Pumpkins Everywhere

This is a 10 acre pumpkin field near me in Virginia. A bit dry now as they are wilting at 10am.



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I guess large pumpkins will be premium priced in your area this year? Pumpkins
are in demand for decorating for sure…
but it seems wasteful of good food.

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How dry has it been there? That’s how my squash/pumpkins look when they’re struggling with squash vine borer. I find that pumpkins can hold out for quite a while with borers, but buttercup squash tend to die pretty quickly.

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Both commercial growers near me have had it dry for last 2 weeks after a wetter start than usual. That field will be for mixed pallets of specialty pumpkins. I am not a fan of the warty ones. I do like the white ones for something different.

Pumpkins do seem a waste of food but when I see pick you own pumpkins and corn mazes in the fall with school buses full kids out there, its worth exposure to something agricultural wise for city kids.

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we have several local farmers that grow pumpkins. toward the end of the selling season, before a good frost, i hit them up for the leftovers and feed to the chics and dogs. they love lightly baked pumpkin with a dash of salt and olive oil. i freeze a bunch and feed it throughout winter.

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If considering pumpkins keep in mind they have value the last two weeks of Oct. Before and after that, you can’t give them away.
Not wanting to rain on anyone’s parade, but that, in our experience is the simple fact.

Suffice to say, we grew them once. Don’t get me wrong, if you can supply that 2 week market, there’s money to be made. Just saying know the deal. That’s just my personal advice.

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A neighbor of mine grows pumpkins in a large field and there are no blooms or pumpkins I can see. This is quite different than usual. He does have large tall sprinklers set out. He told us that several years ago, one of his enormous pumpkins went for almost a thousand dollars.

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Many years ago I paid $20 for a single seed of that years world record pumpkin. I did all the prep work with soil amendments to get the fertility up. Got the plant to set a pumpkin and it got basketball sized astonishingly quick. Then the plant died as I had too much fertilizer and burned it up. So ended my desire to grow a giant pumpkin for the state fair.

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