Fall with kids in New York: pumpkins, a corn maze and harvest festivals

The city's real farm is the Queens County Farm Museum in Glen Oaks, at 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, out by the Nassau County line. It has been farmed continuously since 1697, which makes it one of the longest-worked sites in New York State, and in October it becomes the closest thing the five boroughs have to a day in the country.

Its pumpkin patch is open for the whole of October. Getting in costs nothing; the pumpkins are priced by size. The farm asks you to bring your own bag, and while you are there the alpacas, goats and sheep can be fed.

Two of the free park festivals below bring a pumpkin patch of their own: Randall's Island on Sunday, October 4, and the Rockaway Fall Festival the same day, which adds a pumpkin maze.

The Amazing Maize Maze at the same farm is three acres of standing corn with clues and puzzles along the way. It starts with a short Stalk Talk and ends at Victory Bridge, where the whole labyrinth is finally laid out below you.

It runs on weekends through November 1, plus Monday, October 12, from 11am to 4pm. Tickets are $17 for adults and $10 for children, sold online ahead of time.

On two Saturdays, October 10 and October 17, the farm reopens the maze after dark as Maze by Moonlight, 6pm to 10pm with last entry at 9:30pm. It is $20 a person and you bring your own flashlight.

NYC Parks and the city's park conservancies close out the growing season with a run of free and low-cost festivals. The weekend of October 3 and 4 and the Saturday of October 17 carry most of them, which makes it easy to pair two in the same borough.

The Bronx Zoo's Boo at the Zoo runs on weekends from September 26 to November 1, plus Monday, October 12, with a hay maze, costume parades, puppet and magic shows and candy stations, all included in a regular zoo ticket. Prospect Park Zoo's smaller Spooktober fills every October weekend from 10am to 5:30pm.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Fall Harvest Festival is on Saturday, October 24, from 11am to 5pm, with pumpkin decorating, music and an afternoon costume parade; adults pay $38 and children under 12 are free. The same day Randall's Island holds a free Halloween Boo Bash in its White Garden, noon to 3pm.

For the 31st itself — the Village parade, the children's parades in Brooklyn and on the Upper West Side, and the best blocks for trick-or-treating — see our Halloween guide. Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, so every family event that day will be busy.

The season opens early in Chinatown. The Museum of Chinese in America holds its Mid-Autumn Family Festival on Saturday, September 26, in two sessions, 10am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm, with mooncakes, lanterns, crafts, shadow puppets, music and games. Tickets are $10; children 5 and under go free.

Go to the farm in the morning. Weekend afternoons are when Queens Farm is at its busiest, and the maze is far more pleasant before the crowds build.

Use the busy weekends. October 3 and 4 have four festivals between them, and October 17 has three in three different boroughs, so pick the ones close to each other and make a day of it.

Nearly everything here happens outdoors. Organizers post weather changes on their own sites, so check the morning of the event before you set off.