Pumpkins for Profit

[ProjectKing]

We grew and sold quite a few pumpkins last season early, but we also have a large Amish community in this area who under-cut our prices very quickly and made that crop pretty much unprofitable to do next season. We were growing the Connecticut Field variety.

How did you sell them?

 

[ProjectKing]

Pumpkin prices are sure aren't what they used to be. Dog eat dog world. Pretty easy to grow with a fairly minimal cost outlay if your already in the business so lots do it. Really enhances the Agri-tourism aspect of on farm sales Funky gourds and the white pumpkins are real popular now. Proper handling, harvest and storage are critical to keeping them in good shape for that very small window of sales opportunity. Unless your market comes direct to you (retail or wholesale) you have to also consider transportation costs as part of getting your crop to them @ places like Farmers markets. By choosing a semi bush and/or semi vine variety you can get more plants per acre as opposed to large vine types and that can translate into more harvestable pumpkins all depending on the size you are after Overall growing pumpkins can be fun. Happy faces! <img src="http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/files/projects/449776-pumpkins-profit-faces-jpg"/>

Great info!

 

[Hiltz]

Just to echo what has been said in the above posts. A couple of years ago on a school field trip to a pumpkin patch I had a conversation with the farmer as the kids were picking pumpkins. He was telling me he could not find labor any more willing to pick the pumpkins. So every fall in his small pumpkin patch he would open it as a pick your own. What didn't get picked was left to rot.

 

[stuckmotor]

There's quite a few commercial pumpkin growers around here. They sell to canneries. But I'm still amazed that in the fall, after all the leave die off the vines, how many pumpkins (and watermelons, cucumbers, squash, pickles and pretty much every type of vine produce) are left in the fields to rot. Not economical to harvest them, but think of the food pantries that could use them. There was one guy that donated several semi loads of melons to a food pantry this year. Thousands and thousands of melons. They were begging people to come and get them.

I used to grow a couple of acres of watermellons. I'd turn the cows in on those that I didn't sell. They seemed to appreciate it.