News

The perfect carving pumpkin will be easy to find in Ohio this month.

 

Growers said pumpkins across Ohio's fields have been plumped by a moderate summer and just enough sun and rain in August and September. So there should be no shortage of the big orange fruit as it comes into season this week.

 

Jim Jasinski, an Ohio State University Extension plant pathologist who does research on pumpkins, toldThe Columbus Dispatch that he expects "a pretty decent harvest."

 

Ohio is a major pumpkin producer, ranking third in both acres planted and pumpkins produced in 2013. Illinois grows about half the nation's pumpkins.

 

The vast majority of pumpkins are grown for processing – but most of the pumpkins being grown in Ohio end up as Halloween jack-o-lanterns.