Combo of early drought and late rain makes for great pumpkin harvest in the Northeast

AccuWeather

The weather has been challenging for many crops in 2025, but there's good news for anyone hoping to go pumpkin picking in Pennsylvania before Halloween.

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00:00Families have been taking full advantage of the cooler air here in the

00:03Northeast. Farmers tell me this year's pumpkin crop turned out great but it

00:08actually didn't start out that way. They say they were concerned after the

00:12drought over the summer but thankfully it turned around due to some much needed

00:16rainfall. As we got that later rain the the plants really popped for us and

00:20really put on a lot of fruit and really pushed to be a great crop and that that

00:26has a lot to do with the weather of how much rain we get and when. That late

00:31season rainfall made a huge difference to the team here at Shadybrook Farm in

00:35Yardley, Pennsylvania. After a dry summer slowed growth and weakened some of the

00:40plants, a stretch of soaking rain in late August and early September helped the

00:43pumpkins mature and fill out just in time for harvest. If we get a really rainy

00:48season we can have a lot of disease but because it was dry early on we didn't

00:52have a ton of disease which was good for the plants early on so it's kind of

00:55catch 22. No rain, no no disease but weaker plants so we got the timing was

01:01perfect this year. Across the Northeast farmers say this growing season brought

01:05plenty of weather challenges. As far as general crops in the season that's gone on

01:09it's been tough with the weather with it being so dry and then getting so wet

01:15that that causes some issues for some other crops but everybody seems to be

01:19having a decent year this year. Even with those ups and downs though the return of

01:23cooler breezier fall days has helped draw more families out to the fields. It's

01:27pretty windy right now and you gotta chill in the air. This is the fall season so

01:31this past weekend was strong and people really showed up and are into it. And

01:35with Halloween right around the corner farmers say there's still time for

01:38more pumpkin picking and more picture-perfect fall weekends ahead. For AccuWeather, I'm

01:43Allie Reed.

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