three months, right? Which is the other crazy thing that I love about it-that it’s quick, it’s fast, it’s condensed, you’ve got to be very process-driven to make this work. It’s a five week setup period, and that’s it.
So it’s an odd lovely niche thing and then the rest of the year, I’m free to do whatever else I want to do.
Tell me a little bit how your background in fine arts has kind of been utilized for this venture.
I have a degree from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and then later in life I went back and I got my MBA from Mt. Mary College.
There is a sculptural element to what I am doing, alongside balance and color coordination. I’m trying to align what is happening on the person’s porch to the design itself. Some people just stack pumpkins on a porch, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I am not doing that. I’m creating an arrangement that aligns with the architecture of your home. I’m not just dropping off pumpkins, throwing them on your porch and walking away.
It’s clear that there’s an element of care that isn’t normally seen.
We even curate the color palette. So if somebody has a house that’s dark blue, I’ll bring in more oranges, and then if the house is a lighter color, maybe white will become more predominant.
Are there any pumpkins in your experience that are more impervious to squirrel attacks?
Before I set them on the porch, they all get wiped down and sprayed with water and vinegar before I leave. I just recommend that you spray them with vinegar every so often, and that seems to do trick.
Right. Well, is there anything else that has surprised you throughout this process?
Pumpkins are heavy. They’re way heavier than what I thought.
Do you have any interest in Smashing Pumpkins, the band? Do you ever just crank up “Siamese Dream?”
I never really got into them. I was more into New Order or The Cure. Sometimes I’ll even listen to classical or opera. It just depends on what kind of a mood I’m in. I do listen to Madonna or Florence and The Machine when making arrangements.
Anything else you think people should know?
So the big thing about the arrangement is that it’s a lot of heavy lifting. I hope that I’m doing someone a service who might not have the time or ability to decorate. I enjoy that work, let me do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to. You can just come home and enjoy it.
However, if you’re a DIY person and want to design it yourself, you can. I’ll just bring a delivery to your porch. You’ll pick them all and you can design them however you want. You can also add the pumpkin packages that come with a set design.
Then the other service I offer is removal at the end of the season. I’ll come and take them away to our local yard waste facilities where they get composted.
