After struggling to grow pumpkins this summer, the Fowler Pumpkin Patch opened its pick-your-own section a week later than usual and raised prices slightly. The patch, beloved by locals, is on the southwest side of town.
Owner Perry Fowler said this year’s crop is the worst he’s seen in the last three years. Too much rain early in the summer and then a dry spell later stunted the growing process.
An excess of rain can also lead to increased and thick weeds, making it harder for bees to pollinate the pumpkins.
“Bees like to fly in a straight line, and your pumpkins are at a lower level than the weeds, so they fly above the weeds,” he said. “And bees don't dive down. Bees slowly drop to it. So anywhere there's weed pressure, it's hard for them to get to it. They can, but they go to the easy ones first, and that's the problem we're having.”
The dry season, Fowler said, also brought in more deer and turkeys that ate parts of the pumpkins. He spent about $3,000 on deer repellant this year, which had worked well for him in the past but couldn’t hold off all the deer.
“They'll eat those pumpkins, eat the seeds out of them, and it's a lot of moisture, and it's a very nutritious form,” he said.
Pumpkins are normally planted in May or June, and depending on growing conditions and pumpkin type, can take around 100 days to grow. Most mature by mid-September. But this year, Fowler needed extra time for the pumpkins to mature. The pick-your-own section opened last weekend, a week later than usual.
This year, Fowler grew an eight-acre patch of pumpkins. That yielded about 1,000 pumpkins per acre. Last year, a crop rotation allowed him to grow 3,000 pumpkins per acre across 10 acres. Because of that, Fowler said he has shipped in three semi loads of pumpkins from outside. Each load carries 2,000 to 2,500 pumpkins.
“I can honestly see another three to four semi loads this year that we'll have to bring in,” he said.
Fowler said he has raised prices for pumpkins by about $1 each. Prices vary depending on the size. For other activities, such as hayrides and the corn maze, prices have remained the same.
Going forward, Fowler said he will try putting up scarecrows to ward off the deer and continue using deer repellant. He can’t use any chemical on the weeds because it can kill the pumpkins.
Fowler said if he were starting a pumpkin patch from scratch today, it would be too expensive to sustain. The farm has been in his family since 1969, and he took over 16 years ago.
“When you have to buy the property and buy all the improvements and buy all the infrastructure to do this, it's not feasible,” he said. “It's really hard for you to get started in anything like this, unless you inherit a large sum of money or a large piece of property.”
