This October, Pierce College has a pumpkin patch on El Rancho Drive and a brand-new corn maze. It also has a farm that most of Woodland Hills never sees. Those are two separate operations, and they have been separate for more than a decade. The patch is a seasonal business run by Seasonal Adventures. The farm belongs to the college, and since the old Pierce College Farm Center closed at the end of 2014, the college's farm work has turned toward classrooms, greenhouses, and emergency animal shelter. It has not gone back to selling to the public.
That split explains the calendar at Pierce. The two festival seasons the old Farm Center was known for came back in a new form. The year-round produce market did not.
The 2026 season, by the numbers that matter
Seasonal Adventures says the patch is at 7100 El Rancho Drive, Woodland Hills, "near the Farm Center," and that parking is free. The operator posts these details for 2026:
- Season: October 1 through October 31, and the last day is Halloween itself, a Saturday this year.
- Weekday hours: 4 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 4 to 10 p.m. Friday. Weekday visits are evening visits.
- Weekend hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.
- Admission: $3 per adult. Anyone under 18 gets in free.
- Corn maze: $15 per person, free for children under 2, and sold on its own ticket.
- Ride tickets: $1.70 each, 20 for $33, 40 for $63, or 80 for $122. The 80-ticket bundle works out to about $1.53 a ticket, roughly 10 percent less than buying them one at a time.
- Pumpkins: generally $10 to $20. Specialty pumpkins and gourds are priced separately.
The maze is the main change this year. The operator calls it "brand-new" for the 2026 season. A Los Angeles family-events guide published September 29, 2026 also lists it as new this year, with the same $3 adult entry and $15 maze fee. Beyond the maze, the operator lists mechanical rides, inflatable slides, obstacle courses, bounce houses, and a petting zoo. The pumpkin tables also carry squash, gourds, Indian corn, cornstalks, straw bales, and scarecrows.
As of today, October 12, three weekends are left. Two are full weekends, October 17–18 and October 24–25. The third is just Saturday, October 31. The operator also posts weather updates on its Know Before You Go page. On Sunday, October 11, that page said the Pierce location was "OPEN AS USUAL."
Seasonal Adventures ran the patch last fall as well. The Roundup, Pierce's student newspaper, published a harvest-season photo essay showing a California Cavalry performance on October 25, 2025 and a petting zoo visit the day before.
What "near the Farm Center" points back to
The phrase on the operator's page refers to a business that has been closed since 2014. The Pierce College Farm Center was a private agri-entertainment operation run by Asylum Productions. It opened to the public in September 2005 under a five-year lease with the Los Angeles Community College District. The Daily News reported that it covered roughly 30 acres in the campus's northwest corner and was known for three things: its produce market, its Halloween Harvests, and its Christmas festivals.
The lease ended in a long dispute. According to the Daily News, the district held a one-year lease with Asylum in 2012 while it ran a bidding process for a longer arrangement, and Asylum was the only bidder. The two sides could not agree on terms. The district began eviction in the summer of 2013 and filed an unlawful detainer suit that September. District mediation then produced a settlement under which the business would stop operating in December 2014. The Farm Center closed to the public on December 26 of that year. The district's general counsel told the paper that "Pierce College has plans to use this property to support its agriculture program."
That sentence explains much of what came after. The Farm Center was a single business with three public offerings. When it left, the college did not bring in a replacement to run all three.
Where the college took its farm
What the college built instead is aimed at students. In April 2015, the Daily News reported that a Pierce farm plan proposed expanding agricultural instruction and possibly reopening a farm stand for farmers markets and produce grown at Pierce. Those were proposals. We could not find any 2025 or 2026 listing for a Pierce-run farm stand, produce sale, or public farm open house.
The building that did open is the Agricultural Education Center. According to the district's project factsheet, it was completed in 2024, with classrooms, labs, greenhouses, and hands-on learning space for the Plant Science and Horticulture program. A Pierce College news item puts the project site at two acres, describes the center as combining indoor and outdoor learning labs for growing crops, and reports that it won a district award for excellence. The available records do not say whether the center sits on the old Farm Center ground or how much of that former acreage the agriculture program uses today.
The teaching farm drew wider attention in January 2025. LAist reported that Pierce, which it called home to "a vast, longstanding teaching farm," made room for about 225 animals evacuated from that month's wildfires, including horses, alpacas, goats, sheep, chickens, and pigs. Veterinary technology students volunteered to care for them. Farm manager Marcie Sakadjian told LAist, "Pierce has offered this service to the community for decades," and said the college prepares the facility year-round in case of fire or mudslides.
That is the farm Woodland Hills mostly doesn't see. It runs year-round, it serves students and evacuated animals, and it doesn't sell anything to the public.
The second season starts after Thanksgiving
The Farm Center's Christmas festival has a successor of sorts too. Seasonal Adventures lists a Christmas tree lot at its Pierce College location, open daily from November 27 through December 22, 2026, or until the trees sell out. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week. November 27 is the Friday after Thanksgiving. The operator calls it a full-service lot where staff help pick the tree, cut it fresh, and load it onto your vehicle. It also says it specializes in snow flocking and carries a large stock of flocked trees.
Here is how the Pierce calendar lines up against the old Farm Center's three offerings:
- Halloween: back, as a monthlong patch from October 1 to 31 with a new corn maze.
- Christmas: back, as a tree lot from November 27 to December 22.
- Year-round produce market: not back. A farm stand was proposed in 2015, and none is listed for 2025 or 2026.
What changed is who runs each part. The two festival seasons now belong to a private seasonal operator, and the farm belongs to the college's agriculture program. A few things are still unknown: when Seasonal Adventures first came to Pierce, the terms of its arrangement with the college, and whether its patch sits on any of the old Farm Center ground. The operator's dates are its posted schedule, so check its page before you go, especially if the weather turns.
If you own a home a few blocks from El Rancho Drive and want to know how being close to the Pierce campus figures into its value, Bruce Barz can walk you through recent Woodland Hills sales near the college. Schedule a free consultation.
