[Italian Pulli]

I was wondering if anyone has heard of this pumpkin shortage!! There is this fungus that was brought to the US from the middle east that is rotting all of the pumpkins from the inside out. They say you need to get your pumpkins before Oct 15th or you will be choosing from a limited supply of small and crappy pumpkins. I have even noticed around here in CT all of the pumpkins are too small for carving. This is Insane!! All of the pumpkins are turning into real ZOMBIE PUMPKINS!! Here is the link http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061005/ap_ ... n_problems
You can find it on any others news site as well.

[Pumpkingrower]

I don't want to fuel the fire of a hopefully dreadfully awful rumor but my favorite local patch here in RI has reported a similar problem this year and has said they might not have enough 'kins to bother opening up. I have already traveled the back roads in search of replacement pumpkins. Luckily I have half a dozen 30+ pounders counting the hours till their fate will be sealed. I also suffered a unique "fungus" this year in my own patch and only harvested a 1/4 of my usual carving fodder. Shop early and preserve well my brethren.

[balsak40]

I keep hearing this every year about a mold or fungus that destroys crops but I haven't seen anything like this in Cleveland. Never have been a shortage yet. *Knocks on gourd...err.. wood*

[Tkaraoke]

Wow! That's a really interesting article since I do live in the Midwest. I went to one place that had a few huge pumpkins (about 7 of them) but didn't think anything about them being in high demand. I was considering waiting until two weeks from Halloween to go get my carving pumpkins but now that I heard about this, I think I'm going to go next week and just keep them in a dry dark place until it's time to hack them up.

[cyberdman]

I would pick up all the pumpkins you can find ASAP. Even my local news channel has picked up this story. People are going to start buying early and hoard them.

This explains why my patch has produced almost nothing.

[Pumpkin King]

I noticed so far my local Walmart has not gotten any pumpkins in yet. I'm planning on going to a local farm just outside of town tommorow to pick up some Pumpkins just as a precaution.

[balsak40]

There was some slim pickings at my Walmart as well but there were many stands from farmers in the area that had plenty of them.

[Kerianne19]

Around here in Utah I haven't seen a big shortage yet:) But I wouldn't want to speak too soon! Thanks for the heads up guys!

[Tkaraoke]

I can already see the prices for pumpkins going up a few weeks before Halloween if there is a high demand for them. It's really going to suck if someone can't afford to buy a decent pumpkin to carve. That would be just a damn shame..

[Italian Pulli]

Yea here in CT if you want a good one it is 59 cents a pound, and if you want a good pumpkin decent size for carving your going to be paying about $15 or so a pumpkin!!, that adds up.

[Tkaraoke]

I have managed to find a couple of decent sized pumpkins for carving at our local Walmart but a majority of them are just a little too small for the average ZP stencil. I would like to be able to find some larger pumpkins so I can enlarge the stencils which would make it easier to carve. I was only planning on spending about $40 on larger pumpkins but now I'm prepared to pay as much as $60. However, I still want to get one huge pumpkin to put a couple of stencils on but that might not happen.

[Patti]

We picked up about 30 decent sized pumpkins on Saturday for $3.00 each. We'd have gotten more but we had the car instead of the truck and that's all that would fit.

We talked to another guy we've purchased from in the past and he's going to pick some up this week and we'll see what he has to offer. If he doesn't have what we want we'll go back to the three dollar guy and get the rest.

We buy most of our pumpkins from these two guys so they do give us a discount. That being said, neither of them mentioned anything about a shortage and the place we bought from had a lot of pumpkins. We took 30 and didn't make a dent in his supply.

All were at least 15 pounds and had good color. I only saw a couple with rot or bruises. May be bad for me but we had to reject those, as I'm afraid they won't last until Halloween. We will pick up rejects close to Halloween if we can get them cheap enough. We can usually get a good deal if there are a lot left and only a couple days before the holiday.

I've carved one so far and it was nice and firm, and not too watery. Last years pumpkins were full of water, leaked all over when I carved them, and most rotted really quickly. I'm hoping they last a little longer this year.

[Pumpkin King]

There was a story the other day on Yahoo about a mold that was damaging crops in the midwest up to the northeast. I noticed here in Little Rock, my local Walmart hasn't gotten any Pumpkins in yet. I did go out to a local farm a pick up a couple pumpkins, but at 45 cents a pound they were not cheap. Anyone else notice any problems. In the next couple of days I'll posts some pics from the local pumpkin farm.

[Halloweenie]

THIS IS INSANE!

[Tkaraoke]

I talked with a local farmer and he said that our local farms have been spared but there are some farmers who live out in Kansas (I believe he said Topeka) who's pumpkin crops were totally decimated by the pumpkin rot. He said it had to do with the really dry summer we had and then an intense rainy period they had. I guess we lucked big time!