October on the Treasure Coast: Pumpkin Patches, Trunk-or-Treats, the Mullet Run and Everything Else Left This Month (2026)

Oct 9

Quick answer: Here's the short version for the rest of October on the Treasure Coast. Pumpkin patches are open now at Hobe Sound Farms, Pumpkin Towne in Stuart and Lakewood Park Church in Fort Pierce. The big free Halloween nights are Hobgoblins on Main Street in downtown Stuart on October 24, the Tunnel of Terror at the Fenn Center in Fort Pierce on October 23, LYNQ's trunk-or-treat at Clover Park the same night, the Sheriff's trunk-or-treat in Stuart on Halloween, and Port St. Lucie's Fall Fun Fest at the MIDFLORIDA Event Center from October 30 to November 1. Vero Beach does its Halloween parade downtown on the 31st. Grown-ups get ghost tours in Fort Pierce, a 21-and-up Monster Mash in Stuart, Oktoberfest in Vero and stone crab claws starting the 15th. And the mullet are running, which matters more to some of us than any of the above.

I tell every buyer the same thing in August when they're sweating through a showing: hang on, October's coming. Well, it's here. The first real front usually gets to us mid-month, the mornings turn into the kind you move here for, and the whole coast comes outside at once. Every church, farm, downtown and sheriff's office has something going on, and if you've got kids you can trick-or-treat somewhere every weekend from now through Halloween without repeating.

I put this together on October 9, so the early-month stuff (the PSL Oktoberfest, Keiser's fall festival, the first farm days) has already happened. What's below is what's still ahead, with dates and times from the organizers and local listings. Things change, so check before you load the car. If you want the statewide version, with Horror Nights, Fantasy Fest and the boat show, that's this post.

Pumpkin patches and farm days

You'd think a state that grows most of the country's winter tomatoes would grow a pumpkin, but ours come in on trucks and we're fine with that. The patches are the easiest October thing to do and most are free to walk into.

Hobe Sound Farms in Hobe Sound is open every day through November 1. Free to get into the patch; the hayrides, petting zoo and pony rides are ticketed. This is the one with the real farm feel and the one I'd pick for a first visit.
Pumpkin Towne in Stuart is open through Halloween, free with a pumpkin purchase or five dollars a family. Lawn games, a bounce house, pumpkin painting. Good for an hour after dinner.
Lakewood Park Church in northern Fort Pierce has its patch October 11 through 31, free admission, pumpkins sold by size, a hay maze and yard games.
The Peaceful Pumpkin Patch at The Old Citrus Estate in Port St. Lucie is the quiet one: select weekends, reservations only, $15.95 a person, limited numbers on purpose. If your kid doesn't do crowds, this is built for you.
Newfield Harvest Festival in Palm City is this weekend, October 10 and 11, at the Newfield farm, with a Ferris wheel, live music, a corn maze and a patch. The Blooming Freedom Fall Market in Palm City is Saturday the 10th too, pumpkins and local vendors.
Hamilton Farms in Fort Pierce does its fall festival two weekends, October 17 and 18 and October 24 and 25, 10 to 4: u-pick pumpkins, hayrides, animals.
Diamond D Ranch in Indiantown is October 24 and 25, free, with the mini highland cows that will end up on your phone. Flourish Family Farms in Fort Pierce has a smaller festival Saturday the 24th, 9 to 1, $10 for kids and $7 for adults.

Trunk-or-treats and the free Halloween nights

This is the heart of the month if you have kids, and it's almost all free. In date order:

Friday, October 9: Martin County Fall Fest and Movie Night at Langford Park in Jensen Beach, 5:30 to 9:30, free. Games, food trucks, costume contest, then a movie on the lawn.
Saturday, October 10: Trick or Treat Stroll at the Children's Museum of the Treasure Coast in Jensen Beach, 4 to 6, $3. Indoor, which matters if it rains.
Friday, October 16: Spooktacular Night at the Park, Memorial Park in downtown Stuart, 6 p.m.
Saturday, October 17: Sunlight Community Church's fall festival in Port St. Lucie, 3 to 6, free, with a trunk-or-treat, a hayride and inflatables.
Friday, October 23: the big night. Tunnel of Terror and Trunk or Treat at the Havert L. Fenn Center in Fort Pierce, 6 to 9, free, no sign-up, a walk-through haunt plus the trunks. The same night LYNQ does its trunk-or-treat at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, 5 to 9, free, with costume contests and a petting zoo. Sebastian has its Halloween costume contest at Riverview Park that night too.
Saturday, October 24: Hobgoblins on Main Street, downtown Stuart, noon to 3, free. The shops hand out candy, the whole street is in costume, and it's the one I'd put on the calendar first. Same afternoon, iL Mercato Fall-O-Ween at Tradition Square in Port St. Lucie, 1 to 7, free, with characters and bounce houses. Up north, the Sebastian Scream 5K that morning comes with a trunk-or-treat and a haunted rail trail.
Monday, October 26: Night in a Haunted Museum at the Port St. Lucie History Museum, 5:30 to 8:30, a family walk-through.
Friday, October 30: Haunted Heroes Night at the Fort Pierce Police Department, 6 to 8, trunk-or-treat with the cops and firefighters, which is a nice way for small kids to meet them. Fall Fun Fest opens the same night at the MIDFLORIDA Event Center in Port St. Lucie, 5 to 10, free admission, carnival rides and food extra, and it runs Saturday noon to 10 and Sunday 1 to 6 with trick-or-treating and live music. This is the big city-sized one.
Halloween, Saturday, October 31: the Martin County Sheriff's trunk-or-treat at the public safety complex in Stuart, 5 to 8. Vero Beach's Halloween parade and costume contest downtown. And out in Fellsmere, Operation Hope's Haunted Nightmare does a trunk-or-treat and kids' costume contest, 4 to 11, with a Día de los Muertos night on November 1. Their scare zones are not for kids under 13, so split up.

For the grown-ups

Fort Pierce has the best Halloween thing for adults on the coast and it isn't even scary. Ghosts of Fort Pierce Past is Main Street's walking tour with costumed actors playing the people who built the town, $15, with a daytime round on Saturday, October 17 from noon to 2:30 (groups leave every 15 minutes) and evening tours on the 21st and 22nd, 5:30 to 7:30, each night covering different old neighborhoods. You learn more about where you live in an hour than in a year of driving past it.

Stuart's Monster Mash at the Museum is Friday, October 23, 21 and up, costumes expected. Beyond the Veil at the House of Refuge on Hutchinson Island is Saturday the 24th; the House of Refuge is the oldest building in Martin County and has been doing after-dark events for years, so if you've ever wanted to walk through it with the lights off, this is the night. Port St. Lucie has a walking ghost tour at The Port on the 15th, and Vero has A Haunted Garden Evening on the 17th.

Two things that are October but not Halloween: Vero Beach Oktoberfest is October 16 to 18 at the Indian River County Fairgrounds, $8, kids under 13 free, free parking, with a beer garden, German food, live music and a kids' zone. And the Sunrise Theatre in Fort Pierce is screening Scream on Sunday, October 11 with David Arquette in the building, which is about as on-theme as a Sunday night gets.

If you'd rather run than scream, the Treasure Coast Halloween Half Marathon and Relay is Sunday, October 25 in Stuart, 6:30 a.m. start, costume contest included, and yes, people run 13 miles dressed as bananas.

The mullet run, and the fishing you shouldn't skip

Every fall, millions of finger mullet move south along our beaches and through the inlets, and everything that eats follows them. That's the mullet run, and October is the back half of it. For a couple of weeks you can stand on the Jensen Beach causeway or the jetty at the Fort Pierce Inlet and watch the water boil. Snook season reopened September 1 (one fish, 28 to 32 inches), and the snook have moved off the inlet into the river, sitting on dock lights and bridge shadow lines after dark. Tarpon, some over 100 pounds, are hanging around the bridges, the power plant and the North Fork, and live crabs on an outgoing tide at night is the local recipe. Jacks are everywhere. Redfish are better up around Fort Pierce's mangrove islands than around Stuart. Pompano show up at the Jensen Causeway relief bridge and the Fort Pierce Inlet, and once stone crab season opens on the 15th, tripletail start sitting under the trap buoys offshore.

If you don't fish, you can still eat. Stone crab claws hit the local fish houses the day after the opener, served cold with mustard sauce, and the first week's claws are the ones. The fishing guide has the ramps, the charters and the rules if you want to do more than watch.

Other October things worth knowing

The Indian River Lagoon Science Festival at Veterans Memorial Park in Fort Pierce is Saturday, October 24, 9 to 3, free, with touch tanks and live animals, and it's quietly one of the best kids' events of the year. Heathcote Botanical Gardens in Fort Pierce has its fall garden festival October 17 and 18, 9 to 4, a dollar suggested. The Lyric Theatre in Stuart has Pat Travers on the 17th, the Michael Allman Band on the 24th and Acoustic Alchemy on the 30th, and Garrison Keillor is at the Sunrise on the 23rd. The Vero Beach Theatre Guild opens Come From Away on the 16th.

The weather: highs in the mid 80s now, low 80s by Halloween, and the first front, whenever it lands, is the night everyone on the coast posts a picture of a thermometer. The ocean's still 80 degrees, the summer crowds are gone and the afternoon storms have mostly quit, so this is beach month, not winter. Sea turtle season ends October 31. Hurricane season doesn't end until November 30, and we've had October storms, so the shutters stay in the garage where you can reach them.

Where this fits if you're house hunting

October is the quietest month on my showing calendar, and I mean that as a compliment to October. The snowbirds haven't landed, the summer buyers are settled, and sellers who listed in August are starting to think about price. It's also the only month you can walk a neighborhood on a Saturday afternoon and see how it actually lives: who's out, whether the kids ride bikes, which streets go all-in on Halloween. If you're deciding between the gated communities and an old Stuart or Fort Pierce neighborhood, go to Hobgoblins on Main Street and the Fenn Center the same week and you'll know which one you are.

Questions people ask about October here

Where are the trunk-or-treats on the Treasure Coast in 2026?

The big free ones: Tunnel of Terror and Trunk or Treat at the Fenn Center in Fort Pierce on Friday, October 23 (6 to 9), LYNQ's trunk-or-treat at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie the same night (5 to 9), Sunlight Community Church in Port St. Lucie on October 17 (3 to 6), Haunted Heroes Night at the Fort Pierce Police Department on October 30 (6 to 8), and the Martin County Sheriff's trunk-or-treat in Stuart on Halloween (5 to 8). Hobgoblins on Main Street in downtown Stuart on October 24 (noon to 3) is a street trick-or-treat rather than trunks.

Where can I pick a pumpkin near Port St. Lucie or Stuart?

Hobe Sound Farms (daily through November 1, free entry), Pumpkin Towne in Stuart (through Halloween, free with a pumpkin or $5 a family), Lakewood Park Church in Fort Pierce (October 11 to 31, free admission), Hamilton Farms in Fort Pierce (October 17 to 18 and 24 to 25) and The Peaceful Pumpkin Patch at The Old Citrus Estate in Port St. Lucie (select weekends, reservations, $15.95).

What's the biggest Halloween event in Port St. Lucie?

Fall Fun Fest at the MIDFLORIDA Event Center, October 30 (5 to 10), October 31 (noon to 10) and November 1 (1 to 6). Admission is free; rides and food cost extra. Carnival rides, live music, a fall market and trick-or-treating. iL Mercato's Fall-O-Ween at Tradition Square on October 24 is the other big one.

Is there a Halloween event in downtown Stuart?

Yes. Hobgoblins on Main Street is Saturday, October 24 from noon to 3, free, with the downtown shops handing out candy. Spooktacular Night at the Park is Friday, October 16 at Memorial Park, and the Monster Mash at the Museum on October 23 is for ages 21 and up.

What is the mullet run?

Every September and October, huge schools of finger mullet migrate south along the beaches and through the inlets, and snook, tarpon, jacks, sharks and everything else feed on them. It's the best inshore fishing of the year. Good spots to watch it are the Jensen Beach causeway, the Stuart causeway and the jetties at the Fort Pierce and St. Lucie inlets, especially early morning and after dark.

Is October a good time to visit or move to the Treasure Coast?

It's the local favorite. The first cold front usually arrives mid-month, humidity drops, the ocean stays about 80 degrees and the summer crowds are gone. Hurricane season runs through November 30, so keep an eye on the tropics, but October is also the quietest month on the real estate calendar, which is good news if you're buying.

Talk with William. If you want to see a neighborhood the way it really lives, come down for a Halloween weekend and I'll show you a few. Then we'll go get stone crab. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

Dates, times and prices are from organizers and local listings (Treasure Coast Mom, WFLX, Indian River Magazine) as of October 9, 2026 and can change; confirm before you go. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

Sources

William Merchant