Jim Ogonowski is selling mini-bales of hay this fall. (DRACUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PHOTO)

Water can be a farmer’s best friend. Or his worst enemy.

After a couple of years that left pumpkin growers feeling more tricked than treated, this year has produced a treasure trove of pumpkins for farmers like Jim Ogonowski, whose Ogonowski Farm relies on them when fall rolls in.

Ogonowski Farm, 713 Broadway Road, is Dracut Economic Development’s Business of the Month for October 2024, just in time for the farm’s busiest season. While his farm primarily grows hay all year, autumn is when folks come to buy their pumpkins and other fall decorations.

Jim, for one, is relieved that this year was relatively dry compared to the last couple, when heavy rains virtually wiped out the pumpkin crop in New England, saying there is “no comparison” between this year and last.

“Given the choice, I’d rather have a drought than excessive rain,” Jim said. “You can always add water if you need it, but you can’t get rid of it.”

You can get pumpkins of all sizes, including these small gourds, at Ogonowski Farm. (DRACUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PHOTO)

Thanks to Mother Nature taking her hand off the spigot this year, Ogonowski Farm has a bumper crop of pumpkins and mums. And with Halloween looming, that can only be a good thing.

“This is the second most decorative time of year, next to Christmas,” Jim said. “This is madness. There’s no sleeping from September first to Halloween.

“Hay has no shelf life,” he added. “It doesn’t make any difference to hay if I sell it now or in January. But if a pumpkin is still here in January, it’s not going to get sold.”

You can one-stop shop for autumnal awesomeness at Ogonowski Farm. You can pick up your pumpkins (nine varieties), your mums (100-some-odd varieties), cornstalks (with the ears of corn still on “to make them a little more decorative on the lamppost”) and hay bales (new this year: mini-bales).

Jim’s great-grandmother, Rozalia, started Ogonowski Farm in 1904 as a dairy farm with her three sons, Alexander, Stanislaus and Jan.

Jan, Jim’s grandfather, worked as a dairy farmer.

“He milked four cows and was able to provide for his family,” he said. “I don’t know how they did it back then with no electricity. My dad was 21 when he went off to UMass Amherst, and it was the first time he ever saw a light switch in a building.”

Ogonowski Farm eventually phased out the dairy aspect to concentrate on hay and, of course, fall decorative items.

While farming has been in Jim’s blood from birth, he also holds a degree in engineering from UMass Lowell and worked 28 years for the New Hampshire Air National Guard in Portsmouth, a career and life path that he doesn’t regret for a second.

“I lived in Dracut and worked in Portsmouth – it didn’t get much better than that,” he said.

Jim likes to employ Dracut kids who don’t mind hard work. Over the summer, they learn the different aspects of a working farm.

“All of the kids that work for me are high-school or college kids, and for most of them it’s their first job,” he said. “They’re all in sports and they’re all go-getters. I teach them to be safe and I teach them to have fun. I teach them that work can be enjoyable, and if you don’t learn something every day, you’ve wasted a day on the farm. Every day is an opportunity to learn.”

You’ll find 140-some-odd varieties of mums at Ogonowski Farm. (DRACUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PHOTO)

Oh, and they better know their times tables.

“I also tell them when they’re turning in their hours, if you can’t do the math in your head, you won’t get paid,” he said with a laugh. “Kids do everything on their phones, but they have to do the math in their head.”

Jim is 65 and he knows he uses his phone more than he should. That engineering degree? He admits, all these years later, “Everything I learned about engineering at UMass Lowell, I can do on the phone now.”

But he still feels the kids he hires should be able to work out simple math – especially when it has to do with their pay — without resorting to their phones.

Jim Ogonowski and longtime employee Jordyn Bissonnette of Dracut sit at the spot at Ogonowski Farm that has become popular for family photos. Jordyn has worked seasonally for Ogonowski Farm for seven years. (DRACUT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PHOTO)

Jim also runs White Gate Farm at 315 Marsh Hill Road. White Gate Farm was his late brother John’s farm. It’s where the majority of the hay farming is done.

But the spotlight this month is on 713 Broadway Road. There, you can spend as much time as you want trying to pick out the perfect pumpkin. And with tons of the gourds available, a lot of them are bound to be perfect.

“I could write a book on people trying to select the perfect pumpkin,” Jim said.

And don’t forget the mums. They’re all perfect.

Come back next year, and you’re liable to see new varieties and colors of mums and pumpkins.

“The genetics of what they’ve done with plants, mums in particular – there are new variants all the time,” Jim said, pointing to the mums. “None of these will exist in 10 years. There’ll be new variants that last longer and are different shades of color. When I grew up, there were only the colors in the rainbow. Now there are mauve mums, bronze mums, you name it.”

And you can find them all and more at Ogonowski Farm, open every day of October from 9-5. For more information, visit www.ogonowskifarm.com.