Real Halloween

Summer is only beginning, but a few farmers around the West are already thinking about Halloween.

Pumpkin growers have begun to plant in preparation for the hordes of families that will come and help them celebrate the harvest season.

One of those is Redding farmer Bob Nash, who offers a haunted house, corn maze and other attractions along with his 14-acre pumpkin patch each October.

Though unexpected rains have set his planting schedule back a bit, Nash typically plants different varieties of pumpkins and squash throughout the month of June, he said. In July, he plants the corn for the corn maze.

“Typically with pumpkins, we do about 15 tons per acre,” Nash said. “The giant ones are not nearly as many, but they’re a lot heavier. What we try to do is grow enough pumpkins so that all through the season, there will be a good selection of pumpkins. Last year, we had to go out and buy some larger pumpkins.”

Pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica, according to the website Pumpkin Nook. Where there is water, rich soil and ample nutrients, pumpkin plants will develop into big, voracious vines which will produce lots of flowers by midsummer, allowing the pollination period to begin, the website explains.

Different pumpkin varieties can be planted for pumpkin seeds, decoration and sweetness for baking, Nash said. With more than an inch of rain falling on his farm this month, Nash said he hasn’t had to irrigate his field before planting.

“It’ll be early July before we do our first irrigation,” he said.

When to plant pumpkins depends on the variety and the surrounding climate conditions, growers said. At Wemples Pumpkin Patch near the high-elevation town of Susanville, planting took place around Mother’s Day, co-owner Dena Wemple said.

“We have a longer season,” she said. “It takes longer for everything to get going. … We’ve always planted in May. It takes that long for plants to get really moving.”

So far, plants are looking healthy in the Wemples’ 10-acre patch, she said. But temperatures have been cool.

“We need a little bit warmer temperatures,” Wemple said.

Planting is proceeding at Bishop’s Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland, Calif., where cooler temperatures have slowed things down a bit, grower Wayne Bishop said.

“Out of the 60 acres we plant, we only have two acres planted right now,” said Bishop, who has one of the largest pumpkin farms in the West.

However, Bishop doesn’t think the cold weather will threaten the health or availability of pumpkins in the fall, he said.

“I think it’s still warm enough that it’s not a problem. Fortunately you can plant so late that it’s usually not an issue in California,” he said.

The Pumpkin Nook advises growers to watch out for early-season pests such as the cucumber beetle, which is easily controlled by insecticides.

Most years, pests don’t present a problem, Bishop said. A couple of years ago, many plants in California got hit with the mosaic virus, he said, but crops are trouble-free nine years out of 10.

“Our biggest worry is usually the weather during October,” he said. “This year, of course, the economy is a concern for us. … First of all, we depend so much on school field trips, and we don’t know how much of that will be cut back. We experienced a little of that this spring.

“Then just families in general, if they have the money for an outing,” he said. “We’re hoping that people put off the bigger trips to Disneyland and those types of places and do the little day trips to places like ours. That seemed to be the case last fall.”

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