Nature was not kind to pumpkin farmers this year with at least one local farmer faced with pumpkins that beautiful at a distance but turn to mush when touched.
People still want to visit the pumpkin patches to pick out their Jack-O-Lanterns but are finding that there aren’t the pumpkin amounts available as in past years. They are spoiling in the fields.
“They look fine until you pick them up and your fingers go through,” said farmer Dorothy Anderson.
The owner of Aldor Acres pumpkin patch attributes the problems to a combination of the wrong weather at the wrong times. Heat in September caused the pumpkins to ripen early.
“Things were setting then and starting to colour up a little early,” she said.
The pumpkins that did grow were also smaller in size yet their other crops did well this year.
“We’re down a lot,” Anderson said said of production.
She’s heard other farms are also down.
October brought lots of rain and cold temperatures.