Halloween is just two days away and most all the pumpkin picking that’s gonna happen has already happened. One Kentucky grower said it’s been a good year in the pumpkin patch.
Jeremy Hinton said this fall brought a return of school groups and lots of people hungry for outdoor activities to his LaRue County orchard. He estimates he grew well over 5000 pumpkins on more than ten acres. What large round carved out orange fruits don’t make it to the front porch, might still make an appearance on a dining room table. “We’ll still sell some for cooking for Thanksgiving, for pumpkin pies and that kind of thing. We’ll also have a few customers that usually come around early in November and will help us clean up and feed those to their animals and that’s a good thing too,” said Hinton.
Hinton said cucumber and squash beetles and mildew disease can cause problems for pumpkins. But he added any type of chemical treatment is done well before harvesting. “And they would all have that pre-harvest interval which says if you spray it today, you can’t harvest for these many days. So, that gives enough time for any residue that would be there to be safe for somebody to handle it or any of that,” explained Hinton.
For any last-minute pumpkin shoppers, Hinton said any spraying would have been done several weeks ago.
He noted there’s been steady growth in pumpkin production at his central Kentucky farm over 15 years. The grower admitted, though, the value of pumpkins does drop after Halloween night.
