Poor weather leads to pumpkin shortage ahead of Halloween
- Published
Scary Halloween pumpkins haven't had time to ripen thanks to poor weather
Halloween is coming, the evenings are growing shorter and the leaves are turning orange.
But why aren't the pumpkins?
It's all down to our long, wet summer, which has led to a case of soggy bottoms, according to one farmer.
Alan Lockhart, from Newry, County Down, says his normally plentiful pumpkin crop has this year fallen victim to poor weather over July and August.
Pumpkins are mainly made up of water - about 85 to 90% of it - and they usually thrive in wet conditions. But they don't like sitting in waterlogged ground for long.
Alan said his crop suffered because of a lack of sunshine and poor levels of pollination at the start of the season.
Farmer Alan Lockhart said that there was significant drop of produce grown on his farm this year
He said this was partially down to diminishing numbers of bees as a result of the poor summer weather.
In an average year the Alderside farmer would expect to plant about 2,000 pumpkin seeds, which normally produce two or three pumpkins each.
But this season his seeds have only managed to yield an average of 0.37 pumpkins per plant.
Alan said that even the surviving pumpkins were not up to the standard he would normally expect.
Despite a bright and mild autumn season, the fruits have not had time to ripen in time for Halloween and Alan considered cancelling his annual pumpkin-picking event at the farm.
But in the spirit of the season, the popular event went ahead, with green pumpkins galore.
Alan said he thought the green gourds looked even more ghoulish than the familiar orange-coloured ones.
He was one of the luckier pumpkin farmers in Northern Ireland, managing to produce a small crop of bright orange pumpkins, while others struggled to grow any.
Pumpkins have been sourced from other areas of the UK and Ireland
Jacqui Baird, from Castle Ward Estate, said the main supplier for the annual Halloween Pumpkinfest usually provided about 3000 pumpkins, but this year was only able to produce 300 of a suitable size and colour.