A rare commodity. The stock of pumpkins has dried up.(file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Tyler Marr

PICKED DRY

Pumpkin (dry) patch: where have they gone?

Oct 30, 2019 | 8:34 AM

It is a horror of a different type for last-minute shoppers: local retailers appear nearly picked clean of pumpkins.

Scores of comments on social media over the last few days have families scouring to find pumpkins in the hope of making Halloween a delight for the kids.

Calls to several popular grocery retailers in Prince Albert revealed the depressing reality that the iconic veg is …well, off the radar.

We heard about extra stock being brought in earlier this week but it vanished pretty much as quickly as the fresh pallets were put on the produce floor. One retailer, who preferred not to be named told us he’d been answering the phone like a live message service: “Hello, and sorry, no we are out of pumpkins.” He blamed “poor quality” as a reason for the shortage.

Our news team in the Battlefords saw some commenters trekking to Cut Knife to find a gorgeous gourd. In that community there was only one business that still had bins brimming with the orange fruit.

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Aaron, who works in produce at the Discovery Co-op, said the grocer ordered in four more bins over the weekend and three remain. He expects they will sell out fast.

“My honest opinion, come as soon as you can as I can’t guarantee you they will be here when you come,” he said, adding there appears to be a higher demand for pumpkins this year.

But for those who are unable to get their hands on the iconic orange ornament, Heidi at the Discovery Co-op grocery store in Battleford had some advice.

“I saw on Facebook someone carving a fairly large potato and it looked really cool,” she said with a laugh. “Picture that on other squashes. What about an acorn squash? What about spaghetti squash?”

Bad crop could be to blame

One pumpkin crop grower in Saskatchewan pointed to poor crops in 2019 as a possible reason behind the shortage.

George Lewko, who grows near Prince Albert, said while his crop produced a bounty of pumpkins, others in the province hit a rough patch. Lewko figured poor soil and a lack of fertilizer could be to blame.

He believes some people are not replenishing the nutrients in the soil after each harvest, which is depleting the essential micro-organisms needed to grow pumpkins. Lewko said he was able to feed fertilizer to his pumpkins every week this year, which was the first time he was able to do so.

“They figured it was just the climate, [leading to poor pumpkin growth], but we had the same climate as them. It is most likely the fertilizer dose I gave them every week,” Lewko said. “I think pumpkins are one of those sensitive crops that the first sign of low fertilizer show up sooner as there is a lot being grown.”

His crop turned out “excellent,” he said, especially after an early freeze in September 2018 stunted growth and left tiny two or three pound pumpkins in its wake.

Lewko, who produces between 2,000 and 3,000 pumpkins each year, grows 16 unique varieties to accomodate the array of demands at the grocery store. He said some retailors are not interested in pumpkins over 10 pounds as that is beyond what a regular, customer is going to carry.

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tyler.marr@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @JournoMarr