Two Ottawa-area farms say they lost about 40 per cent of their pumpkin harvest after the rainiest July in the city’s recorded history, and one of them is now sourcing roughly half its pumpkins from other regions, CBC News reported Oct. 5.
The Ottawa International Airport recorded 281.8 millimetres of precipitation in July, the wettest month in more than 150 years of local weather records, according to the report.
Mark Saunders, director of fun at Saunders Farm in rural south Ottawa, said the water had nowhere to go.
“The water table just rose so much that there was just nowhere for the water to go,” Saunders said. “They just smothered the pumpkins.”
Mel Foster, co-owner of Foster Family Farm, also reported a harvest about 40 per cent smaller than normal. Waterlogged fields starved the plants of oxygen, the report said.
The losses are also hitting farm budgets. Saunders Farm has taken on extra costs by buying pumpkins from other areas to keep its stock up for the season. Foster said the shortfall has forced the farm to put off major purchases.
“We just can’t afford the expense of a new tractor,” Foster said. The farm has also postponed a parking lot expansion, according to the report.
CTV News Ottawa reported separately that one local farmer is urging shoppers to buy early because the rainy summer could lead to a pumpkin shortage. Its headline quoted the farmer as saying: “Get them early.”
Interest in the story has surged online. Searches for “weather Ottawa” were among the terms trending in Canada on Google on Oct. 7, alongside coverage from CBC, CTV News and Yahoo News Canada about the poor harvest.
The accounts come from two farms and do not amount to a regional crop survey. No provincial or industry figures on this year’s pumpkin harvest were available in the reports reviewed, and neither report gave retail prices.
Shoppers looking for pumpkins ahead of Thanksgiving weekend and Hallowe’en may want to check with their local farm about supply before making a trip, as availability is likely to vary from one grower to the next. The situation is developing, and further reports from growers in the region may change the picture.
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Via CBC News and Yahoo News Canada; CTV News Ottawa.
