[S.A.M]

I saw on BBC Breakfast today that, in the UK at least, there could well be a pumpkin shortage and prices will be up on last year because of the terrible summer we've had means pumpkin numbers are down and they haven't ripened:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7033413.stm

Halloween lanterns will have a strange green tinge this year as bad summer weather has hit pumpkin growth.
Britain's leading pumpkin farmer says wet weather in June and July means that his crop is down by 30% and his pumpkins lack their traditional colour.

"It's a disaster. Everybody knows that pumpkins are orange," said David Bowman, whose Lincolnshire farm normally produces two million a year.

Mr Bowman said prices will rise and shops could sell out early.

In 35 years of pumpkin farming, Mr Bowman said that this is the worst crop he's ever seen.

Not that I need to worry too much as I've grown my own this year but I always like to buy a couple of big ones to make the center of the display and it sounds like choice will be limited.
Get your pumpkins early folks and store them in a good place.

[GUS]

we have been donated a metric tonne of pumpkins for my daughters nursery school to sell to the locals by a few generous people from a local business

we're going to be asking £2.00 per pumpkin, as they are yet to be picked up how many typically do you reckon the sum total would be?

any guesses based on experience of the item & british climate??

probably getting ahead of myself here but as the sale is going to be over 3-4 mornings next week should I get a pumpkin gutter & offer it as a service for extra money (& how much)?
or should I offer the service for nearer the time?

[S.A.M]

we're going to be asking £2.00 per pumpkin, as they are yet to be picked up how many typically do you reckon the sum total would be?

any guesses based on experience of the item & british climate??

Are you asking how many pumpkins you'll be getting in a metric tonne? It obviously depends on the weight of each pumpkin but for a rough example say, if each pumpkin weighs on average 10 lbs , you'd be looking at about 220 pumpkins. I'd guess anywhere between 220-320 pumpkins in a tonne but I'm no expert
Just using a calculator to crunch numbers.

probably getting ahead of myself here but as the sale is going to be over 3-4 mornings next week should I get a pumpkin gutter & offer it as a service for extra money (& how much)?
or should I offer the service for nearer the time?

I don't think you should be gutting them next week for Halloween, once you've taken the guts out of a pumpkin they typically start to rot within a few days.
You could always offer it as a service later on but I hope you have a power tool for cutting the lids if a large number of people take up the service and a means of disposing of all the pumpkin guts.

Why not just charge a lil extra for the pumpkins? It is for a good cause after all but then again you don't wanna be stuck with 200 pumpkins

[GUS]

yeah thanks for that, I suppose the reason they're being sold next week is a case of spare time offered / what could be offered in terms of time! + getting them before the supermarket trip that parents load up on blindly.

...I thought after posting that that would be the case as not only are fridges smaller over here but alot of folks are too lazy to dunk em in bleach, wrap em, soak em etc.
so I'll just let them get on & buy

[GUS]

Apparantly Asda (wal-mart) ..are doing pumpkins for £1 in the UK
not seen the quality for myself however I imagine they're grown in lthe less dry climes of old eastern europe (grown-shipped-sold @ that price it MUST BE) probably paying a bunch of near 3rd world farmers a pittance!

..good news for shoppers, bad news for the farmers I imagine (hope I'm wrong)

[S.A.M]

I'll have to check the ASDA ones out.
I noticed on my weekly shop at Morrisons they had fairly large pumpkins at £1.99 with a good deep orange colour too, not too bad and no indication of a price increase, they did have bigger ones at £4.99 but they were more wide than tall. The £1.99 ones would take a pattern well with little reduction needed I'd say