As we all know, fall is the time when the pumpkin gets the spotlight, but have you ever wondered where your jack-o-lantern came from?
These pumpkin patches pop up this time of year, they are a popular winter squash and more than a few of them were born and raised where the stars at night are big and bright.
“Surprisingly, west Texas has about 4,500-acres of commercial production for pumpkins. So, there’s a good chance if you live in Texas or the Midwest, you’re getting pumpkins from west Texas,” Texas Produce Association’s Dante Galeazzi states.
Galeazzi says that the season started just a few short months ago: “As soon as they clean up the watermelon season, late summer. Basically, they’re pulling pumpkins right off those same, well in very close proximity... We have the perfect weather for the time of year that you need to grow pumpkins.”
For Galeazzi, it is not unusual to hear people are surprised they come from his state.
“People are always astounded by the diversity of fresh produce that Texas grows, and when we mentioned pumpkins, people’s eyes get wide like, ‘Wait a minute, they, they actually come from Texas. That’s crazy. I just never imagined it.’ You know myself I didn’t, I wasn’t even aware of it until about fifteen years ago,” according to Galeazzi.
Now, everyone knows 2020 is the year of the pandemic. We wanted to know whether or not COVID-19 had any impact at all on the pumpkin business.
“It didn’t affect the transport or the harvest,” he adds. “I think one of the things we’re going to have to see is at the end of the month, actually probably about the first or second week in November, we’ll see the report for the sales and see if pumpkins move through retail fairly well.”
He says that, in early October, demand for pumpkins was there every bit as much as it was in 2019 and the experts believe more pumpkins could sell this year because more people are at home.