Pumpkin Season in Washington
With today's Fruit Grower Report, I'm Bob Larson. With Halloween less than a week away, pumpkins can be seen decorating porches across the state of Washington.But, according to the most recent crop report numbers from 2012, ours is not among the top pumpkin producing states ...
CHRIS MERTZ ... "The Census of agriculture of 2012 reported that there were 23-hundred-and-14 acres of pumpkins in the state of Washington. Counties of note, 263 acres in King County, Pierce County 225 acres, Skagit county lead the state with 419 acres."
The USDA's Northwest Regional Director, Chris Mertz says there are two categories of pumpkins ...
CHRIS MERTZ ... "Of that 2,314 acres, 2,169 acres of those were for the fresh market. That was your ornamentals. Those are the one's you're buying out at the farm stands and out on the U-pick pumpkin patches. So only 144 acres were reported as being used for processing."
So pumpkins aren't a major crop in our state, but weather has as big an impact on growing season as it does on sales ...
CHRIS MERTZ ... "Some of those pumpkin patches closed last weekend when we had all of those storms too, and that's a busy time of the year where they have everybody come out to their farm and get a chance to make some money. So I hope they have a chance to make that up and people can get out there and buy their pumpkins."
Odds are, when you buy pumpkins, canned or whole, there's a very good chance they came from Illinois which led the nation in pumpkin production last year with 318 million pounds.
The next agriculture census will be held next year.