Denver, CO
Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms hosts Pumpkin Festival Friday through Sunday
LITTLETON, Colo. — Pumpkin Festival is the biggest single-weekend event hosted each year at Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms. While attendees enjoy just a weekend of festivities, the team behind the event spends all year preparing for it.
“How can you be depressed in a pumpkin patch?” said Larry Vickerman, director at the gardens.
Along with the corn maze, live music and wagon rides, visitors can wander the patch and pick their own gourds and pumpkins to take home.
“This is probably one of the few places where you can come out here on 10 acres — I’ll guarantee you’ll find a pumpkin you really like,” Vickerman said.
Vickerman begins preparing for Pumpkin Festival in the winter, typically in January or February.
Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms hosts Pumpkin Fest Friday through Sunday
Many of the best seed varieties sell out by then, and securing a rich and healthy mix is paramount to his team.
“There are so many things that can happen to the crop,” Vickerman said, explaining that farmers at the gardens are responsible for protecting the plants from insects, disease and hail for months leading up to harvest.
The work is all worth it, he said, when he gets to share the fruits of that labor with the public.
“I always stand right here so I can throw the gate open on the first day and show them,” he said. “You know, there are some good ones over here. What are you looking for? Big? Small?”
After Pumpkin Festival 2025 wraps up, Vickerman said he will take a short break before beginning work on next year’s harvest.
Pumpkin Festival runs Oct. 10–12 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Tickets are available in advance on the Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms website.
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Denverites looking for a stellar cup of Joe don’t need to travel far to savor the flavor of excellent coffee.
That’s according to The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops, a website that rates global hospitality establishments where coffee lovers can find better brew. The website recently announced its 2026 list of the best coffee shops in North America, Central America and the Caribbean and two local companies made the list.
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters came in at No. 43, while Queen City Collective Coffee ranked No. 61. Not bad for a list that includes must-hit destinations in places like Guatemala and Costa Rica, which are known for their exports of coffee beans.
The World’s 100 Best Coffee Shops decided the ranking through a mix of nominations and voting by both the public and experts. Places were evaluated based on the quality of coffee served, barista expertise, ambiance, sustainability practices, and innovation among other criteria, according to the website.
Sweet Bloom Coffee Roasters, which came on the scene in 2013, helped usher the so-called fourth wave of coffee locally, which focuses on honoring the beans’ agricultural roots and using techniques like pour-over to extract more flavor from each brew. The company started with a wholesale roastery and retail shop in Lakewood before expanding to Arvada through a merger with another company called Two Rivers, and later to Westminster. In 2022, Food and Wine magazine named Sweet Bloom’s Westminster locale the best coffee shop in Colorado.
Queen City Collective has certainly earned the popular vote among Mile High City coffee drinkers if the company’s expansion is an indication. Since opening its first retail location in 2018, in a spot shared with Novel Strand Brewing Co., Queen City has expanded to seven locations between Denver and surrounding suburbs, including Wheat Ridge and Aurora.
To see the full list of must-hit coffee shops across the globe, visit theworlds100bestcoffeeshops.com. For additional recommendations, check out our list of Colorado’s best coffee shops with picturesque patios and views.
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DENVER (KDVR) — With the mild winter and warm start to spring, beekeepers are seeing swarms earlier in the year and expect the season to be longer than usual.
Gregg McMahan is a dispatcher for the Colorado Swarm Hotline. It’s usually his job to send a beekeeper to collect a swarm when someone calls, but on Sunday afternoon, he decided to handle one himself.
“Nice little swarm,” McMahan said. “It’s tricky, though, because it’s hanging on a fence.”
A warm winter and spring mean swarm season has begun four weeks early.
“Never seen it like this ever,” McMahan said.
This call is to a house on Denver’s east side. When McMahan arrived, he saw a swarm had taken up residence on the fence.
“Absolutely typical, it is on the small side,” McMahan said.
He got to work, first luring them into a box when he spotted a good sign.
“See all these girls, they got their butts up, they’re fanning their wings. That’s telling us the queens in here,” McMahan said.
With the queen in hand, the rest began to follow her into the box.
McMahan said two years ago, he had 400 calls like this. Last year, only 100, the Swarm Hotline was as unpredictable as the weather, which has caused bee activity earlier in the year than ever.
“It makes it hard on the bees, you know? Two days ago, I’m collecting swarms in the snow,” McMahan said.
Rescuing them is integral to Colorado’s ecosystem. McMahan hopes people give a beekeeper a call instead of spraying them or harming them in any other way.
“They do a phenomenal amount of pollination within this state. Not only our native flowers but all the other flowers that people bring in,” McMahan said.
Slowly but surely, the swarm left the fence and moved into the box. McMahan loaded them into his truck to deliver them to their new home.
“Westminster to the Stanley Lake Wildlife Refuge, so these girls will have lakefront property tonight,” he said.
As he wrapped up, McMahan’s phone was buzzing more than the bees. Just another call to start a swarm season, he thinks, could be a long one.
“This year I’m already 20 swarms deep, so I’m expecting way more than 100 this year,” McMahan said.
To have a bee swarm removed for free from your property anywhere statewide, the Swarm Hotline number is 1-844-SPY-BEES.
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