Free admission, free parking and free play at a Henrico County patch where you pay only for what you carry out — the cheapest serious pumpkin outing in the Richmond area, and the lowest-risk one with small children.
Free admission and free parking. You pay only for pumpkins and produce. Cash, credit and debit are accepted; SNAP is not accepted at the pumpkin patch.
Free to walk in. Your spend here is whatever you choose — pumpkins, food, and any paid activities. That makes it a low-risk stop if you are not sure how long the kids will last.
Most of this site’s pages spend their length on arithmetic, because most farms charge admission and the interesting question is whether the ticket is worth it. Here there is no ticket. Admission is free, parking is free, and the children’s play area is free. You pay for pumpkins and produce and nothing else.
Consider what a $15-a-head farm actually asks of you. It asks you to commit sixty dollars for a family of four before you know whether the weather holds, whether the two-year-old naps in the car, or whether anyone is in the mood. That commitment quietly changes behaviour: you stay longer than you want to in order to justify it, and a bad hour becomes a bad afternoon.
Free entry removes all of that. If it starts raining twenty minutes in, you leave, and it has cost you a tank of petrol and whatever is in your arms. For households with children under four — the age at which a fall outing most often fails — this risk profile is worth more than any attraction list.
A pick-your-own field with pumpkins running from one pound to over a hundred. Hayrides. A spooky house tour. A straw bale maze. A romping pile. A free children’s play area. A picnic area. A stand carrying pie pumpkins, winter squash, Indian corn, gourds and straw bales for decorating.
That is a genuine, unglamorous working patch. It is not a corn maze arms race and it does not have inflatables or pig races. An hour to ninety minutes is the honest visit length, and pretending otherwise would set you up for disappointment.
Very few farms open at eight. Most in this metro start at nine or ten, which means the entire population arrives inside the same two-hour band. An 8:00am start on a Saturday gives you a genuinely quiet field and cool air in a part of Virginia where an early-October afternoon can still be hot and there is no shade in a pumpkin field. Coastal-plain Richmond runs warmer and later than the mountains; if you have ever been surprised by an eighty-degree October day here, you know the argument for going early.
The other end of the day needs care. Closing “until dusk” is not a fixed hour, and it moves through the season. Late September dusk in Richmond is well after 7:00pm; by October 31 it is closer to 6:00pm, and the field goes gloomy before the sky does. A third-party listing shows 8:00pm hours, which we could not reconcile with the farm’s own dusk framing — plan around dusk, and do not arrive at 5:30pm on Halloween expecting a leisurely browse.
No pets, anywhere on any Gallmeyer property. And SNAP is not accepted at the pumpkin patch, though cash, credit and debit are. Both are the kind of thing you would much rather learn here than at the field edge.
The adjacent stand runs seven days a week, 9:00am to 7:00pm, with stock that changes daily. That makes a patch visit an add-on to a produce run rather than a separate expedition, which is the most efficient version of this trip for anyone local to eastern Henrico.
The patch runs from the last Saturday of September — September 26 in 2026 — through October 31, daily, 8:00am until dusk. A third-party 2026 listing gives a September 23 start and 8:00am to 8:00pm hours for the same address, so the exact opening day is worth reconfirming. The 8:00am opening is unusually early for a pumpkin patch and is the real advantage here: a Saturday at eight or nine is a different place from a Saturday at two. Dusk closing means the usable day shortens through October, from around 7:00pm at the start of the season to nearer 6:00pm at the end.
An hour to ninety minutes. This is a pick-and-go patch with a hayride, a straw bale maze and a play area, not a half-day festival, and it does not need to be padded.
Free admission plus a Richmond-metro location means October weekends draw well. But an 8:00am opening gives you a long head start that most Virginia farms do not offer, and a weekday morning here should be close to empty.
Free, and stated as such by the farm. Surface is not published — assume grass or gravel at a working farm on Millers Lane, and soft ground after rain.
Not published. A pick-your-own field, a hayride with a step up into the wagon and a straw bale maze all involve uneven going. The farm stand and picnic area are likely the easiest part. Call 804-795-9979 if this matters.
You want a full day out with rides, inflatables and a big corn maze. That is not what this is, and a family expecting a festival will be done in forty minutes. Skip it if you were bringing the dog — no pets are allowed at any Gallmeyer property. And it will not take SNAP at the pumpkin patch, which matters if that was your plan.
No. Admission and parking are both free. You pay only for pumpkins and produce.
The farm states it opens the last Saturday of September through October 31 — September 26 in 2026 — daily from 8:00am until dusk. A third-party listing gives a September 23 start and 8:00am to 8:00pm hours, so confirm the exact opening day if you are planning the first weekend.
Not at the pumpkin patch. Cash, credit and debit are accepted there.
No. No pets are allowed at any Gallmeyer property.
September 26 – October 31, 2026. Daily. Hours: 8:00am until dusk.
Admission is free. Free admission and free parking. You pay only for pumpkins and produce. Cash, credit and debit are accepted; SNAP is not accepted at the pumpkin patch.
4506 Millers Lane, Richmond, VA 23231, in Henrico County. It is one of 4 patches we track in Richmond Region.
We track 4 patches in Richmond Region, 1 of which are free to walk into. Entry here costs nothing, which puts it in the minority even in a region with several free options.
Its season runs about 36 days against a regional average of 45, so it is a shorter window than most of its neighbours — miss it and the nearest alternatives will still be open.
gallmeyerfarms.com · pumpkinpatchesandmore.org
Checked August 2026.