New England Pumpkin Crop Patchy After Summer Deluge

An unseasonably wet growing season has devastated the New England pumpkin crop, the Boston Globe reports. The rain has multiple effects, almost all bad: some overwatered gourds swell so much they burst, while beds are washed out and depleted of fertilizer, leading to undersized specimens. And “pumpkins are pollinated by bees,” one grower sighed, “and bees don't fly when it's raining.”

“I've been farming here for over 30 years, and this is the wettest summer I've had,” said a New Hampshire grower who lost half his crop. “Some of the fields got washed out, and, of course, with all the rain, it leached out the fertilizer.” (More Pumpkin stories.)