Two farmers are reporting their best pumpkin crop to date in Michigan and it is expected to be a banner year throughout the state.
According to Ed Carpenter, the owner of Peacock Road Family Farm, “The guys that I’ve talked to, we’ve all had a good year. Last year was a horrible year. I bet we didn’t have fifty pumpkins. This year we got a lot of them. Our only problem here is deer are eating the pumpkins, that’s a challenge for us, but it’s been a great year for pumpkins.”
The size and amount has been the total opposite of last year’s crop. Mel Koelling, the owner of Tannenbaum Farms, says that it is the combination of two factors: longer, warmer weather and increased activities from pollinating bees.
“We had excellent pollination; we had excellent fruit set. So, we ended up with a large number of pumpkins. Some of these vines behind us here probably had from three to seven pumpkins per vine, and that is a little higher than what normal expectations are,” he said. “We have 60 pound pumpkins which is pretty good. We never had as many of those consistently in the past as we have this year.”
Both Tannenbaum and Peacock Road are gearing up for the fall, agritourism season with COVID-19 restrictions in mind.