New Hampshire Pumpkins in July

By Jim on July 22nd, 2010

Wow. What do you do with a bunch of pumpkins that are two months too early? Pumpkin pie anybody?

Dimond Hill Farm has its best pumpkin crop yet, rows and rows of large and orange gourds with strong vines. The problem is, the pumpkins matured about two months too early.

“It’s one of those bizarre years where everything seems to be going haywire for no apparent reason. All the pumpkins are ready to be harvested now,” farm manager Don Grandmason said.

Although this year’s pumpkin crop is beautiful, he said, there isn’t a large market for pumpkins in July, and come

September and October, the pumpkins will be months old and dried up. Grandmason said the farmers at the Concord farm planted the pumpkins May 1 as usual. This schedule normally allows the pumpkins to be fully grown and ready for harvest between Sept. 1 and Oct. 15.

So Grandmason was surprised when a large batch of the pumpkins ripened about mid-July. Many others are about a month away from being fully grown. The farmers at Dimond Hill have picked 10 pumpkins so far and sold five of them.

“It’s kind of bizarre actually that we were able to sell any,” he said.

Dimond Hill plants about 1,000 pumpkins every season, and about 250 of those are ready for harvest now, and many others will be maturing soon. Grandmason said he is researching the best way to store the pumpkins until people flock to the farm in the fall to buy them. The interior of the pumpkin will probably dry out, making them very light to carry. The pumpkins that usually cost about $10 will cost about $2, he said.

Austin Plummer, left, tosses a ripe pie pumpkin to Jane Presby, owner of Dimond Hill Farm in Concord, as Garrett Furnari, center left, and Joe Rice, center right, search for more ripe pumpkins to pick at a Dimond Hill Farm squash field on Wednesday, July 21, 2010. Presby said that this is very early to have squash ripening. "I've seen hot summers, cold summers, and wet summers, and I've never seen anything like this. Not in July," said Presby.