PUMPKINS

Customers will be smiling, too, because growers say that prices are about the same as last year, and in some cases lower.

“It was a real good year. We had a real good crop. We didn’t have any floods, so the pumpkins didn’t have diseases,” said Paul Fleitz, owner of the Fleitz Pumpkin Farm in the Toledo suburb of Oregon.

The giant ones didn’t get quite as giant as last year, but they still got pretty big,” he said. “Really, the pumpkins, squash and gourds all did good.”

The dry spell in late summer and early fall helped keep the pumpkins healthy, Leeds said. Too much rain in August can spoil the crop. The late heat is a bit of a worry, as it gives diseases and insects more time to attack pumpkins, but in general, conditions have been ideal, Leeds said.

Ohio State Extension Service horticulturist Brad Bergefurd is based in Piketon in southern Ohio and has a pumpkin farm in Wilmington, southeast of Dayton. He said southern Ohio is having “one of the best crops we’ve ever had.”

Some Ohio farmers experienced flooding, and a few others saw their crops hurt by a fungus. But Bergefurd said this crop could be above average when the season ends.

Last year, Ohio pumpkin farmers raised 93 million pounds of pumpkins, putting the state third in production, behind Illinois and California.

At Johnston Fruit Farms in Swanton west of Toledo, owner Martha Mora said her crop ended up being all sizes, varieties and colors.

As a result, “We actually are charging a little less this year because of this crop,” she said. Basketball-sized pumpkin are priced at $4 to $5, a 50-pounder at about $15, and some too big to weigh are $20.

“We have a lot of larger jack-o’-lanterns that people are looking for,” Mora said. “The fields are just full of pumpkins. … It is a nice crop, a gorgeous crop.”

The Polter’s Berry Farm in Fremont is a wholesale operation, raising pumpkins to sell to retailers.

Owner Steve Polter said pumpkins are larger than in most years, but “I don’t think we have the number of mediumsized pumpkins this year that we normally get.”

Chain-store retailers like the medium-size pumpkins, Polter said.

“So that’s been a challenge,” he said. “But we do cater to farm markets more, and they tend to gravitate towards the larger pumpkins, so we’re having a pretty good year.”

The key to picking a pumpkin is the stem, or handle, Leeds said. If the handle is solid, “that’s a good indication of what’s going on with the pumpkin.”

Also, avoid pumpkins with soft spots. Those will quickly rot out.