Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

It’s beginning to look a lot like … fall.

Just take a trip through downtown Natchez these days, and you’ll notice the season in full swing.

Thanks to the Downtown Natchez Alliance’s efforts, we’ve got pink pumpkins, orange pumpkins and so much orange and gold that we don’t need to worry about traveling north to see the leaves change. We can celebrate the season right here at home.

As of Friday, 17 participants were registered in the fall storefront decorating contest, sponsored by the NDA. The displays are creative and engaging, adding both whimsy and seasonal flair to our historic downtown. Judging is scheduled for Wednesday, so there’s still time to enter.

And, of course, Natchez boasts its own pumpkin patch. Located outside the Natchez Inc. building at 100 S. Pearl St., the patch features hundreds of pumpkins of all sizes for sale and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.

Whether you prefer perfectly round and smooth pumpkins or if odd warty gourds with unusual shapes and colors are more your style, the pumpkin patch has both and prices start at $1.

The picture-perfect patch is a favorite for photos, and the NDA encourages people to stop by a capture their memories. Local businesses are taking turns as volunteers at the patch, offering a variety of activities from face painting to story time for visitors as well. The merchants are competing to see which one can sell the most pumpkins during their volunteer time slot, so there’s plenty of good-natured competition as well.

The pumpkin patch and seasonal decorating contests are the efforts of the NDA, which also just wrapped up a massive downtown spruce-up event in late September. The focused effort on creating and engaging community atmosphere while promoting our downtown businesses and our city is much appreciated, and the NDA deserves praise for its efforts.

Well done!