One of the cheapest ways into a Butler County pumpkin field at $5 a head for the hayride, but pumpkins are sold by weight rather than by the pumpkin, and that is where the day gets expensive.
Hayride $5.00 per person, children under 2 free with a paying adult. Pumpkins are sold by weight at $0.50 per pound, weighed at the barn. Honey, hay bales, corn stalks, Indian corn and gourds are also sold. These are the figures on the farm's own Pumpkin Festival page, which still describes the 2025 season.
Rough cost for a family of four: about $20.00 in admission alone at the posted starting rate, before pumpkins, food, parking or any add-on listed above. Most families end up well north of that once they are through the gate.
Cheeseman runs two entirely different fall businesses off one property, and which one you want determines everything about the trip. The daytime Pumpkin Festival is a mild, cheap, weekend affair: a hayride out to the patch, pumpkins you choose yourself, and a farm shop selling honey, gourds, Indian corn, cornstalks and hay bales. The other is Cheeseman Fright Farm, a haunted hayride plus a walk-through haunted corn maze that runs after dark on its own tickets. They share a name and a property but not a price, a schedule or an audience.
The pricing here is unusually plain for a small farm, and unusually easy to underestimate. The hayride is $5.00 a head, with under-2s free alongside a paying adult. For two adults and two school-age children that is $20 before anyone touches a pumpkin.
Then the pumpkins, sold by weight at $0.50 a pound and weighed at the barn rather than priced per pumpkin. That structure rewards small pumpkins and punishes exactly the big carving specimens children reach for first. A 12-pound pumpkin is $6. A 30-pounder is $15. Four of those, which is a plausible outcome once everyone has chosen for themselves, is $60 on top of the $20 gate, and nothing in the field tells you that until the scale does. Agree a size limit before you walk out there, or agree that one big one gets carved and the rest are small.
The decorative stock is the other quiet drain. Cornstalks, hay bales, Indian corn and honey are all sold on site, and a farm shop in October is designed for exactly the mood you are in when you leave the field.
11:00am to 5:00pm, Saturdays and Sundays, weather permitting. Six hours is a normal farm day, but a weekends-only schedule funnels everyone into about twelve hours a week, and the late-morning start means there is no beat-the-crowd early visit. The first hour after opening is the whole of your advantage. By late October a 5pm close is not far from dusk, and the light in the last hour is good for photographs if that matters to you.
“Weather permitting” is doing real work in that sentence. Western Pennsylvania Octobers are wet, and a wagon ride across a working field is the first thing cancelled when the ground goes. Check before driving out.
This is the detail worth resolving before you set off. Two addresses circulate for Cheeseman, Kennedy Road and Cheeseman Road, along with two phone numbers, and the second number is the Fright Farm line rather than the daytime event. For the Pumpkin Festival, use 147 Kennedy Road and 724-556-9171. If a mapping app sends you elsewhere, you are at the wrong end of the operation.
There are no confirmed 2026 dates. The farm’s Pumpkin Festival page still describes the 2025 season, which closed November 1, so both the $5 hayride and the 50-cents-a-pound rate should be read as last year’s published figures until the farm updates. The property also works as a wedding and events venue - Betsy’s Barn seats around 300 - which means parts of it can be closed for a private booking on any given weekend. None of that is a reason to avoid the farm. It is a reason to spend two minutes on the phone first, especially if you are driving more than half an hour.
Saturdays and Sundays, 11:00am to 5:00pm, weather permitting. The 11am start means there is no early-bird hour here, so the first sixty minutes after opening is the whole of your quiet-field advantage. The farm had not published 2026 opening or closing dates when we last checked - its Pumpkin Festival page still describes the 2025 season, which ended November 1.
Ninety minutes to two hours. This is a hayride, a field and a farm shop, not an all-day attraction park, and the six-hour operating window is more than generous for what is on offer.
Weekends only, six hours a day, in the Pittsburgh commuter belt. That concentrates demand into about twelve hours a week, and mid-October Saturdays are the peak of it. Sunday afternoon and the first hour of either day are the softer choices.
Not published. This is a working farm on a rural Butler County road, so assume grass or gravel and soft ground after autumn rain - October is the wet month here and hayride operations are the first thing weather cancels.
Not published. A hayride out to a field implies a wagon step up and uneven ground at the other end, which is worth a phone call if anyone in your group uses a wheelchair or is unsteady on rough footing.
You want a multi-attraction farm park with mazes, slides and food. The daytime event is deliberately simple. Skip it too if weekdays are your only free days, because the Pumpkin Festival is Saturday and Sunday only, and if you need certainty about prices, because the published figures are from the 2025 season.
Portersville sits in the rural north-west corner of the Pittsburgh region, and the drive is part of the value in mid-October when Butler County leaf colour peaks. Because the visit itself is short, pair it with lunch somewhere on the way rather than expecting to eat on the farm.
The hayride out to the pumpkin patch is $5.00 per person, with children under 2 free alongside a paying adult. Pumpkins are extra and are sold by weight at $0.50 per pound, weighed at the barn. These are the figures on the farm's own Pumpkin Festival page, which still describes the 2025 season.
Every Saturday and Sunday, 11:00am to 5:00pm, weather permitting. No 2026 start or end date has been published - the 2025 season closed on November 1, which is a reasonable expectation but not a confirmed 2026 date.
No. Cheeseman Fright Farm is a haunted hayride and walk-through haunted corn maze that runs after dark on separate tickets. It is a different audience, a different price and a different arrival time from the daytime Pumpkin Festival.
147 Kennedy Road, Portersville, PA 16051, with 724-556-9171 as the phone. A second Cheeseman address on Cheeseman Road and a second number circulate in directories - that number is the Fright Farm line.
2026 dates had not been published when we last checked. In past seasons it has run: Every Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. Check with the farm before driving out.
Admission starts at $5 per person. Hayride $5.00 per person, children under 2 free with a paying adult. Pumpkins are sold by weight at $0.50 per pound, weighed at the barn. Honey, hay bales, corn stalks, Indian corn and gourds are also sold. These are the figures on the farm's own Pumpkin Festival page, which still describes the 2025 season.
147 Kennedy Road, Portersville, PA 16051, in Butler County. It is one of 7 patches we track in Pittsburgh Region.
We track 7 patches in Pittsburgh Region, 1 of which are free to walk into. At $5 a head this one sits below the regional median of $18, undercutting 1 of the 2 paid patches we track here.
What sets it apart locally: it has u-pick fields, an after-dark attraction, which most Pittsburgh Region patches on our list do not.
One caveat worth repeating: this farm had not published its 2026 dates when we last checked, while 2 of the 7 patches we track in Pittsburgh Region had. Treat any date you see elsewhere as last year's until the farm confirms it.
There are 4 other patches we track in Butler County. All Pittsburgh Region patches →
Map pin is set to the town centre. Navigate to the street address above, not the pin.
cheesemanfarm.com · pumpkinpatchesandmore.org
Checked August 2026.