Pumpkin patchy season
By Jen Jackson, contributing writer
Posted on October 23, 2006

This Halloween season, there has been a pumpkin shortage. Due to various weather conditions recently and during the summer, the pumpkin crop has become more scant this year than in the past.

Matt Lohr, whose family tends over six acres full of pumpkins at Lohr’s U-Pick Pumpkins and Playland in Broadway, said it has been a “great season, but within the last week there has been so much rain that the pumpkins are beginning to rot.”

John Gresiak, a meteorologist from AccuWeather, said “We have had a pretty average amount of rain, except September, which had above average amounts of precipitation.

“The amount of rain, the cool, wet weather in short time duration all could be causes,” he said.

Jack Hutchison, a veteran pumpkin grower with 16 years experience — 12 of which have been at the Valley Inn Pumpkin Patch off Port Republic Road — agrees.

“Pumpkins can’t take a lot of moisture,” he said.

Hutchison’s farm holds about 10 different varieties of pumpkins over three acres.          

Jeff Phillips of Mulberry Hills Pumpkin Patch, also off Port Republic Road, has been in the business six years and said there weren’t as many in the field this year and that “the rainy weekends definitely cut down on customers.”
           
The rain is not the only factor that hindered the pumpkin crop this year. “The pumpkins got in late this year,” Hutchison said.
Lohr attributes this to the dry spell in the summer.

“There was about five weeks without a drop of rain,” he said. The dry spell in the summer also decreased the size of Lohr’s pumpkins from last year’s largest pumpkin being about a hundred pounds to only about 60 pounds this year.

Phillips also saw a difference in his pumpkins. “There weren’t as many in the field this year,” he said.

Lohr and Hutchison raised their prices this year due to the deficiency. But Phillips said “10 to 20 percent [of pumpkins] rot anyways,” he said.

Junior Meredith Carlton said the increase in price may make her think twice about buying a pumpkin.

“I don’t think I’d pay over $10 for a pumpkin,” she said.

That wouldn’t stop senior Emily Burt, but other reasons will.

 “When I’m at school I don’t have a place to put one, but if I were at home I would,” she said.

So what should you look for in a pumpkin?

“A good pumpkin is nice and big, but not so big you can’t carry it, with a relatively flat side which makes for good carving,” Burt said. “It needs a decent stem as well, to make a good handle.”

Hutchison, Lohr and Phillips have similar ideas.

They all agree that a pumpkin should have a nice long green stem, should be firm without soft spots and have a deep orange color. Those three aspects will produce a lasting pumpkin, as long as the weather holds up.

After all, pumpkins do mean more than Halloween to some. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that October will be Virginia Pumpkin Month, giving recognition to the crop. Carlton sees them as more than just an icon for Halloween.

“They remind me of being with my family and getting ready for the holidays,” she said.