A gorgeous fall day Sunday. Perfect for enjoying autumn activities like pumpkin picking and corn mazes. But how have those pumpkins and corn stalks fared against our drought this summer? We headed to Thistleberry Farm in South Bend to find out.
"It's an awesome fall activity for the family. It's a tradition of ours," said Kim Konecny about her family's yearly visit to Thistleberry Farm. She said, "we love to come and pick pumpkins because you can actually pick them off the vine."
Lucky for her, and all the other pumpkin pickers, this years drought didn't ruin the crop like it did to so many other fruits and vegetables. Co-Owner of Thistleberry Farm, Dave Frushour, said, "pumpkins come on late enough that we started getting rain so so far the pumpkin crop seems very good." He said this years crop may even be better than last years. "There's plenty of pumpkins and they seem bigger this year," said Frushour.
Even the kids can see that. Nine year old Emily Kidder said, "I thought they were pretty huge. I don't think I could pick one up."
And while everyone's excited about the pumpkins, what about another fall tradition? the corn maze. Frushour said, "the stalks aren't as tall as they normally are. A lot of times they're eight to ten feet tall out there. They're probably six to six and a half feet." And Frushour added that the slightly smaller stalks shouldn't ruin the thrill of the corn mazes. "When you're out in the middle of that field you can't see the other paths, you're just as lost as if it were taller."
And because pumpkins weren't affected by the drought you won't see higher prices for them this season like you've probably been noticing with apples.
